At 7am on Sunday 16th
June, Father’s day, my Dad and I launched “ABF”. The weather forecast was for
very little wind and a small swell, so we were keen to fish on the ledge and
hopefully get a dorado or sailfish.
We stopped at our bait spot and
sounded around. There was absolutely nothing on the sounder! We tried all out
spots but got naught. There were a few birds dipping nearby so out of desperation,
I put out a few small feathers and trolled around them. It didn’t take long to get
a pull and soon had a few small frigate tuna in the bait box. Unfortunately,
they are not a great live bait and die very quickly but a fresh dead one is a
top-notch bait.
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| Fathers day Daga |
We headed out to the ledge and
put out a few dead baits. The deep one was not out long when we had a pull. My
Dad took the rod and had a bit of a tussle, but nothing to write home about.
After a few head nods, the fish came up and eventually popped up next to the
boat. It was a big yellowbelly rockcod of around 15kg. It had a bit of
barotrauma, so I made a small hole in the swim bladder with a bait needle and
waited until the air had escaped before releasing a healthy fish.
The current was really strong so
we ran north a fair distance before setting the lines. Despite going over some
beautiful showings, we never had a pull. This quiet spell went on for a while
until I sent a bait right to the bottom. As the showing came through, the deep
line went on with a nice fish that bumped a lot, but didn’t take much line. My Dad
pulled the fish in pretty quickly and to our surprize, a lovely daga salmon
came up. We took a quick pic and put it back in the water. I was busy preparing
a tag when the fish kicked hard and managed to get free from my Dad’s grip. To
our surprise, it headed straight down without any assistance. Was good to see a
healthy fish swim away.
The rest of the day went by
without a pull, other than a few more small bonito so at 1pm we upped lines and
headed back home.
