On Saturday 21st October, Wayne, Lorenzo and I launched “Galavant” off Cape Vidal. The
conditions were uncomfortable with a fine drizzle and moderate SE wind. The sea
was a bit bumpy with very little pattern. Our game plan was to troll a few lures
around to get an idea of where the fish were holding and then put some baits
out.
 |
| Lorenzo's PB Dorado |
I rigged up 3 lures and trolled
south towards the lighthouse. There was not much action, so I headed a bit
deeper and found a few birds dipping. As I turned through them, one reel went
away. Wayne fought the fish and soon had a cuda next to the boat which I went
to gaff. I unfortunately messed the entire process up when the end of the gaff
got stuck in a fold in my jacket and I could not lift the fish into the boat.
It shook the hooks and managed to get off the gaff… epic fail. The lures went
out again and I trolled back toward the point to catch some bait. I trolled
over a bit of a showing and the far lure went away. This time I made no mistake
and safely lifted Wayne’s cuda into the boat.
We were almost on the bait spot,
so we cleared the lines and ran to the marks. There were massive shoals of
mackerel and it took all of 5 minutes to get a hatch full of bait. I rigged up
5 lines and we tacked between 18 and 28m, heading south. It was very quiet for
a quite some time before I saw the far surface rod bend. I ran to the reel and
would it tight. A nice dorado jumped around on top for a bit while we got
Lorenzo kitted up with a bucket. The fish had a lot of line in the water so I
followed after it and after about 20 minutes, we had a lovely fish in the hatch…
Lorenzo’s biggest.
There were a few birds dipping
ahead of us on some bonnies so I quickly threw a spoon into them. On the first
cast, I went tight and the fish took a long fast run. After a strong fight, I
managed to get a yellowfin tuna into the boat which was bled. I made another
cast and got a beautiful jube-jube but it was hooked in the gills and died. The
next cast produced another jube-jube and I immediately rigged it live. We were
100% sure it would not take long to get a pull but after working the area for
an hour without any action I moved shallower and north towards the point. I had
just made a deep turn when the far surface mackerel went away. The line went
down immediately and we all knew it was another yellowfin which I winched in.
Despite pulling the live bonnie for a few hours, it was not eaten and when we
got back to the point, we released it and headed back in. All the other boats
battled for fish and it seemed like we had the most fish for the day so we
could not complain.
