Not Biting:Why ?

[marzoe]

After hearing great reports about terrific weather and great catches last #weekend off Gladstone I was chafing at the bit to get out on Monday following an enforced weekend of work.
Initially the weather report for Monday and Tuesday wasn't good but 15-20 knot southerly's were downgraded to 10-15's increasing in the afternoon.
High tide was at 10.36 am and I #was heading out of Auckland Creek at about 6.30.
Should be great, light winds, good conditions.
I had planned to go out to the Bindaree, a sunken trawler about 6 NM off the north entrance, but it was a bit blowy for my 16 ft tinny, so I decided to fish the close inshore ground off Facing Island.
My first drift with a beautifully presented pilly on a balloon and another pilly on a running sinker rig yielded nothing
No bites at all.
I tried the drift once more with the same result so I thought I would anchor up and burley.
I found a spot which I have marked on my GPS which always has fish present, and could see fish #holding on the bottom on the sounder.
Used chicken pellets, old pilchards and tuna oil as burley while I reset the floating rig and bottom running sinker rig with a prawn this time.
I was rewarded with a couple of bites, then caught a stripey and a cod, both undersize.
I could see a school of spotty mackerel or mack tuna in the distance and burleyed up some more.
They were attracted around the boat swam around my floating pilchard and buggered off. Not a touch.
This happened again before #I decided to ditch the #bottom basher rod and attach a metal slug, which maybe I should have done before.
Anyway the school didn't come back again and when I went looking for them, they'd gone.
By this time the wind had arrived and I had to go.
I know that fishing can be like this and the fish go off the bite, but I thought the conditions were favourable.
I am only relatively new to offshore fishing and I'm wondering whether I'm doing something wrong. Looking forward to your feedback.
Tim

[liltuffy]

Not from around there Tim but some days you just get that, that's why they call it fishing and not catching

[Matt_the_Deckie]

your probably right in saying that you should hav thrown the lure at them straight away make sure you use a good spinning outfit with a pretty fast retrieve.and dont forget when your fishing the bottom use enuff led to hold the bottom i think that a running ball sinker is better used for live bait and a penanoster rig is a far better option for dead bait.All the best tim

[nqboy]

some people can fish and some just can't