A Trip To The Deep

After 4 hours sleep and a two-hour drive, I was impressed with my energy spike as we arrived at the boat ramp. Disappointingly BOM had got the forecast slightly wrong as there were 10-15 knot north easterly’s blowing, which is not an ideal wind direction for this location. But we persevered and steamed out of the harbour for approximately 45 minutes in sloppy 1m seas.

When we arrived at the drop there was one other boat anchored so we positioned ourselves accordingly and started to drop baits down to the 40m depths, along with some floating baits for slimeys. The slimeys obliged quickly and soon we had landed quite a few however the snapper started slowly with only a few hits in the first half hour. Interestingly on the slimey line I hooked something with a little bit more go and to my surprise came up a 35-40cm Yellowtail Kingfish which was a pleasant surprise.

After releasing the little fella, the fishing started to improve with dad landing two mid 40s snapper before I got my first on board. The action continued sporadically over the next hour and half with 12 legals landed and 9 kept, before the bite slowed as the tide started cranking.

We decided that with the ripping tide our best bet would be to head to some inshore grounds in search of some king George Whiting. This search was relatively unproductive, over the next 4 hours we tried 3 different spots for 3 whiting between 35-42cms and 1 large squid. By 4pm we decided it was time to call it a day and start to head back to port and then on to the drive home.

This was a long days fishing, but a good one with a few decent rugger snapper landed and a sprat kingy I was more than happy. With the added bonus being that I was able to rest while dad drove home it was a good day out on the water.