Mack attack!! Coffs Harbour

[skelly22]

Hey All, I don't see too many reports from NSW on here but il stick this up anyway!

I've been trying hard the last few weeks to bag a Spanish mack... There have been a lot of spotties around and I've got a couple but no Spanish.

Headed north of Coffs early sat morning a week ago on my own. Conditions were beyond ordinary but I was very keen! Got some live bait and started slow trolling with two slimies well out the back. Tried to make a few runs over a nice bait ball where other boats had landed a few slimies but another boat seemed to think he owned that run and could not get a line on it on my own, plus conditions were making it hard to slow troll in to the wind and keep the lines neat on my own.

Took a wider run around the reef and bang....ratchet heaven!! Pointed the boat down wind and played the fish for ten min, thinking this is it this is it! Played it easy and had colour to the boat a couple of times...then one funny turn of his head and the fish was gone!!

After a lot of cursing I made another run over the same area and luckily found another hungry Spanish.. After a great fight I gaffed him and screamed a few yahoos!!!



After bleeding him and calming down I took one more troll over the same area and on again.....15min later and some crazy boat manovering to keep him where I needed Spanish 2 hit the kill tank. My second line had wrapped the boat at this stage so it took me 5min sitting on the perma trim to get free on that..looked funny too...some guy sitting outside his boat in 2m chop and 15 knots!!

I picked up another spottie later in front of the offending boat from earlier when all had gone quite just to round out the day nicely then belted my way back to Coffs..ended up with 20kg of fab fresh fillets and a few good pics
Tight lines
Shane

[cobiaman]

Nice fish mate, i think you may need to upgrade your esky...

[uripper]

awesome solo effort ... congrats. Mal

[Boat Hog]

A great effort on your own. You're right too, those conditions look a bit ordinary!

Cheers,

[thelump]

Good work mate. That spottie is a good one. Any weights on the fish?

[skelly22]

Thanks for the likes guys,

Cobiaman- I agree on the esky. I need to increase my mackerel catch rate a bit more to justify the cost of a nice mack box though!! got my eyes on some downriggers to get first!!

Jason, I weighed them with a friends lip grips. It said the spanish were 10 and 11kg, and the spottie was 4kg. I must say I have no confidence in the weights though as fully filleted and weighed more accurately the fillets came to bang on 20kg. I got a similar size spottie the week before and he was 7kg. I reckon spanish were about 13 kg and spottie about 6kg. Good eating in the spanish especially though! I vaccum packed and froze what we couldnt eat fresh and it will keep us going for a while!

Really good on bbq after a soy sauce/olive oil/ lime juice and cajun spice marinade


I'm heading up to Noosa for the long weekend, it would be good to try for some spanish up there- anyone know if are they in season this time of year?

Cheers
Shane

[thelump]

Yeah shane I reckon that spottie looks better than 4kg. We used to get them down South West Rock like that. Thought that was normal size for spotties till I moved to QLD.

[manta man]

Nice catch mate. I must say conditions do look a little ordinary. Your perseverance eventually paid dividends. Well Done

[Lancair]

Awesome solo effort in what looked like difficult conditions. How's the Coffs ramp in those condtions ? Assuming you use the ramp opposite the marina at Coffs. Id love to get down there one day soon.

[skelly22]

Hi Lancair,

the ramp is not great but is manageable most of the time. The surge has left its mark on most boats that fish out of there. I use an electrical winch to pull on, rather than drive on, and once you can keep good control of the bow so its not swinging with the surge, and time the retrieve with the surge its ok. it builds up alot of sand at the mouth of the ramp but its generally enough to get a 6m glass boat out even at lowtide (unless its really bad!). Let me know if you need more info when you come down.

Shane