| Resolution No.2 - Fishing | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Resolution No. 1 I will do several Blue Mountains Canyons in 2006
Resolution
No. 2
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Kingfish Trips for
April 2006
I get to the platform to find my mate Leigh has beaten me here by a few minutes and he is rigging up with that grin on his face. We're here for more kingfish, and we've agreed, this time my bait will be going out first! We have the place to ourselves as usual. We watch the sea for a good 15 minutes - it's about 45 minutes since high tide, and the swell is up. There are waves breaking right across the platform every few minutes, and it's a bit chunky over in the yakka catching corner. That's not a good sign. For some reason whenever the seas are up, we don't have much luck with catching the buggers. Unfortunately, this morning we can't
catch even a single yakka. We can only blame the swell. I hope
the water hasn't turned too cold on us already this year. Another
three guys turned up a bit after us, and they too had very limited
success, but manage to catch one. They are the same guys I was
talking with late in the afternoon on Good Friday. I get a surprise
when Chris tells me he's been reading my mission to catch a kingfish here
on the website - I hope he gets a laugh out of it! They whack the
yakka out under a balloon, and within a few minutes, it's hit, but the
hooks miss their mark and the precious yakka is gone. A few minutes
later, Leigh hooks a kelpie, and it is returned wearing an 8/0 on his 15
Kg gear. But the kelpie has other ideas and it swims straight back
into the platform - Leigh snags it up. Bugger. He's lost a
fair bit of his nice new 15 kilo line, and is a bit mad with himself as
he's got to retie the double. Bimini twists need a bit of care to
tie when you are outside in a bit of wind, for LBG novices like us anyway.
Friday 21st April - The alarm goes off at 4 am and I'm on my way back to the platform to try and catch a Kingfish. I have the entire place to myself this morning. It's just wonderful, the sunrise was magnificent, the breeze gentle and offshore, the sea was barely 1 metre in size. It was great to be there, despite still being crook with the flu. I have my system worked out - I toss a
couple of handfuls of berley, grab a bucketful of fresh salt water and I
go and rig up my rods and assemble the gaff. This gives enough time
for the berley to have worked it's magic. I catch a yakka on the
second cast. It's straight into the bucket to be unhooked.
It's a bit smaller than the usual run of yakkas we get here, and I pin it
with an 8/0 Gamakatsu Livebait pattern hook. These hooks are
wonderful, extremely strong and evilly sharp.
I am actually very glad that I didn't
have to cut off a shark, but I really would have like to have seen
whatever it was I'd hooked. I think that there is nothing worse than
not seeing a great big fish and losing it.
Monday 17th April
- Leigh and I head to Tomaree for a look
about. This is where a lot of the footage for Phil Atkinson's
seminal "The Land Based Addiction" was shot, and is a famous LBG spot.
Unfortunately it is also very famous for crowds these days, and today was
no exception. The swell is massive, 4 to 5 metres at Merewether
beach this morning, and from the south. Our usual platform would be
completely out of control in these conditions and lethal to attempt to
fish. Tomaree is completely sheltered from a southerly swell thanks
to Fingal Island, so we are quite confident of getting a session in.
We arrive at the platform late - I had to pick my folks up from
Williamtown Airport on the way, so we don't get there until just after
9am. You can only do the best you can with what you've got, and we
couldn't get there any sooner. We leave just as the prime time
approaches - late afternoon shadows fall across the water, the low tide
sees a distinct colour change in the water thirty feet out from the edge
and a gannet and a couple of terns "hanging about" over an unseen
"something". Leigh has to drive all the way back to Sydney in end-of
Long weekend traffic - a chore I do not envy, and I am truly stuffed
thanks to the flu. Leigh gave me a massive chunk of kingfish as a
thank you for gaffing his fish. Karina and I had it for tea tonight
- we found it sensational. I can't wait to catch one. Leigh
and I are just laughing - we should have got into this LBG lark years ago.
. . Sunday 16th April - Leigh and I are back at our favourite platform at 4.30 am. It's the Easter holidays and we are expecting crowds of people at our spot, hence the early start. We have the place to ourselves. We set the wading pool up, bucket up fresh seawater, and get set to catch our live bait, when Leigh discovers he has left his light threadline at home. He has brought along his TSS4 and beach rod, so is able to fish for yakkas, but with very limited success. I catch four when he gets the idea to get a bait in the water. I agree, as he's only managed to get one yakka so far. Bad move on my behalf. Within three or four minutes, he's screaming out that he's on. I hadn't told him I'd bought the gaff, and hadn't put it together. In a mad scramble, I pull it out of it's bag, assemble it and run flat chat to the edge. Good timing as Leigh has got a really angry, green kingfish flapping madly all over the bottom of the platform. It was a carbon copy of my fish - except this time, I have a decent gaff. The first couple of attempts result in clean misses, before I pin the fish through the top of it's back. But the gaff breaks free and in the heat of the moment I a manage to gaff it mid-ships. Not the best gaff shot of my life, but the fish is safely secured.
Do I have a very happy angler on my
hands! If the fight had continued much longer though, the King might
have been the one gaffing Leigh! Leigh is using exactly the same
gear as me, but he has chosen to use 15 kilo line, while I am using the no
non-sense 24 Kilo. He didn't have a clue that I had the gaff, and
was resigned to trying to lift it with the rod and almost certain loss of
his fish. Interestingly, Leigh's fish had the remains of two
medium/large baitfish in it's belly, and we suspect they were yakkas,
based on their shape. Every other king I have seen landed so far has
had a completely empty stomach.
Saturday 15th April
- After losing my best fish to date for want
of a gaff, I decide I HAVE to have one. I grabbed a 3 piece gaff on
the way home after work. The gaff is LETHALLY sharp, with a very
fine point and three cutting edges. I have a quiet chuckle to
myself. I just bet that I gaff a fish for Leigh before he gaffs one
for me.
Friday 14th April
- Good Friday - I came within a whisker of
landing my first Yellowtail Kingfish this morning. It was sheer
incompetence on my behalf that lost the fish. And what a fish it was . . .
The squid didn't get a looker, but the butterflied mullet was eaten by a green eel about 3 feet in length. It was the spitting image of a moray eel, and actually lunged and snapped at my hands repeatedly as I was unhooking it - it had been foul hooked in the mid-body. Fortunately I managed to release it without injury to myself, and only a minor mark on the eel. I managed to snag my first precious yakka
as I launched it, as it refused to swim clear of the edge of the platform.
The wind was light, but blowing straight offshore and my balloon was
fairly large. I couldn't work out why the damn thing wouldn't swim
out. The second yakka co-operated and swam just far enough out to
enable me to place the rod in the holder and continue bait gathering
without worrying about the line snagging on the platform. It
wouldn't swim more than 40 feet out, despite the offshore wind. I
was watching the balloon when I thought that it was a bit odd. The
balloon decided to swim north and close to the edge again. Mmmmm.
I started to pick the rod up out of the holder just as the fish realised
it was hooked. It loaded the rod and was actually hard to pick it up
out of the holder, even though it was only pulling line against the
ratchet. I didn't need to strike, I just moved the drag lever half
way to strike and wound - I was ON! The balloon popped, and the
bobby cork was leaving rooster's tails as it zig-zagged close to the edge
of the platform. The fish started to take line against the heavy
drag, so I moved the lever to "strike" and loaded the Live fibre up
properly. Within three minutes it was over. I climbed back up onto the platform and
started to shake. The other blokes were there offering their
condolences and we all had a good chuckle. I was not upset or
anything, it was completely my own fault for not having a gaff. In
fact I had discussed with Leigh that exactly this scenario would happen
when I hooked a king for the first time on my new gear. It's a
learning process and I really did know better. Interestingly, another group of LBG
fishos turned up about 10 am. One of them claimed to have caught a
50 lb northern blue fin tuna from our favourite spot yesterday. It's
quite possible. Cobia, yellowfin tuna, and even marlin have been
caught from the rocks in this area. At the moment there is a
scorching hot pelagic bite going on in the Forster area. Northern
Blue fin and cobia have been caught in huge numbers and bloody good size
over the last two weeks. The sea temperatures are the key I think.
It's also a full moon at the moment, last night was so bright I could
hardly sleep. That's worth noting for future reference. The
seas are so flat as to be almost non-existent - a nice change after the
massive seas we eventually had last week. It's perfect groper
fishing conditions at the moment.
Saturday 8th April
- I really, honestly thought that I would
have caught a bloody kingfish by now. I was back at my platform at
5.30am this morning. I had major doubts that I would be able to fish
as the forecast has been for 4 metre swells for the last three or four
days. NBN news issued a warning to all rock fishermen last night -
yet it was barely 1m this morning. If I was surfing, it would have
been a sensational morning - the beach was offshore, about 4 feet to 5
feet faces, and very hollow. Long hollow lefts peeled like corduroy
across the beach. The air was FREEZING - thank goodness I was
wearing thermals this morning.
Thursday 6th April
- I thought that there would be no chance of
a fish this morning as the forecast was for 2.5 - 3.5m swells. I
checked the beach at last light last night and it was blowing all of 5
knots due west, and the waves were so small it looked like the lake.
Sunday 2nd April
- I am back at the ledge in the dark.
It's 5am - no hang on, daylight savings is over - it's 4am - and pitch
black dark. The noise of the waves breaking on the platform is
intimidating. It's big. I blow up the wading pool, rig up my
three outfits and watch. It's a solid 2 - 3 metres, and a bit hairy.
The live-bait corner is the worst, as the ground swell is wrapping around
for the south east. The king ledge is fine, but scary. The
waves look really big and threatening but aren't reaching the king ledge.
They are washing up a bit too often for comfort in the corner though.
I throw out a few handfuls of berley and sit back to watch for a while.
We spun with just about every high speed
metal lure in existence without result. I thought maybe some snapper
or bream may be under all that foam, so I tried whole pilchards and large
chunks of squid on the bottom and floating in mid-water. Nothing.
We gave up in frustration. We had a wander about the rest of the
platform looking for a protected corner or possible pot-holing spot for a
visit after dark. We were amazed at the unbelievably power of the
ocean. Some of the swells were reaching 4 metres plus. There
was one spot where we thought it looked like a nice blackfish spot.
We watched mouths open when a wave washed right over our little spot at
amazing velocity from a totally unexpected angle - at chest height.
If anyone had been fishing there, they wouldn't be there for long.
This deadly wave washed across the spot four times in ten minutes, which
really demonstrated just how important it is to sit and watch a spot for a
while before venturing near the water.
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