Gulf Crossing Adventure

It was a brisk March morning, still dark as we hitched up the Reef-Runner and headed to North Haven, aiming to be on the water at 6 am. We arrived 15 minutes later than planned and headed out towards the shipping channel to meet up with our partner boat for the journey. As we ventured out to the channel, it was apparent conditions were less pleasant than forecast with a 10-15 knot north easterly blowing, creating short .5-1m chop.

After meeting with the partner boat, we started to steam out across the Gulf at about 20 knots heading to our first drop. After about 40 minutes of steaming we arrived at our first drop. this spot was quickly deflating with no structure or fish showing on the electronics and of course no bites. After 20 minutes, it was decided we would head to another mark. On arrival at this mark there was one other boat fishing away, we set anchor and started to fish, consistently catching rugger snapper between 34-37 CMS with one keeper landed.

As the sun rose higher into the sky, this bite slowed and we again headed for a new drop.

This was a very unproductive manouver and after two hours we had faired no better on the fish count. We decided to head back to the second drop on our way back to port just for another look. As the wind had dropped to a variable 5 knots we decided to drop the pick and have another go at this spot.

The fishing started slowly, with no snapper hits, however the slimies were plentiful and this made for a good distraction. We decided after an hour to drop a lot of our berley as it was time to pack up. In the process of this burley drop and pack up a boat fishing downstream in our burley was all of a sudden on to two good fish.

We watched painfully as this boat landed two 6kg+ snapper, we decided to reposition instead of track back to port and soon the action heated up. As a by-catch I hooked a hammerhead on a floating pilchard which took 20 minutes to land on my Gomoku Erito, matched with a Shimano 2500 Symetre Fl.

After this shark, we started to focus again on the snapper and it wasn’t long until my father had landed two nice fish around the 2-3kg mark but I was yet of get off the mark. With the tide picking up and a light southerly breeze blowing it became harder to fish, with all fish now sheltering behind structure. Consequently, the structure beat me, I had three casts in a row where I hooked up solid only to be done in seconds on the reef. These must have been good fish to bust of 40lb braid in a matter of seconds.

As the southerly strengthened, we decided it was time to head back to port, after a long days fishing we had a rather successful day, however I am still ruing the ones that got away.