G’day lads,
Sunday was a boat maintenance day and while installing some rod holders I listened to radio chatter on the VHF. Excited calls were being exchanged between boats at Browns, reporting they had got their bag limit of gemfish, or were hooked up and fighting a mako. Telephone calls the same night confirmed the hot fishing out there, with one friend telling me he had seen at least 20 boats hooked up to sharks through the day. So it was with plenty of anticipation that Jay, Sean and I launched at Roseville and scooted over to Watsons Bay to pick up Kerry.
Our first stop was the Twelve Mile. The kingfish have been very hot and cold lately so I wasn’t expecting much, particularly since we were the only boat there. If kingfish are on in any numbers, pro dropliners will be at the Twelve. Nonetheless plenty of fish were marking on the sounder so, down went the jigs. But the marks proved to be barracouta! We put a few on the deck but they were so thick they were shredding our leaders, and with jig losses mounting we elected to move onto Browns.
As we came off the plane at Brown’s we just missed a small mako (maybe, 60 kilos) finning out on the surface. It wasn’t particularly frightened and rose in our wake, with the tip of its dorsal fin clear of the surface. Jay wanted to feed a bait back but I stupidly insisted on the plan- opening the innings with some bottom fishing. As everyone knows, this winter’s massive run of gemfish has been one of the few highlights of the fishing scene. They are swarming out there. The fight with the mako last week steadily took us two miles south of Browns. I was marking big schools of gemfish – in patches – all the way, which shows the countless thousands there at the moment.
Gemfish steadily came aboard as we fished, although the fishing was not as hot as expected. It was none too pleasant as well, with a cold wind blowing and regular rain showers passing through. The water however was 18.4 and a beautiful deep blue.
I was marking albacore on the sounder but they were very deep today, over 200 metres down. Kerry dropped a jig down on his beaut Jigging Master outfit and hooked up, but unfortunately the tuna spat the hook after a short fight. With some solid gemfish in the bag (although we didn’t get our limit) we elected to switch to mako fishing. A fresh barracouta head was placed back in the burley trail, and with albacore steadily marking on the screen we ran a lumo squid off the downrigger at 220 metres.
But wouldn’t you know, as soon as we got set up the albacore marks disappeared! No hits, on the mako rig. A frustrating day where our carefully thought out plans went astray, but nonetheless some nice fish to take home. We will be out there doing it again as soon as the weather permits, which at this point looks like early next week.
Cheers,
Andy
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Originally Posted by nigelr
