With 3 (Dan, Ronni and myself) in the boat we were launched at 4am from the Coastguard ramp and were greeted my magic conditions, a complete glass out, so I shot across the bay but because the moon had set early, there was very little light so I neglected to reach top speed. We rounded Westpoint and pulled up at liver point and found it very difficult to find our spot as the cliff was very hard to see, and with only a small LED headlamp we decided to stick out a bt further to avoid any nasties.
First bait were down and not much activity, and I was feeling crook. How dodgy is that the skipper getting seasick on a glassy morning. I just put it down the the boat anchored side on to the swell and being dark, I couldn't see what was happening, so a bit of 100% organic burley over the side and I was right.
As the light increased, we realised that we were way off our may, so moved up and in a bit closer, redployed the bait and things were looking much better, with the first grunter being puyt in the esky for myself (only a small one at 34cm, but grunter are too good for legal throwbacks). This was shortly followed by a couple for, one each from ronnie and Dan. I dropped another boat side, lip hooked and trying to lift the fish in, but oh well shit happens. Te very next bait was smashed and with the fish pulling 4kg drag, I was hoping for a goodun, only to bring up a friggin remora to follow my earlier batfish (I always seem to catch the shit fish of the trip). I pulled in another grunter, and a golden trevally (which gave up a really god fight, making lifting hard by stayng side on in the water), along with 1000 small trevally that seemed to move in which we had to try and get our baits past. There was a few bait schools around so dan started flicking some metals around and then he's hooked up, fights all the way to the boat, when TICK, he's slug hits the rodtip, what going on here, there's still tension, until he realises that his bait has been smashed and his slug has become entwined with his other line! A quick untangling and he's still on! (gotta love those circle hooks), a short batle and he pull up a doogie going 56cm.
Things slwed so we decided to have a troll and headed a little wider, arcing around to troll in close to the headlands and my rod goes off. Dan passes the rod up and cleas the other lines, but when I turn the fish's head, it swims straight for the boat but the reel has trouble keeping up and unfortunately the trebles come loose, Damn. Another lap of the same path for nothing but a grinner, smaller than the lure, so we head to the spot where, the weekend before, Ronnie and I had jigged up a few doogies and trevally.
We head there and the sounder is just ablaze with bait, there's got to be something decent in there and while we ae jigging away the surface was alive with big turtles, dugongs, bait flicking, but we couldn't raise anything decent. We got a few small trevally, trumpeter, pike (which was despatched as live bait), and nannygai, all taken on small 20g slugs jigged directly below the boat in only 7m of water. With nothing decent about we move back over to Westpoint to a mark that was in the paper.
We anchor up ther and the wind starts to pick up and pushes us slightly off the mark, but no matter there was still pleny of action to be had. Dan despatched his live pike, and ronnie and I had to settle for 1/2pilly bait until we jigged up some livies, which were plentiful with the entire screen just one big bal of red bait. AS Dan jigs the bait jig, his pike goes off, only to miss the hook, leaving some good scratches down the pike, its stil kicking, albeit a little stressed, so it goes back out. Next my pilly is smashed, but unfortunatlely I pull the hooks. I wind up the rebait and me, not thinking, grab one of the jigged up greenbacks and stick a 3/0 hook in it back and send it to the briny. Ronnie follows suit. In the meantime, dans pike got smahed again but again dropped it, and upon inpection we could see the missed hooks and the scratches down the opposite end of the pike, so now this one bait had been hit twice, once from the tail and one head shot and both times the hook was missed, talk about bad luck.
With the pike now well and truly dea, its sent to the buck to strip bait and Dan pins a greenback on and sends it down. No sooner does dan put is rod down and my livey gets absolutely hammered, the fish is well hooked up and running for the opposite end of maggie and ping!, there he goes, bite off, well done you idiot for leaving the 3/0 on, you tool. Ronnie gets a big hit and pulls up his bait to get 1/2 a herring back. I tie on a bigger hook, this time a 7/0 cirle to get into the corner of the mouth pin another grren back on and send it out. I continue to jig up livey's and the green back had moved on to be replaced but small trevally, queenies, scad and yakka's. Things had quietened down and we were strating to get a bit bored, and my livey gets smashed again, I hook in with a solid hook up and then the line goes slack again, what? I wind in the find my leader knot had failed for the first time ever. Man, so thats 3 good fish lost (including the trolled up one from ealier) due to my dodgy practices, I hate it when there's nothing to blame but yourself.
Things really shut down, us not having any green back left, and not being able to jig up any more, the macks just weren't interested in any other live offereings we had out. Not far of we could see bait getting smashed on the surface, but just out of range of our slugs, and the current was beginnign to slow again, so we called it a day and headed in around 2-2.30.
Once we'd got the boat up on the trailer and secured, fisheries came over for an inspection. No worries I thought, everythng was taken care of, I hadd all my safety gear, all fish in the esky were legal, so it should've been sweet. As the mackeral gets pulled out of the esky, we were asked what type, doggie was the instant reply from all 3 of us. The officer went back to his car to "check something" and I made a comment to Dan "I bet you this prick is gonna tell us that mackeral is something different". Unfortunately his mate heard after inpsecting another boat, so he decided to stick his nose in as well. He holds up the mackeral and says it a spanish (bullshit mate), he hold the fish on its side and says "do you see those bars in the sun?" yes I could see the bars but you only just see them reflecting in the sun and they were a very, very pale amber colour, and certainly weren't present when the fish was first captured. Anyway, the other bloke comes back from his car with his ID book, and after 15-20 minutes of discussion between them selves, referncing their ID book, they decide it was a spanish. They say to me, showing the pictures of a doggie and a spanish "you see a doggie has the white blotch on its dorsal fin, where a spaniards doesn't". "oh yeah" I say, "then what the hell it this?" and I raise the dorsal and pointing out the white blotch, after anothe 10 mins of discussion time they just flat out denied what was infront of them and made us gut the gut open so they could sink it. They never fined us, which is why I didn't push the issue, and I suspect that If I did argue they would've pricked it out and slapped us with a hefty fine.
All in all a pretty crap end to an otherwise good day. Just one thing, is how can the DPI employ such numbskulls to ID fish, with an ID book and still get it wrong?
Next time, I won't be stuffing around, and I'll continue to fight until they get it right. i mean how is a recreational fisher supposed to survive, if a fish can morph into a completely different species when an officer inspects.....tools.
Any wa on a positive note, here's a couple of pics:
1. My Golden
2. Dan's Golden
3. Dan's Golden (again)
4. My Bag
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Originally Posted by Scott nthQld
