Took the young bloke out of school at lunchtime yesterday to give him his first offshore trip with one of the mates, Kevin, as the weather was picture postcard perfect and conditions were set to stay that way for the night.
Two boats with 7 pob left at about 2pm and headed 24 mile offshore and started fishing in about 100' by about 3pm.
First few fish into the boat were the old Baldy Bream with a few Parrot coming in as the afternoon settled in, with a couple of nice Pink Hussar at least starting to get the box looking half full rather than half empty! Then the Trigger fish came on the scene > >
After moving around for a couple of hours we still hadn't done anything magic but the box was getting a little better all the time with the Hussar really coming on the chew at sunset. Finally decided to move to a brand new spot to try the luck and bingo! the reds came on (mostly for the other boat ) while we hooked into some lovely Red Jews, Thumby's, small Sweetlip, and the ever present Hussar, while tagging a number of Red Emperors around the 45cm mark and releasing.
Young bloke Josh (Going_phishing) was having a ball taking his first Red Jew, and stacks of Hussar and small Reds with the lightish gear (15kg on overhead) when he decided to butterfly a Whiptail and see what would happen. Kev told him to let it go all the way down and then just lift the rod tip and let it settle again which obviously makes the fillets flutter. Well, Josh is doing just that while Kev is talking, and just as he let it down for the first time, wham, the reel goes whizzing and the rod is trying to bend over double! The fish took him straight to a hole and Josh thought he had snagged the bottom. After listening to advice he decided to just maintain the pressure and see what would happen, but just maintaining the pressure was a hefty job with the number of fish he'd already pulled from 100' down! Believe me, eyes were beginning to buldge a little and face turn red
With the facial grimaces going strong, something had to give, and luckily the fish decided to see what the heck kept trying to drag him out, and that was it for the fish . Josh had it in the boat within a couple more minutes and as the adrenalin started to sag, so did the body. Shakes began and the young knees got a might wobbly for a few minutes. After measurement, the Goldspot Estuary Cod ran 14.14kg's on a 15kg mono line, with a 40kg kid hanging desperately to the whole shebang, so we reckon with a fighting factor of 1.5 for the cod, he should be able to claim his own weight factor of 0.6 which should give him a new Australian record for Juniors, (only kidding about the weight factor )
Unfortunately we couldn't release him as he was pretty buggered after the fight (the cod I mean) so it looks like Cod on the menu for the next few nights!! yumm....
Anyway, a great night was had by all with some pretty hefty bags caught, and a great time had by all, and all home and safe for 3am. Couldn't wake Josh this morning. Wonder why . Lucky today is Show Day here in Bundy so he had no school again today.
Have added a couple of pic's from the night.
Thanks
Geoff