On Sunday 5th November, Mike, At and I launched
“Thresher One” off Vidal. We were on a bit of a rekkie to see what was
happening in preparation for the annual Nov/Dec pilgrimage. We stopped on the
backline at 5:30 and went about looking for live bait. There were shoals and
shoals of mackerel on the surface as far as you could see. Unfortunately most
of them were really small so we moved from shoal to shoal looking for some
larger baits.
While we were drifting, I rigged one of the small livies on
a small bass rod and flicked it out. About 5 minutes later, the reel took off
and I was tight to a strong fish. It sulked near the bottom for a bit, then
finally the line angled to the surface and the water erupted as a solid
queenfish took to the air. It made a few great jumps before tiring enough to
bring onboard. Talk about a bonus fish.
 |
| A nice Queenfish off Vidal point |
We slowly worked our way north stopping at the bait shoals
as we went. While Mike and At fished for bait, I put out a livie. When we had
enough livies, I started to retrieve the bait and the rod keeled over in my
hands. There was a heavy weight to the fish, which probably didn’t know it was
hooked yet. Eventually, there were a few head nods and the fish took off! We
followed it a bit and eventually had a nice yellowfin in the boat which was
bled.
The whole time we were catching bait, there were boats
launching and heading to Leven Point. We knew that there would be too much
traffic so we stopped at Greens on a good looking current line. Mike and I put
out 5 livies and as we were heading deeper, there was a commotion on the
surface just behind the motors. It was a nice size sailfish. The problem was
that it was not attached to any of our lines, it was just a free jumper. While
this was going on, the rod Mike was holding went away. He fed the fish and
tightened up. Line flew off the reel, but the fish stayed deep. With a lot of
line off the reel, we looked a long way back and saw a sailfish jumping. On the
second jump, the fish threw the hook and Mike had a long wind back.
Things went very quiet, but we stuck to the current line and
after an hour or so, the deep line went away, shortly followed by the second
deep line. Two nice dorado bounced around out the back. While this was going
on, the close surface line went away and we had a triple. I put my rod in the
holder to clear the other lines. I just started winding when the rod pulled
flat and we had a 4th fish on. This was going to be interesting!
At’s fish unfortunately burnt off and when my fish jumped near the boat, it
spat the hooks, but there was another free swimmer around the boat, so I
grabbed the bass rod and flicked it out. Immediately I went on to a really nice
fish which ran out a lot of line, luckily away from the other fish. Mike and At
both boated lovely 10kg class dorado. When I finally got mine to the boat, it
was a similar size fish.
 |
| Fighting my 1st dorado of Summer |
With all the lines in the boat, At ran back up North and we
put out a fresh spread of bait. It did not take long for one of the close baits
to go away and Mike fought another nice dorrie. When this fish was near the
boat, it had a follower, so I pitched it a livie on the bass rod and went on
immediately. We managed to boat both fish after really great fights! The wind
had picked up a bit, so we drifted south in the current line and when I noticed
a bit of floating debris, I threw a stick bait at it. The lure just started
moving when I went on. This time it was a small tropical yellowtail. While this
was going on, Mike hooked another dorado on a close bait. When I looked up
after releasing the tropical, I saw a few dorado in the water and quickly
flicked out the stick bait again. Three dorado charged in to grab the lure and
I hooked one. The fish went mental in the air and when it landed, the others
tried to grab the lure hanging out its mouth. With the commotion, one of the
other fish swam into the light braid and cut it off! The other fish then all
gave chase after the hooked one and disappeared.
Again, we ran a few hundred meters and set the baits.
Unfortunately, the Easterly wind came up, slowing things down. We decided to
just drift back to the point then go back in. Just as we were ready to pack up,
I spotted a dorado swimming down the swell towards the lines. It was no
surprise when the reel went away and Mike hooked up. The fish also had a
follower, but it did not want to eat. With the dorado in the boat, we packed up
and headed home after a great day’s fishing.
