Trip date: 7 March 2015
Participants: Tunny, Sunshiner, Diesel, Weeksy, Scater, Redwood
Launch Site: MG
Conditions: Glorious
Keen Angler Program: None
Scater and I arrived at the MG car park around 5.30 and were behind the surf zone by 6am with an easy launch. The others were already out there, most at Jew Shoal.
Scater and I decided to head out past the point to Sunshine Reef. When we arrived at Granite Bay the birds where going mad and the long tail bust-ups were everywhere. We chased them down and threw slugs in but they were having none if it. Tunny reported that a guy in a stinky had been doing some aggressive spinning into the bust-ups with no luck. Maybe they were not in the mood for slugs. At one point I was right in the middle of a boil with tuna jumping beside the boat--perhaps I should have stuck a net out, may have been the best play of the day. Besides the slugs, most of were also trolling dead bait; Scater with a slimey on a safa rig, Tunny with a pillie on a Tunny special and myself with a saury on an easy troll with a stinger much like jimbos successful one a few days earlier. I also tried a HBL for a while, but nada.
Sunshiner had left his radio behind so we'd not heard form him. Everyone else seemed to be chasing birds. Scater headed of in the direction of Sunshine Reef, Tunny to Abay Reef, Weeksy was out Little Halls way and I was making my way north of JS following a school.
I've certainly never seen so many bust-ups, never mind long tail bust-ups. The fussy fudgers where everywhere. I continued heading north following the elusive pot of tuna gold at the end of the rainbow, but just like the fable, as soon as you got there the birds and fish disappeared.
By now I was 2.5km north of JS, so I decided to keep going to Halls Reef, which I did. I had a quick bottom fish with a softie but there was nothing on the sounder. Just then Weeksie came over the radio announcing he'd caught a nice snapper (anecdotally I heard it was around 50cm, Weeksie will need to confirm). I thought that was my cue to head to Little Halls, so off I went on the last leg of my trek.
I arrived at Little Halls and just caught the back of Weeksie heading back to the beach. I decided to try my luck with a softie and got a couple of little nibbles, but I was not in the mood for little nibbles, I was in the mood for tuna and the day was not over yet. I decide to keep trolling back to MG.
About 800m-1km south of LH I saw a small boil surface about 50m in front of me. While I was deciding how to attack it, my saury rig went off. Yes please! I had pretty heavy gear so managed to get it in very quickly and obviously it wasn't a monster, but it was a fish and after what must be a 25Km paddle I was glad for it. I got it within 3m of the boat at which point went airborne, then I'm not sure how it happened but the line went slack and I was bitten off. I can only assume as the long tail came down it somehow managed to cut the leader. Bugger. There went my sashimi and my easy troll rig.
I had a spare Tunny special, so I put another saury on that and trolled back to MG without any further action.
So Weeksie landed up being the only yakker who caught landed anything today--we'll done Weeksie. Let us know if it was a snapper or sweetie and what size.
Tomorrow looks good; weather favourable, bay packed with bait fish and tuna about, so better luck to those going.
Redwood
Scater and I arrived at the MG car park around 5.30 and were behind the surf zone by 6am with an easy launch. The others were already out there, most at Jew Shoal.
Scater and I decided to head out past the point to Sunshine Reef. When we arrived at Granite Bay the birds where going mad and the long tail bust-ups were everywhere. We chased them down and threw slugs in but they were having none if it. Tunny reported that a guy in a stinky had been doing some aggressive spinning into the bust-ups with no luck. Maybe they were not in the mood for slugs. At one point I was right in the middle of a boil with tuna jumping beside the boat--perhaps I should have stuck a net out, may have been the best play of the day. Besides the slugs, most of were also trolling dead bait; Scater with a slimey on a safa rig, Tunny with a pillie on a Tunny special and myself with a saury on an easy troll with a stinger much like jimbos successful one a few days earlier. I also tried a HBL for a while, but nada.
Sunshiner had left his radio behind so we'd not heard form him. Everyone else seemed to be chasing birds. Scater headed of in the direction of Sunshine Reef, Tunny to Abay Reef, Weeksy was out Little Halls way and I was making my way north of JS following a school.
I've certainly never seen so many bust-ups, never mind long tail bust-ups. The fussy fudgers where everywhere. I continued heading north following the elusive pot of tuna gold at the end of the rainbow, but just like the fable, as soon as you got there the birds and fish disappeared.
By now I was 2.5km north of JS, so I decided to keep going to Halls Reef, which I did. I had a quick bottom fish with a softie but there was nothing on the sounder. Just then Weeksie came over the radio announcing he'd caught a nice snapper (anecdotally I heard it was around 50cm, Weeksie will need to confirm). I thought that was my cue to head to Little Halls, so off I went on the last leg of my trek.
I arrived at Little Halls and just caught the back of Weeksie heading back to the beach. I decided to try my luck with a softie and got a couple of little nibbles, but I was not in the mood for little nibbles, I was in the mood for tuna and the day was not over yet. I decide to keep trolling back to MG.
About 800m-1km south of LH I saw a small boil surface about 50m in front of me. While I was deciding how to attack it, my saury rig went off. Yes please! I had pretty heavy gear so managed to get it in very quickly and obviously it wasn't a monster, but it was a fish and after what must be a 25Km paddle I was glad for it. I got it within 3m of the boat at which point went airborne, then I'm not sure how it happened but the line went slack and I was bitten off. I can only assume as the long tail came down it somehow managed to cut the leader. Bugger. There went my sashimi and my easy troll rig.
I had a spare Tunny special, so I put another saury on that and trolled back to MG without any further action.
So Weeksie landed up being the only yakker who caught landed anything today--we'll done Weeksie. Let us know if it was a snapper or sweetie and what size.
Tomorrow looks good; weather favourable, bay packed with bait fish and tuna about, so better luck to those going.
Redwood
Supplementary report by weeksie
04:30. In the car park there were several weirdos (even weirder than we are), sitting or standing on the road, obviously bombed out of their brains while they sang, played guitar and drum, or just sat there stupefied. Sunshiner almost ran over them as he headed for his favourite car park and they barely flinched.
pic by sunshiner
Launching from MG about 0510 with sunshiner and Tunny, I made my way to Jew Shoal and fished there for a short while without much activity showing.
The boys closer to Granite Bay could be heard over the radio, surrounded by birds and the surface activity of marauding longtails they reported.
This was enough for me to head back into the bay and south west from Jew Shoal.
The bird activity they reported could be seen close in around Granite Bay but I was a fair distance from there so meandered my way west towards the tin shed and Halls with a trailing, lightly weighted SP rig and a casting SP rig with a heavier jig head.
Plenty of casts proved fruitless so I decided to make the 1.5 km paddle NNW to Little Halls reef. I proceeded to bottom fish as the wind dropped out to dead calm with a slight drift to NW.
A 1/8oz. 1/0 jig head rigged with a 2.5" grubz in motor oil was productive and a lovely 50cm sweetie came to the boat after a good tussle. This was good news as it has been a bit of a drought and Linda can see that I really have been going fishing.
The Nor' Easter kicked in a little and it was time to go, although Redwood reported he was at Halls heading my way. Redwood was keen for a fish at LH so I kept going on.
200m from MG, Redwood radioed through from LH that after 20km he did what none of us could do this morning and hooked up to a longtail only to lose it yak side… I could feel his pain through my radio and yes pain is a four letter word… or two.
A couple of pics of the two sweeties.
Weeksie
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