Monday 29 June 2015

All the gear, no idea

I’ve been enjoying sunny Europe for the best part of a month and I tell ya what, I haven't missed these cold Melbourne mornings. They're certainly a far cry from the beaches of Barcelona:



I was quite content with my decision not to bring a little travel rod overseas until I explored a few of the country areas around Berlin:




I saw some big fish smashing the surface in these areas and by the time I got back to Melbourne, I was well and truly hanging for a fish. Luckily, the day I got back my mate asked me if I wanted to spend a weekend game fishing in Bermagui - pope bloody catholic?!

I’ve done a bit of game fishing up north, but I’m far from an expert. My mates had fished in Eden and Bermagui for the first time a few weeks ago and had managed to land an estimated 70-80kg striped marlin on an 8k stradic and 10-15kg terez, along with a couple of small tuna and a heap of rat kings. It’s safe to say that they well and truly caught the game fishing bug, and had proceeded to turn my mate’s 21 foot Trophy Pro into a game fishing machine. This included fitting it out with a brand new hard top, outriggers, a simrad NSS12, a radar, a spankin new 150hp mercury four-stroke, five new tiagras and custom game rods, and more lures than you could shake a stick at:



This was to be the first time fishing with all the new gear, so it’s safe to say we were pretty bloody excited! I met up with the lads about 6pm Friday evening and after a gruelling 7hr drive, we arrived at the Eden boat ramp and set up camp:



We were up before the sun the next morning and were greeted with a beaut sunrise:



The plan was to head straight to the shelf and troll all day:



But 6 bumpy hours later we hadn’t had had a sniff. We had a brief moment of excitement when we saw a flock of birds, until we realised they were just following this trawler:



After some um’ing and ah’ing, we decided to cut our losses and head to Greencape to try and catch a king:



So we swapped the overhead gear for spin outfits:



And started trolling some small skirts around while looking for bait, ready to drop our jigs down at the first sign of fish on the sounder. But 2 hours later we still hadn’t had a touch, and as the sun went down we had no choice but to reluctantly head back in - fishless:



So after cleaning the gear and smashing a parma at the local, we hit the road enroute to Bermagui. We decided to spend the night at a rest stop just out of town, and after a good nights sleep we were met with a beautiful, foggy morning:



We immediately jumped in the car and after some mint scenery:



We arrived at the Bermagui boat ramp:



After reaching our mark we again set up the spread and started fishing. But 5 hours later we again hadn’t had a touch, nor seen any sign of life except for a pod of dolphins who kept us company and broke the monotony:



With only a few hours of fishing time left for the weekend, we made the decision to head to Montague Island and try for kings:



After jigging for an hour with no luck, we decided to drop the sabiki’s down and collect some live bait. But all we could manage were an assortment of ooglies:






By this stage we were running out of ideas, until my mate suggested we cut our losses and go drift for flatties. The bite was hot from the beginning and we managed 30 good sized flatties on placcies between the four of us in only an hour and a half (we kept nothing under 40cm):




There was also a lot of cool by-catch to keep us entertained:




With the light rapidly disappearing, we left them biting and headed in to shore and were again met with a beautiful sunset:



So we spent thousands of dollars on fishing gear for a bag of flatties ha. Not the triumphant trip we'd envisaged, but we still had a sick one. All the gear, no idea!

Cheers!