Went for a trip with Daintreeboy last Thursday, we left the ramp around 4am and were at our first spot around 5am (from my hazy early morning memory). It was a beautiful run out of the river and a very nice run out to the reef, wish all days were like that.
The wind switched around a fair bit during the day and had a westerly influence which is a bit strange and definitely made the fishing a bit different to normal with fish not being where you’d normally encounter them, more on that later.
We sounded a couple of spots and noticed there were macks and bottom fish on the sounder, we ended up anchoring and Daintreeboy hooked up and called it for a reefjack, sure enough a short while later a solid reefjack at around 3kgs hit the esky (note that I’m shit at guessing weights so this might be a bit out!) so early signs were looking good. After that Daintreeboy got bricked and I sacrificed a sinker to two to the reef gods. We didn’t get much else from that spot except small pickers, so after the sun had come up we decided to have a troll and look for those macks. Apart from a solo small leaping mack we couldn’t find a single fish on the sounder, or a decent bait ball..stuffs me where they went.
While trolling some complete knob motored in front of us and put his lures out, we were on quite a big bit of structure and could hardly see another boat near us, so why he chose our exact line no-one knows, I’m guessing he thought we’d found some fish so was cutting in. For the record trolling etiquette is you join the queue if you absolutely must troll the exact same line. Anyway the macks just weren’t showing on the sounder anywhere so we moved on.
We hit an old faithful spot of Daintreeboy’s, a large bit of structure in a fairly featureless area, this spot started firing with a good trout and largemouth coming off it and maybe a couple more fish, I can’t remember.. anyway we both ended up getting bricked on this spot, from memory Daintreeboy’s fish was still on the line after bricking him but there was nothing he could do, it was a very solid fish that ran straight for the structure. After that the bite pretty much stopped so we moved again.
We headed over to my favourite mack spot, once there though we couldn’t find a single baitball or sole mackerel, it was crazy the entire spot of rocks and rubble was dead, not a sausage. I was a bit devastated as I had some jigs ready and a new garfish rig (headstart trolling rig from the downrigger shop online), the new garfish rig was quick to setup and trolled beautifully, I look forward to using them when the macks are home. Our guess with the macks was that due to the different wind for this time of year they possibly went wider?
We hit a couple more of Daintreeboy’s spots, one bit of rubbly bottom saved the day, it wasn’t overly impressive on the sounder but Daintreeboy made a good call that fish would come in once the dinner bell was rung and he was spot on. A heap of mixed reefies came from this spot, the highlights were a solid 5kg reef jack (really fat fish, in good condition) that came from a livebait and a solid trout that took Daintreeboy into the coral. Daintreeboy called that one for a trout and coral and was spot on again.
Before the trip I’d dropped my usual bottom-bashing rod and busted a guide, so I was using a bit of a pool cue trolling rod during the day, Daintreeboy offered his wife’s rod and stella 10K so I gave it a go at this spot, the lighter tip definitely helped and I started landing fish straight away, so I learned a good lesson there and the old ugly stick will stay as a trolling, throwing big poppers and livebait rod only. Talk about smooth, the stella was just lovely, from the first turn of the reel handle I was impressed by that reel. I’d always wondered just how good they are and bloody good is the answer, must try to convince the wife that I ‘need’ one lol. Daintreeboy can tell you more about the blank but it’s a black hole blank with quite a soft action, 250g I think. I haven’t ever fished with such a soft action before and would have thought that I wouldn’t like it, but I found it easy to hook up and the rod acted like a shock absorber making it a joy to fish with. Apparently they’re putting out a 150g blank soon which will be very very nice to have a fish with.
At the last spot I had something take my four-gang hooks (mustads, bought them for ganging), it was probably a shark and it decided to keep three of them, so I guess the weakest part of that setup was that the gang part. I was a bit annoyed at the time but I’ve used those hooks a lot in the past without any dramas, so I guess it was just insane jaw pressure that got them to separate and it probably saved me a possibly long fight with a shark, so I’ll keep using them for now.
After we hit a few spots in that area and sounded up a couple more bits of rock/rubble/bommies we decided to head back. We went past my wonky holes but couldn’t get a great side image view as it was a bit sloppy and since the latest update I haven’t been happy with the si picture, even in the river the picture wasn’t great. Regardless one solo dot was sitting in one of the holes and I knew from previous discussions with Daintreeboy that it could be a horse of a largemouth nannygai, we got ready to have a drift but a boat was coming our way and rather than give up a spot like that we moved on, spewing as I was keen to get a big nanny but truth be told Daintreeboy is a much better bottom fisho than me and probably would have hooked it. I’m keen to head back to that spot sometime soon though and also to keep sounding for more wonkys, they are worth the effort.
So I learned a couple of valuable lessons, I usually drift a lot but a quick anchor is definitely worthwhile if the fish are home and drifting down a livie is a must when bottom fishing. I won’t steal too much of Daintreeboy’s thunder about livebait techniques etc as apparently an article is in the pipeline which should be a very informative read, I can say though that his technique absolutely works.
So for the day we got a good mixed bag of trout, largemouth, spangles and reefjacks but had to work fairly hard for them with the westerly wind and hit a fair few different spots. Back at Daintreeboy’s brothers' house he filleted the catch while I cleaned the trailer and flushed the motor, so that was a good deal! Learned another trick here as I inherited some carving knives from my grandma, one of them is a big flat blade like an XXL breadknife, Daintreeboy uses a similar blade for skinning fish, it works a treat so mine will get promoted to the filleting table from now on.
I left the esky and killtank (underfloor esky) until I got home and my wife came out and gave me a hand, talk about browny points, what a champion! I did have something special for her though which was a surprise custom rod built by Daintreeboy, a 4-6kg rod for soft plastics fishing, which will have a 3000 fj stella on it running 20lb braid, so no more fixing tangled baitcasters, sweet deal.she loves the rod so looking forward to having some soft plastics sessions with her shortly.
Thanks for a fun day out mate.
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Originally Posted by Pazz01
