Hey fellow Fishraider family, here's my first fishing report so here goes...
Started the morning at 6AM at Tunks Park boat ramp on Sunday morning with the old man and as expected the car park was jam packed while the boat ramp was actually relatively quiet. After parking halfway up the hill, we were out onto the water in search of bait. Was hoping to use the Lowrance Elite 5 Ti I had recently purchased and installed to find some baitfish however this was not working due to an battery connection problem which was fixed later...
No luck in the baitfishing after an hour of trying with a sabiki rig on a handreel and my dad with a small hook with bait on a rod - only managed to pull up the world's smallest luderick, a baby snapper and a even smaller bream after 45 minutes of fishing and burleying. Decided to change strategies and do some bottom fishing with circle hook patenoster rigs at a nearby spot a bit north of Sugarloaf Point where we have caught legal flathead and snapper before. A fun little part of the session here with a dozen or so ~25cm snapper and a couple of undersized bream. We fished here for the first hour of the run-out before deciding to try our luck past Spit Bridge.
On route to the Spit, we noticed a couple of guys in a runabout with one of them hooked up to something that looked BIG. So, as curious fishos we went on over to see what was happening and yelled out across the water, 'What've you got on?'... 'Kings' was the reply and from that point it was all happening.
With the sounder on, we were seeing massive marks in around 8metres of water with bait also being herded around underneath us. We attempted a couple of rigs but with no bait except frozen pilchards, we didn't fancy our chances of a hookup. I had tried some jigging on a very heavy rod to no avail and was starting to lose confidence after seeing two more kingies being landed on the now surrounding carpark of 5+ boats with many coming and going for the next hour and a half. However, my luck changed when I switched my brand new Sienna 4000 with 30lb J-braid and 30lb FC rock fluro setup with a 7'' Gulp! Nuclear Chicken minnow. Casted out for 5-10 minutes before I hooked up on a medium/fast retrieve with twitches. The fight was fun and lasted around only a few minutes but the memory of my first kingfish will last for many years to come I'm sure!
Thanks for reading this far if you have, hope to have more to share in the near future!
-PackedAFlatty