Birds, bust-ups and pelagic's - 23Nov13

TR by Redwood

Trip date: 23 November 2013

Participants: Soren, Weeksie, Tunny, Redwood

Launch Site:  Middle Groyne

Destination:  Hall's Reef

Conditions:  Wind 5 knots increasing to 15 by mid-morning;  swell 0.5 m

Tunny and I had decided late Friday afternoon that an escape was possible and the forecast looked good, so it was on. I put out a NY call and only Weeksie responded in the affirmative. We all gathered at MG car park around 4am, including a surprise yakker; Soren.

The tide was low and only a single dumper stood between the big blue and us. Tunny and I pushed out together with myself using the old wade-past-the-breaker-at-low-tide trick before jumping on. Soren and Weeksie followed soon after and we all started rigging up 300m out where the action began immediately. Tunny and I had big plans, we were going to snag a Spaniard tolling Spanish Specials up the North shore. I had carefully baited-up the single purposely thawed pillie on the Special and chucked it out back with it dangling a few inches in the water. Bang! The Special and my leader were gone. I radioed this through with Tunny responding that he was onto something and ditto for Soren. Both landed small sharks, neither of which had a Spanish Special hanging off them unfortunately. Tunny put his back whilst Soren kept his, as he'd not eaten shark before. Jimbo radioed from the beach later in the morning and mentioned that anyone and everyone was picking up small sharks between the beach and the nets and that the floor must be littered with them. Luckily, I had a second Special which I quickly rigged up before following the others North to Halls.

Tunny and I were sticking to the plan and trolling very, very slowly North following the shoreline.  At around the Little Hall’s mark I noticed Trekka 2 pull up also doing a slow troll, however they were turning around at LH and doing laps between there and the mouth. Soren, meanwhile was dabbling with a stint at LH as his sounder was showing a lot of bait fish with Weeksie zooming far ahead.

Without a touch on the Specials and due to the slow trolling technique, Hall’s was still quite some way off . Tunny and I decided to reel them in and make some water before deploying at the reef again.

Sky and sea littered with birds

As the morning wore on, the bird and surface action increased dramatically. I’d never seen so many birds working—they were everywhere with bust-ups all around us. As Tunny and I approached Hall’s we came upon a huge bust-up, which Soren was positioned right in the middle of. We all started throwing out slugs but without luck and the Mutton birds were proving a real irritation getting themselves tangled in lines and diving and retrieving the slugs. We tried everything; trolling through the bust-ups, slugs, softies, but nothing was biting for anyone.

Soren decided he was going back to LH as his sounder had shown more baitfish down that way. Tunny and I decided to do a spot of bottom bashing to see if we could change our luck. Whilst I was untying yet another Mutton bird Tunny radioed that he was onto something decent, which turned out to be a nice Mackerel that he picked up on the Special just as he’d stopped to rig up for jigging. Tunny initially thought it was a small 75cm Spanish but I wasn’t sure, as I couldn’t see any tiger stripes. Further research lead me to believe it's an adult School Mackerel, but I stand to be corrected.

Tunny's Mackerel securely aboard the Green Mamba

Tunny at Hall's having a whale of a time

After all excitement of the Mackerel had abated, I headed back to my mark for some more bottom bashing and picked up a keeper snapper on squid bait and soon after two smaller ones that were released. Getting the bait to the bottom was proving to be a real challenge because of the Mutton birds. If the bait didn’t drop fast enough they’d just dive and pick it up and even if you cast it where they weren’t, they’d just road-runner over 20-30m and get it. I eventually put a huge ball sinker on to get down as quickly as possible, but even then I had to distract them with bait—pesky but effective hustlers.

Weeksie and Soren had pulled the pin at this point. Weeksie radioed from the beach that he’d landed a keeper Grassie at the mouth on a deep diving red head Halco. I’m not sure how Soren finished up. Tunny and I decided to persist.

Whilst bottom bashing I thought it could do no harm in having out the Special about half way to the bottom, which proved to be a good thing as it was smashed on my way back to the mark. The reel screamed but I couldn’t get the rod out of the holder for some reason. I think the force and angle had jammed the butt in the holder. After a few tense moments I finally wiggled the rod free and stared reeling in.  A short strong fight ensued, then the fish came to the surface easily on the big Penn. Just as it became visible I thought, “bugger, a shark”, but a very beautiful shark. Whist I was admiring its beautiful lateral stripe it dawned on me it wasn’t a shark but a Cobia. Beauty!!! I kept it in the water while I checked the legal size on the chart and reckoned it had a very good chance of meeting the 75cm requirement. Tunny came over and gave some boating technique assistance and after securing the fish with a tail rope (Sunshiner, you can be proud) measured it on the recently adhered ruler decal. It’s difficult to measure accurately on a yak, but it looked for all money like this was a keeper. Off water measuring confirmed the Cobia to be bang-on 75cm.

Cobia with Spanish Special still hanging out of its mouth

Beautiful Cobia

Cobia secured with tail rope

After a final drift we packed it in and trolled hard bodies back to MG, which went untouched. Landing was a breeze with the small swell and high tide.

Redwood managing to stay upright for a change

On shore, we brag-matted and conscripted a young lady and her son for the pic. Tunny and I seriously debated asking the Bridal party on the groyne to do it, but decided no bride or bridesmaid would be game enough to risk getting all fishy. My old man would have said; “if you don’t ask you don’t get”.  Maybe next time we’ll ask.

76cm School Mackerel and 75 cm Cobia

Mother and Son do the honours