Hi Raiders,
On Saturday we finally had a chance to take the boat out. I had wanted to go to botany as I am fairly familiar with the location but the missus and I opted to try out the hacking after reading a few reports.
We launched at Grays point a bit later to avoid the conjunction and potential embarrassment of reversing a boat at the ramp for the first time. To my dismay, I actually nailed it parking and all.
The boat fired up first pull with a little help from his mate Mr. Choke and we were off! The area is beautiful and we saw a lot of activity on the surface from what I believed to be either salmon or tailor just out of the wash zone. We had a few cast but nothing, so we decided to trawl a metal a little closer to the rocks. The missus hooked up but came off a few times so we decided to move on.
The next spot we went to was a channel, we opted to throw out some prawns and drift to see what we could come up with. I got smashed by what I presumed to be a monster however once on the surface I realised it was only a Pinky. The fish was over the 20cm mark but we threw it back hoping for bigger ones.
After another half hour or so we packed up and headed for shallow water in hopes for a few flatties. I prefer using SP’s and since I had made my quota on bait I decided to switch it up. The missus continued to get slayed by pinky’s catching at least another 5-10 at this spot. I was using pumpkinseed swimming mullet’s as these have proven quite effective for me and before long I had hooked up. No matter what I did I couldn’t keep the damn things on, fish after fish after fish.
We packed it up yet again and headed closer to Lilly Pilly. I chose a bigger and heavier SP as the water was a bit deeper and I could see a lot of movement on the bottom. Every time I jigged it back what looked like leather jackets were chasing it all the way to the surface, I just couldn’t get on!
Kat had out fished me again, hooking up a legal flounder so I opted for the oldfaithful pumpkinseed. A few cast later I was on and something had taken it all the way to the top it was almost like I was fishing poppers. I get it in the boat and it had confused me, I thought it was a decent size whiting but it turned out it wasn’t. I believe it may have been either a sea pike or a yellow tail barracuda and the reason for the glove is not that I am channeling the king of pop but because I am quite heavy handed when it comes to small slimy fish.
While still anchored up, a very silent maritime officer had made his way over to us and given us a spooking! He failed us on not having a few items but had given us the benefit of the doubt and was nice enough to let it slide (We have now amended this).
All in all it was a great first day of many to be had out on the water and we can’t wait for the next one!!!
Cheers,
Paul.
