Gaff99

Gidday Raiders, 1st post so hope it comes out alright. After getting a heap of information on kingy fishing from Fishraider its time I contributed a report! Headed out in the harbour to chase kings on Sunday just passed. The plan was to get some yakkas before the sun came up and chase some squid after that. Arrived at tunks at 5.30 to launch and straight off to get some yakkas. With 10 in the live bait tank by sun up I was off to get some squid. Only managed 1 at my usual producers on the way to the main harbour. They were doing the annoying follow but would not take the jig. The next spot was better with 7 or so coming on board in the next hour. With enough bait for a quick morning fish I was strait to a harbour marker that has produced legal kings the last 2 trips. As I pulled up I looked in the live bait will to see just black…. All except 1 squid was dead due to excessive ink in the water. Put this live squid down a few meters from the marker and drifted away with the incoming tide. 30 seconds passed and the saltist started to scream. After 3 or 4 minutes up pops a nice 94cm King. Very happy with the start I made my way back to the marker to go again…. This time it was a whole fresh squid deployed. After about a minute the saltist starts to sing again and this time it is not stopping like the other fish. Turned up the drag to stop it getting back to the marker and managed to turn its head. This fish had a lot more weight to it. After a few minutes of fighting the fish I was getting dangerously close to the other boats that had anchored up so it was time to get the pull start tiller steer up and running to avoid bust off on the other boats anchor ropes. This is good in theory but quite hard to do whilst connected to a big king…. I almost went over with one of the runs. Managed to get a bit of distance between the other boats to continue the battle. Made it to the wind on leader… After a few more seconds I see my first ever hoodlum appeared… It measured in at 113cm. I went back for another go and sure enough the fresh whole squid got nailed again, and the reel starts screaming. This time the hooks pulled after a short battle. Continued a few more drifts for rats until too many boats were anchored to keep drifting. Decided to call it a day, back to the ramp by about 9.30. Nothing interesting to report on the autopsy, just the whole squid in its stomach.