Finally Hapuka

[bugman]

Gents,

I've been chasing some deep water ooglies off the Tweed coast for about 12 months. Until Friday I'd only found Nanagai, snapper and a few strange species. No Bar cheek, Blue Eye or Hapuka had come aboard.

Conditions were ideal so pointed the tinny ESE and tried to get as comfortable as you can while getting chop spray on every wave for about an hour 15min. It got better the wider I got. The water was a beautiful blue and showing 22.8 degrees on my sounder. The last 10km I was sitting on 20knots with no spray. There was only just over one knot of current when I finally got there.

Pulled up at my 200m marks and put together a good feed of Nanagai, snapper and one little 2kg bar cod (I think). I decided it was time to poke around and search for the target fish. The sounder gives up at 300m so I was going off the contour lines on the GPS. After a few different drops with no success I went out to what I thought was the 500m line. The line counter on the reel said only 380m. Drifted for about 10mins and had about 480m of line out when I had the rod tip bounce pretty hard. I started the little Miya Epoch x4 which was doing it tough and not making much progress. I started backing up with the boat and finally got some line back on the reel and the fish off the bottom. Each time I went over a little wave the reel groaned and nearly stopped. With 168m to go the solanoid finally kicked in and she stopped because it got too hot. The last 15 minutes I hand cranked with the last 30m being the easiest as she blew up. I struggled to get her on board with the little gaff but eventually got there. I was rapped to finally get a target fish. It went 25kg weighed on the local butcher's scales.

I rebaited and went around again just to make sure it wasn't a fluke and this time about 5 mins into the drift the same rod tip bucks and I was on again. This time the little x4 made it until 48m before shutting down. The second fish went 9kg.

The esky was now full so I put out the trolling rods and within 5 mins spotted a large marlin sunning itself on the surface. Went around a few times but got no interest. Trolled for a few hours but had no hits at all.

In the end it was a great day finally blooding the tinny with a decent oogly. I spent all morning this morning filleting and have had every friend and neighbour call in to have a look and pick up some fish after word got around town.

Regards

Brett

[PinHead]

awesome Brett..top catch...fantastic on a solo effort.

[larfin]

Great effort there bugman and a good feed there.
cheers
greg

[bondy99]

Very good effort on the Hapuka Bugman,

You got balls champ going the distance in small tinnie.

They are nice eating my book and nice clean white flesh.

Did you spike their brain when you got them on the boat?

Cheers

[brisbane_boy]

i bet that fish was thinking bloody tasmanians about the time its eyes popped out.

what lures were you running brett, i saw that post about the rigger, you can get some that work better from lower angles, the sprocket/bagwan range are good.

[webby]

Christ the boys grown since the last time i saw him, certainly didnt get his looks from his old man ??
What sort of reels you using out there, couple of nice fish there by the way, something i've never caught, and at that depth i wonder why.
regards

[geeb]

Great report - absolutely amazing effort on your own - thanks for the post - I love the way you got them in your tinny - a true adventurer......Geeb

[-spiro-]

thats awesome Brett. shows what happens with a bit of time put in looking around. What boat are you running around in now?

[Horse]

Top effort Brett in a small boat and solo. It certainly shows what can be done in a small boat with someone who knows what they are doing. Whats next? a big blue like MM got?

[bugman]

Thanks for the replies gents,

Bondy,

I didn't brain spike those guys - just straight on ice. But after doing a bit of reading last night I'll make up a brain spike and dispatch the next ones as soon as they come aboard. Having said that - they are, for all money, pretty much dead when they hit the deck as they certainly don't move after blowing up.

BB

I was only running light tackle lures on 15kg yesterday as I'm not ready yet for a solo heavy tackle blue marlin out of the tinny just yet. Maybe later in the year. It's probably not the hook-up or even the fight which would be a problem - more - what the hell do I do with them when I get them near the boat! I was running Pakula sprockets which are fine with the rods up - heaps of action. I've got a Mouldcraft Bobby Brown of Ian's here which as he describes "looks like a rat under a blanket" no matter how high the rod tip is.

Brian,

I'm now running a little electric reel a Miya Epoch x4 - it's undergunned for pulling in the big ones but it does let me get to the surface easily when I don't have a fish on to check baits etc. Before I had the electric I did use my Tyrnos 30 with 80lb braid which I was successfully able to fish with at my 200m mark. I used a gimble and harness but it is severely hard work with such a little reel. PS I was a lot prettier when I was young

Chris

I've still running my little 5m Brooker Discovery open dinghy with a 60hp 4 stroke yammy on the back. Seriously it's probably the best boat I've ever owned. I can crab and dam fish, reef fish, game fish and head to the shelf on the right day. I'll never sell her but I'm currently eyeing off a bigger boat in the States

Neil,

A blue is definitely the goal this year but as I mentioned earlier - SOLO - could be another thing. I think MM had help when he landed his. I know a few guys who have landed Blues solo but I can't recall any out of a tinny.

Brett

[Blane11]

Nice fish, congrats. Especially considering the size of the boat.

You can wait all year to get conditions good enough to get out there only to find it not fishable when you arrive. It really makes it worthwhile when everything lines up.

Are you sure they're not bass grouper??

Cheers

Brett

[aerordauto]

hello bugman well done there will be some tasty fillets there, is there a size limit on bar cod we also caught one on the weekend that was 1.5meters long.
cheers mark

[onerabbit]

Great effort there Brett,

just for the record, the small fish is not a Bar Cod.
Bar Cod have a white edge on the very end of their tail.

Mark, as far as I know there is no upper limit on cod in NSW,
but at 1.5 m I would guess that your fish was not a Bar Cod.

Muzz

[bugman]

Gday Muzz,

I felt he was too light in colour for a bar cod but he does have the same 7 stripe pattern. He was only a little one so I was thinking the juveniles may be a slightly different colour. I'm not sure what else he would be.

Mark,

I'm with Muzz - I don't think they have an upper limit but at that size I think he might be a bass grouper.

Brett,

I don't think mine are bass grouper because they are meant to have a convex tail. Hapuka have a broad flat tail according to their description and their tail was certainly flat. When you do some internet searches on these fish there is certainly a lot of confusion with Blue Eye, Hapuka and Bass Grouper being substituted for each other.

Brett

[Noelm]

Hapuka and Blue Eye are very easy to tell apart, look nothing like each other, long way to the bottom out there hey! nothing better than when they finally bloat up and just float to the surface, down my way it is pretty common to pick up a Blue Eye or Gemfish floating on the surface when the pros or a few recs are working the area, a few get off and take some time to float up! nice eating fish too.