Went out from Bundy for a trip last Friday (24/4) and had such a great day I thought I’d put in a belated post.
We left the ramp around 5.30 am and headed straight for one of the wrecks about 10 miles out to have a troll for a mackerel. The conditions were pretty good with a slight SW wind about 5-10 kts and only a little bit of swell which made for pretty good travelling. There were a couple of other boats at the spot when we arrived so we put the lures in the water as we approached to spot and commenced trolling. As we were cruising along the skipper spotted a school of alligator gar going for their lives across the top of the water, it was pretty spectacular and we both commented that there was obviously something down there that had put them on the toe. No sooner had we spotted them when the X Rap magnum got hammered and the TLD 15 screamed as line disappeared from the reel at an alarming rate. After the hooks were set the skipper picked up the other rod to wind it in out of the way and it got smashed. Well there we were, two people, a double hook up and no gaff man. I managed to get mine to the boat, walk my way to the front of the boat, extract the gaff from its storage place, get the hose off the gaff hook with my teeth and gaff my fish and get it aboard, a Spanish around the 6kg mark (only a baby).
Meanwhile the skipper is still playing his fish and finally gets it to the side of the boat only to have it merrily swim away after I had one misjudged swipe with the gaff. It had actually pulled the rear treble from the lure. Anyway we started to troll again and same story, one gets hit and the other goes off just as the skipper starts to wind it in out of the way. Mine spat the lure and the skipper landed his, a Spanish around 15kg (plenty of bait for the days fishing ahead). This one had done a bit of damage to the lure as well; the rear treble was just hanging in the lure after it was unhooked. Time for a couple of new lures it would seem.
We left that spot and headed out a bit wider in search of some bottom dwelling species. Tried a few of the usual spots for trout without success but did catch a couple of nannygai (a small and a large mouth) and a few decent parrot.
It was getting towards the turn of the tide and the run had been pretty bad as the tides were quite big and the skipper decided that seeing as we had a few livies in the tank he would go try this particular spot for a trout on the bottom of the tide.
What a good call that turned out to be. After anchoring over the spot we lowered a couple of livies and I don’t think they even hit the bottom before we were both locked into a couple of solid fish. In a half hour hot session we boated 8 trout, lost around 4 more and also got a couple of large cod which we released. I would have liked to have had a camera on the bottom to see what it was like down there when the trout were in that mood. I reckon they would have been shouldering one and other out of the way to get at the livies as they were coming down. The 8 fish were all caught without shifting. The two biggest went 8 & 7 kg. All in all a pretty good day on the water.
Reply With Quote
VHF CHANNEL 21
