Over the last couple of weeks we have been doing a fair bit of fishing chasing the flatfish. We have had some memorable sessions with bigfish and lots of them.
Most of our fish have been coming from 15ft and over and some hard running water with plenty of snags. This makes for some expensive fishing but i don’t mind retying a few leaders to get that big clunk through the rod tip. I think during the 2 and a half days of the classic we went through roughly 70-80 jigheads and when you have a plastic worth a couple of bucks on the back of it aswell it startsto add up quickly.
I recently added lowrance structure scan to my hds units and have found it that unreal i don’t know how i fished without it before hand. It allows bait schools and structure to be located without driving over the top and spooking fish. We used the units to mark bait and fallen trees on the gps and position the boat so that we could target the fish around the bait, ledges and trees. By finding these things on the structure scan it allows you to target them and leave the less productive parts of the banks alone.
During the pre fish for the classic we encountered some patches of fish in the deeper water that were chewing their heads off. On 2 occasions we found fish in a 20m circle on a bank, on the first occasion there were 10 fish caught they chewed for an hour and all over 60cm with 5 over 70. The 2nd was in the same 20m patch with 14 fish caught in an hour all 60 or better with 7 over 70 and an 80. Ive never experienced a bite in the deep quite like this before and it certainly gets the blood pumping.
Fishing deeper water also presents alot of bycatch. Plenty ofrat jew find the deck along with the occasional decent fish. We put a couple of 80’s and 90’s on the deck over the last couple of weeks and they definitely put up a good account for themselves. We also pinned a couple of hairtail, now these things really are a wild looking piece of gear they swim like a sharp knife stabbed through the water and have some gnarly teeth going on. But are a pretty impressive creature.
One of the most impressive captures a couple of weeks ago was hooking what felt like a real quality fish, stayed deep and when i got first glimpse looked to be pushing the magic metre mark. As it got closer to the boat it split up into 5 fish and then back to 1. Got the fish beside the boat and the smaller fish were glued to the side of the 70cm fish i had hooked. As my brother netted my fish he managed to scoop up 2 of the smaller fish with it. The fish must have been in the middle of a ronny coote and the big girl was a bithungry. It was like the smaller fish were in a trance and didn’t want to leave the side of the bigger fish. Was pretty specky to see, 3 fish on one plastic. My brother tried to claim the 2 smaller fish as his as he had netted them.
During the classic we had a milk run of about 10 spots picking up one here and one there. We did have one triple hookup on 63,67and a 69 that got us a little excited and had us thinking we were about to get a hotbite but wasn’t to be. Was still pretty awesome having 3 decent point scoring fish side by side on the deck.
The gear we like to use are medium spin rods between 6"8" and 7". G loomis NRX jwr803, glx jwr803 and shr822. 2500 daiwa spin reels certates and luvius'. Medium baitcast rods 10-20lb IMX cr723 and 724 matched with alphas' and zillions. 1/2 ounce jigheads were most common with a few 3/4 and ounces used when tide running hard or on bigger lures
This year we were lucky enough to be supported by the boys at Luxmarine.com.au. I would like to thank them for looking after us. If you’re looking at buying a boat or wish to sell yours check out their website. Only $5.95to sell your boat.
Heres a few pics of some of the better fish, already looking forward to next year.
Cheers Whytey.
If you wish to learn more about reading and getting the most from your Lowrance units or learning more about fishing with artificial baits I will come out in the comfort of your own boat for one on one coaching. Please call for more information.
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