Alex- Our morning started with a bang, within 5 min of leaving the mothership our first 5 casts raised 3 fish with one connecting solidly, but as was the story of our day, the hooks pulled. We had some early mayhem with heaps of fish coming up but most missed or pulled the hooks on us. We then went for a move to a nice little reef that comes up from 50m very rapidly, there was a huge school of rainbow runners milling around one edge and to my surprise a 20-30kg doggie smashed the stickbait as soon as it landed, unfortunately it too fell off. We then kept casting this unreal ledge for so many raised fish but still had trouble converting anything properly. One highlight was a nice Maori wrasse of about 30kg smash a popper in shallow water and despite our best efforts, he managed to get us back to the reef. We managed to find the lure about a hour later though but it was merely the consolation prize. A bit of a crazy day with heaps of fish seen with some rare critters for these parts showing themselves, I just wish we could have boated more of them.
Damon:- Got out in the blue dory today, and was the first time in a while I had used one of these boats, thoroughly enjoyed it, and was great to get right into the shallows for some light tackle action in the afternoon, however, I must start at the beginning!! We had a great morning, and got 7 GTs to the boat before lunch, and the strange tide turn, with Charles and Luke both landing some solid GTs up to 25kgs. The fish were biting well, and we got lucky with most fish sticking on the hooks.
The tide turned at lunch time and started running in, but it was slow to start however we put on some smaller lures for a light tackle session, and of course hooked a couple of big GTs and got busted in the reef straight away. We then landed another couple of GTs on the heavy rods, and went back to the light rods to finish the day with a half hour session where we caught around a dozen fish of 5 species in 30 minutes, we even finished the day with a double hookup. We caught goldspot trevally, bludger trevally, rainbow runner, coral trout and sweetlip on the small lures, with the Sebile 114 stickshad the standout performer. Heading a long way south tomorrow to find some more hungry fish, can't wait!!
