Reply With QuoteYou got a good feed there, its always hard to decide light gear and risk loosing the big one or heavy gear.
Thanks for the report
Seawind8
Went out with my Dad and my brother Dave to Barwon Banks, we arrived on the banks around lunch time and drifted some marks that we had from previous trips. There were plenty of fish shows, but the fish were shut down, other than the odd Remora hanging around the boat that took an un-weighted bait that was floated out.
We tried around in a few other spots but had the same trouble. After a few hours of drifting with not much luck, other than a few Iodine bream and a rat Samsonfish. We decided to anchor on a previously marked spot that had a good show of fish and some really good structure around it and got set up for an afternoon bite/night session.
After about 15 minutes, we noticed a boat about one kilometre away letting off flares, so we pulled our anchor up and headed off to assist the situation, but by the time we had arrived there was a large boat already proceeding to tow them back to land, with everything sorted we returned back to our spot to re-anchor.
With sunset approaching and the fish not playing the game my brother decided to drop down some lighter gear, and almost straight away hooked up on a rat yellowtail king, which was followed up by a few bigger yellowtail king. We tried to hook them up but to no avail, my brother continued to bring up reefies, including a couple just undersize pearlies, a good size Moses Perch and a 47cm Maori Cod.
Dad and I persisted with the heavy gear hoping the bigger fish would fire up, but they didn’t show. Once the current started to flow I decided to setup my floatlining gear, and not long after I got a few nice squire. After seeing this my brother wanted in on the action, so I set him up a rod the same as mine.
I continued to fill the esky with squire that started to increase in size. Having not floatlined offshore before my brother missed a couple, but with a bit of coaching the hook soon found the mark.
After boating a couple nice squire my brother hooked onto a better quality fish, but with not quite enough drag pressure the fish found the reef, and within seconds cut him off. Dad hooked up to something solid that after a short tussle busted him off, we soon suspected that it was a shark after inspecting the leader and seeing it was a clean cut and not frayed.
With the current increasing the bite quickly slowed. All being tired, we decided to have a sleep with thoughts of fishing the sunrise bite. After a broken sleep due to the wind picking up, I was the first one up and I decided to start floatlining again, and almost straight away hooked up and boated a good size squire.
With me yelling out that the fish were on again the others quickly got up. Dad dropped down a Paternoster rig, and hooked up to a good fish but sadly got busted off on the bottom, after this the fish shut down.
We waited and hoped for the fish to come on again with the sunrise, but nothing happened. When the sun was up we lifted the pick, and decided to drift some marks from the previous day. My brother continued with the lighter gear which accounted for a better size Maori Cod, a tuskie and two trevally.
It was time to head home and with almost glassed out conditions it was an enjoyable trip back. The fishing wasn’t as good as we had hoped for, but all in all it was a good trip, with plenty of fillets to go around amongst the family.
You got a good feed there, its always hard to decide light gear and risk loosing the big one or heavy gear.
Thanks for the report
Seawind8
Did you fish the shallows or deeper areas? We did a morning run out there the following Friday for a few good size pearlies and a few decent size snapper. All our fish came from the deeper spots.
We fished the shallower areasOriginally Posted by dazyz1
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