It was an awesome day for a test match so we decided to scoot out to Spot X for a session of fishing with the gentlemen - what turned out to be a test of wills and skills, with 3 PBs being absolutely smashed! It was the day after Christmas, and the conditions looked uglybut we braved the chills and spills as we headed to fish some little known territory out on the reefs offshore from the sunshine coast. Many boaties have come to grief on the shallow and unpredictable Caloundra bar that was to be our launching pad out to the grounds.
As we headed out through the breakers (sometimes peaking and splashing thumping into the front of the 5.5m runabout ), Shayne reminded me to pick the gaps while keeping the bow head-on to the 2-3m swell....getting out for a duck was simply not an option.
We arrived at Spot X at 6:30am, and started to drift slowly over the chosen location. By the time we arrived and into the morning wore on the conditions actually started to improve slightly. With the 10knot SW slowly dying in the butt, we knew it would be a remarkable day...and it was! For eons we have been hard-line bait fishos, never even breathing on a squidgy, berkley, or any such (rediculous) 'artificial' 'fisherman-catching' soft plastic or otherwise lure. But to my surprise, they actually work! We stuck to the berkly 3 and 4" minnows and podgys in a range of colours and they all worked a treat!
Anyways so we casted out our soft plastics and waited...hmm would these things really work? THUMP...WAMM...I was hooked into something bigger than a bream and it was headed for the bottom. After a few good runs it came up a 47cm PB squire! What a way to start the innings! I am still amazed at the ferociousness with which the fish struck the SP. What a way to open the account!
The trip was shaping up to be a real test match, and with only 1 fish landed in the first hour, we knew we needed some quick runs on the board to keep up the run-rate. I knew it would be hard to beat my 47cm, but what the heck I chucked the plastic thing back out there, let it flutter down in the breeze...and...not even...nothing in fact...for ages...And then ZZZZZZZZ something thing grabbed the 4" podgy plastic. 1 awesome fight later it was hugging the net. My 55cm PB squire!!!!!! I was using 10lb fireline and the 11g squidgy jighead.
After getting lost in a pod of dolphins, we then motored to a different spot to get away from them, then made another drift where we got a triple hookup - Shayne, Dave and I all got slammed at the same instant!!!! Amazing stuff - I have seen double hookups before, but I have never experienced 3 simultaneous rods go down synchronized like that! It was as if the same fish sucked in all the baits at once! Dave pulled up a nice bream of 27cm, Shayne pulled up a really serious squire of 53cm (not bad for a first squire huh?) and mine went 55cm (right off the meat of the bat!!). With 2 PBs in the same day, I was stoked! As a table fish those squire beat the heck out of a mackerel or kingy or even a bream or flathead if you ask me!
So in the end the scorecard read all-out for 3 awesome squire (47.5, 53, 55cm) a nice bream, a sweety, and a hell of a run from an oversize mackerel and a snap off from the same. What a day! It was tough goin but like Symonds and Hayden when the runs werent comin that fast we stuck in there and the boys did the hard yards but once we got settled and got our eye-in it turned out to be some awesome quality in the squire for this time of year. The wicket was a bit lumpy at first but quietened down nicely for a spectacular innings of fishing! Does anyone call these fish snapper, or just large squire? When is a squire become a snapper, it would be great to hear some thoughts on this.
Cheers & enjoy your fishin,
SS
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