Apart from the misfortune Bob Curry had on Sunday when two Marlin managed to avoid all his hooks and a lone Yellowfin that I heard of the Game Fishing scene was very quiet this week-end.
The only bright lights offshore seem to be Kingfish on the inshore and wider reefs, with lower numbers but bigger fish inshore and more smaller fish on the wider reefs with Snapper for those in the know.
I started out on Saturday morning trying to find bait, which I couldn’t, so headed out relying on jigging to catch the fish. Luckily they were in the right mood and we managed several in the 70 to 75 cm. range, not big but big enough to let you know they’re there. At the time I thought it interesting that the less experienced jiggers caught more than those with what I call ‘the action’ this was to be proved on Sunday.
When the bite slowed we trolled out to Browns where the Gemmies
were biting well or at least until the sharks turned up. After having fished for sharks the whole previous week-end and finding none, here they were when they were NOT wanted. First we lost what seemed to be a good Blue Eye to a Mako which the electric reel handled masterfully bringing up an estimated 120 kg Mako, they are a great looking fish. From then it was near impossible to land a fish. While this was going on I started marking fish which I thought might be Albacore at 200 metres so got one of the guys to drop a jig down. To his surprise he hooked up and to our surprise landed a Frost fish about 180 cm. long. After that we couldn’t get to the bottom because of them and if we did we were sharked, a no win situation, but still fun.
Sunday was similar with plenty of legal sized Kings which were as on Saturday taking the slower more erratic actioned jigs with a surprising number hitting the jigs when they were stopped.
The Mountain was a different kettle of fish the Gemmies very difficult to catch and with the current pushing North we lost a lot of gear. My feeling is that the sharks had pushed the Gemmies off of the mountain or maybe had the to scared to bite. The difference from one day to the next was unbelievable but I guess that’s fishing.
With great weather predicted for the next few days it should be interesting to see how fishing eventuates.
Tight lines,
Ivan