Deep Dropping

[team_mongo]

Went out for a sticky beak, trolling for blues. After about an hour, came across a nice drop off 350 to 400m, with something marking on the bottom. Thought I give this deep dropping a go.

I missed the first fish, it dropped off about 10m off the bottom. Its one hell of a retrieve with 2 kilos of lead on the end.:-?
Second drift, nice weight on the end, and I waited I bit before retrieving. After about 30 minutes in low gear, they floated up. 2 Blue eye 22kg and 19kg.

I was knackered, and couldn't physically tolerate catching a blue, so headed back into go for some whiting.

Had some tonight - very nice with chilli lime and corriander.;D

TM

80480

[fishfeeder]

mate well done.. can't wait to give them a go soon !!

[EMURUNNER]

Nice catch, I can't wait to get out there and try for some of those. Just brought a alvey winch of eBay so I can get out there and give it a go.

[TimD]

Nice fish and nice boat :thumbsup:


cheers tim :)

[Si]

awesome!! where are you fishing?

[jeffo]

Good work George. How is the boat going? Any billfish out of it yet?

[tenzing]

great effort!
What outfit did you use?
Cheers
Brendan

[lucee81]

Nice fish makes me want to get out there sooner rather than later.

[team_mongo]

Thanks guys.

Fish east of cape Moreton, in 350-450m of water.

Hi jeff, yeah got a couple of blues, biggest 400lb but mostly that 180lb mark. The usual quota of small blacks. Trying to get wes onto one, but he keeps dropping them. The boats great, I love it. You just blast out to the wide grounds fish till late, and blast back in! Need to catch up, when you're not on mega sport fisher:P

Tenzing, using a small tiagra spooled with 100lb braid. I think I'll get an electric. You'd have to be pretty tough to do this fishing all day, it kills you. Just cranking against mega drag for 30mins is not my idea of fun..

TM

[EMURUNNER]

How far off the cape is the 350m to 400m line?
Cheers

[nigelr]

lol, great fish, great boat and great effort to lift the both of them together afterwards!

[two dogs]

thanks for the report, what type of boat do you have? Looks the goods from what little you can see hidden behind those fish. Did you get any whiting?

[XtremeBoony]

Cracking ooglies, thanks for the report

Cheers from boony

[Franco]

Good to see you using the low-fuel-cost whiting boat George Ha Ha! Some good whiting food fillets there!

Give me a call to catch up when u can - had our baby boy 6 weeks ago and he's going great guns- all good!
Except me ..... well not so good ..... I've been out of action and sick - tell u about it when we chat mate.

See ya
PS Say hi to the others at work from me.

[Smithy]

We are probably marlin trolling from 15Nm east in about 220m to 17Nm east for the big drop.

[EMURUNNER]

Cheers smithy thanks for your Help. Will defently give it ago next time I get good weather.

[Bobpen]

Have you been using a second line attached to the drop weight with a snap release? That would take some dead weight off the fish line when retrieving.
Regards Bob Pendrey

[team_mongo]

Emu, its somewhere between 15 and 20nm east of the cape. I dunno exactly, I just drive east until the waters deep enough.
Dogs, its an american Contender 25T centre console. Its a weapon. Got a couple of tiddlers, but I'm not a good whiting fisho.
Franco, we'll catch up and I'll take you out. Just need to get the wheelchair mounts fitted first.. :P
Bobpen, I like to keep it simple so nothing goes wrong. When compared to pulling up 2 kilos of lead, the fish are another several orders of weight. In fact there were 3 fish, but the middle dropper wore through about half way up. So versus about 60 kilos of fish, 2 kilos isn't much. I would be worried a second line would tangle the droppers so they would not present right on the bottom. Have you used this method?

TM

[Bobpen]

Hi Team_Mongo:
I first used it Canada trolling for Rainbow Trout!!
The mass of the fish is a bit of tricky physics as they displace their own weight in water so are technically weightless! They are only hard to lift out of the water. Also if the fish have swim bladders they will float once you get them moving up.
Another advantage is that with two lines taking the weight your deckie could crank in the lead for you. (Big Plus)
I have all the gear but I use it to troll rather than deep water bottom bashing. I don't like winding in my 2.7 kg drop weight even from 50 metres. The snap release I use is from a trolling arm tip set-up, the line just squeezes into a clip like a clothes peg.
For me fishing is an excuse to experiment with techniques as much as catch fish. To catch Snapper and Sweetlip I snood a suicide in line with a terminal circle hook. Hook rate is about 50/50 but with I have runs of everything on circle or the reverse.

BobPen

[jake_snapper_king]

great blue eye . ! congrats amazing eating and a great fighting fish when first hooked. well done.

[onerabbit]

Congrats on a great effort TM, & welcome to the world of pain that is DEEP WATER fishing.

Tenzing, using a small tiagra spooled with 100lb braid. I think I'll get an electric. You'd have to be pretty tough to do this fishing all day, it kills you. Just cranking against mega drag for 30mins is not my idea of fun..

Mate, please try to resist the temptatation to fish out there with electrics,

as a fisherman, I'm sure you will agree that the battle is equal to the reward,
sure it's hard, but how long will that box of fish last you??

I'm a avid deep water fisherman, but only use stand-up gear as a way to be conservative when catching these fine fish,
best I have seen 1 person do is 4 Bar Cod in 1 session, that's 1 at a time (NSW limit of 5),

I think his arms were a foot longer at the end of the day.

Muzz

[bondy99]

TM.
Good effort and nice reward. I use to catch these on a hydraulic line hauler on Taupo and Barco Seamounts.

Bondy

[TREVELLY]

You know I am tempted to consider using the main line to the rod with an 80T manual wind - but the sinker on the electric downrigger that can easily handle 5kg of weight - I think it has merit

Great fish Mongo - a brave man dropping three baits down - will you do more than a two bait dropper in future?