Bottom Bashing the Shelf, Saturday

[Locked Up]

I’ve been keen to do a drop on the shelf ever since I did a job for an old pro long liner who told stories of the large ooglies that inhabit those depths. Saturday was looking good with 5 knot westerlies to gently drift us over the edge of the abyss. My good luck fishing mate Paul and I headed off with an Alvey Reef Queen loaded with 200lb braid, a range of homemade sinkers in 1kg and 2kg weights, 12 o circle hooks and a commitment to stick to the plan. Upon arriving at the ledge I was surprised and relieved that my sounder showed a reader in 360m of water, but was concerned that the current was cobalt blue and running hard to the south. First drop with a 1kg sinker confirmed our fears as we touched bottom for a couple of seconds and had to drop back 30 – 40 ms of line to touch again only to lose contact straight away and quickly had around 650m of line out. The sinker was upgraded to 2 kg’s and winding in the rig after a couple of drops was so arduous that we were concerned about dealing with a fish let alone the sinker. On the 4th drop a solid thump resonated through the braid then came up tight, and then the work began. A tag team effort on the groaning hand winch finally saw a solid ooglie hit the deck and our plan come to fruition. Only got the 1 but we weren’t complaining. Had a troll on the way home and got smoked by a couple of large top water ooglies. A memorable day we will both treasure.
(Hapuka)
80041
(One handle came off early in the fight)
80040

[lightsout76]

Nice fish mate.

Just out of curiosity, how far was the run out and what size boat do you have?

Cheers,
Leon.

[TREVELLY]

Nice fish - good eating too. :)

Assume you were given marks and did not just go prospecting?

I will go to this type of fishing one day - but reckon electric reel will be onboard first ;D

[Locked Up]

hi lightsout.i have a 6.4m boat distance is 65km from scarby ramp.hi trevelly.believe it or not did not have a mark just headed east until found dropoff on sounder then went north south till found something interesting.was given ageneral idea where to look,the rest was luck.actualy cant believe i caught any thing at all.told my mate i rated our chances at less than 10 percent.

[Muddy Toes]

Nice fish - good eating too. :)

Assume you were given marks and did not just go prospecting?

I will go to this type of fishing one day - but reckon electric reel will be onboard first ;D

If your ever looking for another boat to go with Trev............

[Spot82]

Well done mate, cracker Ooglie on your first attempt.

Have a look around Riv grounds and Tweed canyons as well there is some good ledges and areas to fish. One of the guys I am mates with scored 7 Blue Eye last week at Tweed Canyons, so they are certainly around and things will get easier as the current starts to back out coming into winter.

Anthony

[No Fear]

Thats a belter...Bet it takes me about 10 trips to have as much success deep dropping as you.

Great work. I'm not looking forward to using the deck winch though....will make things interesting!!

[TREVELLY]

If your ever looking for another boat to go with Trev............


Sounds like a plan I am keen ;D

Now if Locked Up can just give us that totally random mark ;D;D we can look for it's dad!

[fishfeeder]

Muddy if you want a Deckie for that run give me a call.... Would be interested in checking it out myself.
House brick attached with 6lb line for the drop sounds about right...

Wonder could I attach the anchor lift buoy and just drive it up and then wind it in ??

Cheers
Brett

[Muddy Toes]

Your in Brett...........I'll send em down.......you bring em back up

[snapperbug]

Pardon my ignorance, but what type of fish is that? A Blue Eye...something?

[fishfeeder]

Muddy, sounds fair..
Seeing you can't catch fish..... You better hand the rod over !! 8-)

[cobiaman]

Anthony, let me know if you need someone else to watch fishfeeder wind in the fish from a couple of hundred metres, id be keen to watch...

[TREVELLY]

Keep looking at the PM box - marks haven't arrived from Locked Up yet ::);D

Snapperbug the name is just above the photo Hapuka :)

I wonder if you would harness yourself to the rod and reel or only fools don't bolt the set up to the boat ;D

[zigfreed]

Hey mate

That looks heaps better than the pic MK emailed me yesterday.

Nice work.

Cheers

Mick

[snapperbug]

Thanks Trev, pardon my blindness too!!!

[blue fin]

nice work mate!!

[lightsout76]

Hey Snapperbug,

The Blue eye that Spot82 was referring to was a Blue eye trevalla, which is another deep water species targeted of the shelf like the one in this pic. 80051

Not that i've been lucky enough to experience it personally :( but just a little trivia for you if you were curious. :)

Leon.

[lucee81]

Anthony, let me know if you need someone else to watch fishfeeder wind in the fish from a couple of hundred metres, id be keen to watch...

If your going to travel that far you better make it interesting and give him a couple of Kmart specials to do it with. Or even a handline :)

[fishfeeder]

I think I might need a couple of large cans of Mother to get that big girl up from 300m.... But I am up for a challenge... 8-)

[Spot82]

Very Rough marks for the following taken off Navionics to give people the general idea of where to look.

Tweed Canyons: 28 14 538 153 54 514

Riv Grounds: 27 46 356 153 57 561

Cape Moreton Canyons: 26 49 173 153 44 280 and 26 57 583 153 48 803

Noosa Canyons: 26 15 860 153 51 947

Also when you are sounding deep water turn your ping speed down (5 or 6 instead of 10) as this will give you better reedings as well as run your chart speed at 1:2 instead of 1:1.

[Muddy Toes]

Trev,Brett,Grahame........nothing stopping us now.

[fishfeeder]

what date are you back ??
I could be talked into a mid week trip if the weather is better then the weekend !! ;)

Cheers

[Muddy Toes]

Back on Sunday boss.

[cobiaman]

Sounds like a plan, does anyone have a deck winch?

[lucee81]

Back on Sunday boss.

If your back on Sunday and my math is reasonably good would that not mean you will be here for the m&g the Saturday after. Granted you will probably fly out on Sunday but you could make the matinee viewing. See I'm making your week better. Such a nice guy that I am.

[Muddy Toes]

DAMN.......now I'm really depressed.

I'm home NEXT Sunday...............

Thanks for the reality check.