noodlemantra
16-11-2005, 09:34 AM
No pics here though guys. Lets run with imagination.......
Great place, first time fishing there - creek 7 - situated at the deep hole, beers cold, bait fresh, pots in.
Summary from fishing overnight and early next morning:
2 juvenile black jews (my first ever), heaps of catfish (buggers), 1 small fingermark, 3-4 just legal grunter, (all thown back bar one, which was live baited on a float......more on this later). 2 massive grunter which were kept. The biggest went +80cm easily and mine was just under 70cm. Whiting strips and fresh squid was the most successful baits.
I landed mine out of pure luck and chance. Was asleep, lying down in the boat early early sunday morning, tossed and turned and thought i'd heard a few pulls of line off my reel. thought the bastard can hook himself - im sleeping. wake up at 5ish, have a coffee and cig and decided to drift out the front in the high. Discovered my braid was wrapped around the outboard, my mate cuts the line and thought he'd do me a favour and pull it in to keep my tackle. at this stage we didnt know the fish was on until 30lb braid started to rip through his hands, pulled it up, grunter! yes! you bloody beauty!
right, everyone's probably thinking we're crazy putting a live grunter out underneath a float. yes we had a cast net, but for the life of us we couldn't get any live bait. as keen as i was to have some, thowin a cast net off the top of the boat in the dead of the night, up a creek in a place like. man, no way. so the 3rd or 4th small legal grunter comes on board and my mate goes right this thing is going out! we had the conditions - building full moon, good tides, we wanted to see a barra this trip, having not busted our barra cherries yet with heaps of fishin missions under our belt.
so on it goes, and for about the first 3 hours we sat there in darkness, fishing, drinking, flicking the torch on and off, checkin whether our boy is out there still. my mate falls asleep next to me, i quickly do the same, but looking back now i should have known better. i have been burnt before live baiting by "something big" in the early hours of the morning. im sure these things wait for the most opportune time to strike. BANG - SKREEEEEEEETCH! Both of us up in a flash, rod's keeled over, line is just peeling out. im half asleep stumblin round trying to find the landing net, cause this thing would need it. my mate ritchie yells out "this is the fish of the trip man!" starts getting something back on it, runs again, then after about 30sec, SNAP. 50lb mono leader is snapped. Still trying to weigh up what it could have been. Ritchy reckons it took at least 50-60mtres of line in the first paralysing run. Big barra?, big jew? small croc? Im guessing the first, heard swirls and splashes all around us that night, some that made us thought, they weren't fish noises either.
Dem da breaks eh?
DEFINETLY GOIN BACK THERE. o yeah no crabs either, ver dissappointing.
the noodler. [smiley=beadyeyes.gif]
Great place, first time fishing there - creek 7 - situated at the deep hole, beers cold, bait fresh, pots in.
Summary from fishing overnight and early next morning:
2 juvenile black jews (my first ever), heaps of catfish (buggers), 1 small fingermark, 3-4 just legal grunter, (all thown back bar one, which was live baited on a float......more on this later). 2 massive grunter which were kept. The biggest went +80cm easily and mine was just under 70cm. Whiting strips and fresh squid was the most successful baits.
I landed mine out of pure luck and chance. Was asleep, lying down in the boat early early sunday morning, tossed and turned and thought i'd heard a few pulls of line off my reel. thought the bastard can hook himself - im sleeping. wake up at 5ish, have a coffee and cig and decided to drift out the front in the high. Discovered my braid was wrapped around the outboard, my mate cuts the line and thought he'd do me a favour and pull it in to keep my tackle. at this stage we didnt know the fish was on until 30lb braid started to rip through his hands, pulled it up, grunter! yes! you bloody beauty!
right, everyone's probably thinking we're crazy putting a live grunter out underneath a float. yes we had a cast net, but for the life of us we couldn't get any live bait. as keen as i was to have some, thowin a cast net off the top of the boat in the dead of the night, up a creek in a place like. man, no way. so the 3rd or 4th small legal grunter comes on board and my mate goes right this thing is going out! we had the conditions - building full moon, good tides, we wanted to see a barra this trip, having not busted our barra cherries yet with heaps of fishin missions under our belt.
so on it goes, and for about the first 3 hours we sat there in darkness, fishing, drinking, flicking the torch on and off, checkin whether our boy is out there still. my mate falls asleep next to me, i quickly do the same, but looking back now i should have known better. i have been burnt before live baiting by "something big" in the early hours of the morning. im sure these things wait for the most opportune time to strike. BANG - SKREEEEEEEETCH! Both of us up in a flash, rod's keeled over, line is just peeling out. im half asleep stumblin round trying to find the landing net, cause this thing would need it. my mate ritchie yells out "this is the fish of the trip man!" starts getting something back on it, runs again, then after about 30sec, SNAP. 50lb mono leader is snapped. Still trying to weigh up what it could have been. Ritchy reckons it took at least 50-60mtres of line in the first paralysing run. Big barra?, big jew? small croc? Im guessing the first, heard swirls and splashes all around us that night, some that made us thought, they weren't fish noises either.
Dem da breaks eh?
DEFINETLY GOIN BACK THERE. o yeah no crabs either, ver dissappointing.
the noodler. [smiley=beadyeyes.gif]