Spewing - great fish lost

[Restyle]

Knocked off work early and decided to get the kayak out and go for a fish in gunnamatta bay among the moored boats just off the sand flats. launched at cronulla ferry wharf. Plenty of decent sized blackfish there around the pylons, wasn't interested in targeting them.

my plan for the day was a bottom bash with pillies and squid while drifting out. wind as slighty on the annoying side for the first half of the trip but it did die down later on which meant i was on a pretty fast drift for my liking, Anyway i lost a fish 5 minutes in on my squid slab. Big solid headshakes, a little bit of weight and not peeling much drag, ether a flatty, small jew or a shovel nose. this was followed by 25 or so small snappers ranging from 15-25cm. I hooked a nice flounder 35.5cm right on the dropoff across the RMYC. decided to keep it. i don't keep many fish so this fish was "lucky" to come home with me. Ignore the terrible cleaning job on it, just started to clean it before i remembered to get a photo. Never cleaned a flounder in my life haha

Now the purely heart breaking part. I have a scalier net which i put pilchard heads and other pieces of bait i don't use and leave over the side of the kayak for berley  and i have my lines in the trail. I was going to restart my drift as i have drifted too far south, i was approaching the big sandbank on the southern side of the bay. My net tangled with the prop for the kayak so i untanned it and left it there for a second, all a sudden i felt a big tug on the net and i yanked it in because it thought it was a shark, Nope, a 85+ cm Kingfish. I threw the net back in and let it have a few more chomps at it before getting my heavier rod with a piece of squid and just dropped it in front of its nose. The kingie couldn't resist a nice slab of fresh squid and took it. a nice fight later the fish is boat side i went to grab it and it darted of for round 2 and i reel that in. i remembered i had a folding net so i went to use it got the fish inside the net and went to bring it in. As i'm bringing the fish in the net folds in on itself, the fish gets out and surface skids away pulling the hook out... Should've loosed off the drag. 2 minutes of swearing followed and the passing by ferry just watching that. 

So close but so far. first kingie in over 5 years gone. all on yowie to catch it now.

i went back to where i hooked it to see if there were more but nope just pickers and called it at dusk. I'm sure we all know that feeling we have for weeks after a good fish was  lost. ill be having that for a long time to come. 

 

This was my 6th time on the kayak and i plan on only fishing the hacking & to crack the systems code. 5/6 times were in gunnamatta bay and one was in burreneer. Once it warms up abit more ill defently go to the deep water of lillipilli for peligics. finding places to launch has been a challenge. i prefer off wharf's or sand but not boat ramps. If anyone knows some nice areas that are flat and have no stairs thats somewhat close to gymea baths and lilli pilli that would be appreciated.

 

 

[Rebel]

Super report. Great read. Better luck next time

[James Clain]

Always difficult to deal with fish, nets, hooks and multiple rods on a kayak. At least you managed to get that good king on the line and bring him boat side which some people choose to count. Well done on the flounder as well!

[kingie chaser]

Nice write up but as they say...………………….that's fishing!

I guess fails teach us a lesson, sounds like you need to buy yourself a decent kayak net for future king encounters 😉

[TAZ]

13 hours ago, Restyle said:

Knocked off work early and decided to get the kayak out and go for a fish in gunnamatta bay among the moored boats just off the sand flats. launched at cronulla ferry wharf. Plenty of decent sized blackfish there around the pylons, wasn't interested in targeting them.

my plan for the day was a bottom bash with pillies and squid while drifting out. wind as slighty on the annoying side for the first half of the trip but it did die down later on which meant i was on a pretty fast drift for my liking, Anyway i lost a fish 5 minutes in on my squid slab. Big solid headshakes, a little bit of weight and not peeling much drag, ether a flatty, small jew or a shovel nose. this was followed by 25 or so small snappers ranging from 15-25cm. I hooked a nice flounder 35.5cm right on the dropoff across the RMYC. decided to keep it. i don't keep many fish so this fish was "lucky" to come home with me. Ignore the terrible cleaning job on it, just started to clean it before i remembered to get a photo. Never cleaned a flounder in my life haha

Now the purely heart breaking part. I have a scalier net which i put pilchard heads and other pieces of bait i don't use and leave over the side of the kayak for berley  and i have my lines in the trail. I was going to restart my drift as i have drifted too far south, i was approaching the big sandbank on the southern side of the bay. My net tangled with the prop for the kayak so i untanned it and left it there for a second, all a sudden i felt a big tug on the net and i yanked it in because it thought it was a shark, Nope, a 85+ cm Kingfish. I threw the net back in and let it have a few more chomps at it before getting my heavier rod with a piece of squid and just dropped it in front of its nose. The kingie couldn't resist a nice slab of fresh squid and took it. a nice fight later the fish is boat side i went to grab it and it darted of for round 2 and i reel that in. i remembered i had a folding net so i went to use it got the fish inside the net and went to bring it in. As i'm bringing the fish in the net folds in on itself, the fish gets out and surface skids away pulling the hook out... Should've loosed off the drag. 2 minutes of swearing followed and the passing by ferry just watching that. 

So close but so far. first kingie in over 5 years gone. all on yowie to catch it now.

i went back to where i hooked it to see if there were more but nope just pickers and called it at dusk. I'm sure we all know that feeling we have for weeks after a good fish was  lost. ill be having that for a long time to come. 

 

This was my 6th time on the kayak and i plan on only fishing the hacking & to crack the systems code. 5/6 times were in gunnamatta bay and one was in burreneer. Once it warms up abit more ill defently go to the deep water of lillipilli for peligics. finding places to launch has been a challenge. i prefer off wharf's or sand but not boat ramps. If anyone knows some nice areas that are flat and have no stairs thats somewhat close to gymea baths and lilli pilli that would be appreciated.

 

 

Feel the pain mate. Once in Qld I hooked a hooah of a King Salmon, easy 5 foot long without a doubt. 20 mins into the fight and 250mtrs of line out, looking at the skinny end of the line left, at this stage no idea what it was, right out I see a fin cut the water. See it wasnt a shark as id caught enough of them to know it wasn't one, im thinking what the.... Is this? 10 minutes later I've finally won, its beat, cruises towards me at the rock wall, im bug eyed to see this huge Salmon with it looking back at me with equal big eyes. I had a good big net. Get right to the water edge, go to drop the net right in front of it as its just cruising towards it and....the damn net catches on a button of my shirt. Unbelievable. As im trying to literally rip and force the net off it the fish gives a final burst and cuts off on a rock. I had it bar that damn button. No iffs. I will never forget that fish. It was and today still is my greatest fishing heartache. Id have let it go too as I actually caught smaller ones and didn't like the taste, just wanted a pic of it. Not to be. So yeah mate, I know what it's like. 

[lakelad]

Nice write up, I lost my favourite lure to something big the other day.. then I found a bucket floating offshore.. $30 lure for a $1 bucket, better than nothing I guess 😂, if anyone catches a decent kingy with a yo-zuri in it's gob I'd like it back!