Went out today with 2 of my mates @JamoDamo and Oliver to try and land a jewfish. We’ve persisted at this particular spot for months now with no luck on jews, only bicatch and eels, until this morning in the pouring rain.
We arrived at the spot at around 9:35am. We began to set up all of our gear as well as defrosting the yellowtail which we had planned on using for bait. After setting everything up I picked up my soft plastics rod and had a flick. Thought to myself “may as well do something while I wait for the bait to defrost”. Anyways about midway through the retrieve on the first cast I went to give my plastic another 2 hops and I felt weight. At first I thought I was snagged but then it started peeling out drag. As soon as it made that run I knew it was a jewy.
After a few short runs and a few head shakes I had a tired jewy at my feet. I slowly guided the fish in towards Oliver who slipped the net under the fish. Finally! After many Jewless sessions we had finally landed our target. High fives all round. He measured 77cm and weighed about 4kg or so.
This jewy was special. Not only was it my first jewfish on a soft plastics it was also my first landbased jewfish, new PB Jew (77cm from 70cm) and it was caught in the first cast. It’s a fish I’m going to remember for long time.
For the rest of the session, jamo had landed a 27cm bream and a 42cm flathead as well as losing a fish that we think was a solid bream or trevally. Unfortunately Oliver did not get a fish. Despite this it was a great day out fishing with the boys.