Well what a great day it was saturday! Weather was fantastic, and was out running across the bay over to the 4 beacons by about 5:30ish am... Was fishing with Vic1 (John) for the first time, and was in his 5m Seafairer (sp?) C.Console.
Great run out there, and we started jigging for livies. Didn't get any at the beacons (Which was a litte odd), but his mate turned up and handed us 6 (Thankfully!!!)
Anyway, anchored up and started the cube trail. A livie each was deployed, and it didn't take long for my reel to start screaming. Lean back into it, lots of weight on the end, BANG! Bugger..... Hook pulled. Next livie out, reel goes again 10 minutes later, lean back into it, lots of weight on the then end, BANG!! BUGGER!!!! > Bitten off clean.... Both runs lasted about 10-20 seconds only....
About 20 minutes later saw the reel going bananas with a lot of the 20lb braid coming off the reel very quickly. Slowly increase the weight on the spool with my thumb and the reel is still in freespool. I had loosened the drag as well, but didn't want to click it in until I had hooked up properly (The previous drops had annoyed me!) The run probably lasted 40-60 seconds before the hook pulled again!!! When it felt the weight kicking in though, it lit the afterburners and just took off! It must have decided it needed to be a Redcliffe 30 seconds later... John was calling it for a Longtail, and whatever it was, I want to go back for more!!!!
John then got a good run which fought down deep, but the hook pulled for him too... We were down to one livie left, and so we dropped the bait jig over for the hell of it while the last livie was out. Only came up a with a grinner on the jig, but we put a fillet of it onto John's hook to give it a shot... Nothing was happening, so we up anchored, and went back to the beacon to get some more livies. We changed to a bigger sinker (After we had lost all the smaller ones) and we're getting 2-3 livies each drop... Turns out we just had too small a sinker on before. Anyway, had a few yellowtails in the well along with one slimy, when John told me he had something interesting happening with the bait jig... He wound it in, and we found he had hooked a 48cm Estuary Cod in the very corner of the mouth!!! How it stayed hooked I'll never know! So into the esky he went, and I think it may possibly be a new record Not bad for a $2 bait jig.... he he he
Caught up with FishinMission (Jay) in his new boat. DAMN that is a nice looking boat Jay!
Anyway, went back and put the livies in, and only had one run after about an hour (Which also pulled the hook!) Not impressed at all... Had to pull the pin as the time was escaping us, and we each had a lot of booze to be consumed that night, so we headed back in.
All-in-all a top day, despite the lack of fish. Will definately be back out there! Thanks again for a great day out John! Top day with top company... That's what fishing (and Ausfish) is all about!