Gold Coast Spanish Mackerel 9/1/2015

[Colorado]

Headed out on Friday morning for a Mackerel fish. Live bait was tough to get but after a bit of searching I had enough Yakkas in the tank to last the morning. Headed to Mermaid Reef for a slow troll and didn't see much action happening. Found a nice patch of bait on a bit of reef away from the bulk of the boats and dropped the pick. Things started slow with only one bite in the first hour. As most of the boats headed in the fish started to come on the chew and the live Yakkas started to work. First fish was a nice Spanish Mac that pulled the hooks 5m away from the boat. I didn't have to wait long before the next bait went off and this time managing to boat my first Spanish Mac of the season. Schools of Spotty Macs started showing up in the cube trail but wouldn't touch anything with wire. I managed to hook a few just on mono but kept on getting bitten off near the boat after doing all the hard work when they were head shaking on the surface. A few more Spanish Macs decided to eat the Yakkas after that and it was great have the line burning on the close reefs again. I ended up with my bag of 3 Spanish Macs all between 8 and 12kg. Lets hope this season is as good as last years.

[StevenM]

Horrible lookin day

nice work mate and didn't look that busy out there.

[Smithy]

Good work Mr. Colorado!

[Colorado]

Hi Smithy,
Are you coming down for the tournament this weekend?
Fishing should be good but it will be a car park on the 80m line.
Leigh

[Smithy]

Nah burned my Brownie Pts up doing Fraser Tournament.

[Cav(J.C.)]

Hi Smithy,
Would you be kind enough to show how you rigged the live bait?
Cav(J.C.)

[Smithy]

There are a lot of tricks to the trade in that I have learnt from fishing with mackerel pros so there is a certain skullduggery involved that can't be for public consumption. Come on charter and you will see some tricks and the rig. I think Wilson do an off the shelf mackerel rig as do Solas.

[wayno60]

Smithy,
the wilson rig looks like ya basic Tailor rig... 3 ganged hooks and a wire trace....yes?

[Smithy]

I think they do one with a small j hook to tow the bait and a treble stinger, all on mono wire with a mono wire trace at the front. Andrew at Caloundra Fishing World knocks up full rigs as the pros use.