Had a great day today got 40kg and 30kg GT, and hooked lots of doggies, but landed bugger all. We pulled the hooks on a 60kg doggie about 3m under the boat with the leader on the rod tip. We got busted off in spectacular fashion by 3 other fish with 30kg of drag applied on 30W tiagra reels. The reels get very HOT with this much drag!!. Also got coral trout, bluefin trevally and GTs in the shallows today. Got a 30kg Coral trout this morning.
Current has picked up a fair bit and the fish have started biting better. Finished with 2 GTs from the beach while having sunset drinks, very nice. Should also mention that the doggies out here are so big we don't know how to land them. 150lb braid and 35kg of drag on a 30W tiagra is difficult to comprehend, and using this gear while trolling we just get demolished in the reef. We tried a 20000 Stella today with full drag and snapped 130lb braid while trying to stop one, Glanville had similar experiences yesterday. If you let them run, they go to the reef, and if you try and stop them something breaks. Most normal humans cannot even hold onto 30kg of drag so not really sure what to do. We are thinking a bent butt 130 with 250lb braid and 45kg of drag and fighting the fish from the gunwhale. Not very sporting, but this might give us an even chance - it would be nice to see how big they are!!
