Had the sister in law visiting from the UK this week with her brand new fiance and took a leave pass from work to show him the Bay and a bit of fishing.
Very casual hours had us kicking off at 9.00 am at Manly and personally I didn't expect to be catching much. The whiting rod and some blood worms had been thrown in as a stopgap.
We were greeted with a placid bay and a bit of cloud cover.
After a pleasant run accross the paddock showing the visitor dolphins, we spotted a small school of mack tuna and introduced our guest to slug chucking. It was a lot of fun for a bloke who had only caught one fish in his life- a grinner from his visit last year. After coating the boat and the rest of us in tuna blood, we had enough bait/burley and moved to the beacons for a jig for livies.
I was pleasantly surprised to find plenty of live bait and dropped one over to see if anything was lurking around. Very spoiled to have no other boats around and everything was quite leisurely done.
No luck there so we thought we would try another beacon. No joy there and the current from the big tide was starting to kick in. Next stop was a "secret spot" that had another vessel on it when we arrived. Amazing how secret these spots are.
Time to try the new downrigger. Being avirgin at this I was surprised at how simple it seemed but even with a 10 lb weight there was still too much current and popping the livey out of the clip. So up anchor again to a better known spot.
First pass had Michael bricked by something big. That was enough to bring out the heavy artillery of the almost new almost unused accurate reel and Tcurve jig rod with serious hooks and a prayer not to get snagged as we would have to cut the line as it would never break off.
A few more drifts and nothing to mention. Then while Michael was free spooling I watched in slow motion the rod and rell get ripped from his hands and head over board. Michael started to follow it into the drink but managed to catch the rod by the pistol grip and stay in the boat. Fortunately only the top half of the rod got wet.
I had talked up the drag and the rod beforehand but this fish hadn't been listening. It took drag like there was none. Afterwards we tried to pull drag off the reel and I still am amazed the fish did it with no effort.
I started the boat and tried to drag the fish clear of its usual rub off spots and we succeeded. After a down and dirty battle we boated a nice sized yellow tail king for the bay.
Well the Pom thought it was the biggest fish he ever saw and is definately emigrating to catch him some more of those.
All in all a fun day out with good company and one fish kept to feed plenty. I have emailed Ian a photo to post as I haven't learned yet.
Rob
Reply With Quote
your brother?
Originally Posted by Bo_D_
My wife's sister's soon to be husband 
