Browns Mountain 19/11/06

[mako1]

Headed out to browns mountain today to see if we could get into afew tuna and bottom fish.

Tried to get some livies at the drums but we couldn't get passed the trevally so afew of them were

kept for livies.It was quite calm so the trip out was great.The lures went in just before the shelf and we trolled all the way browns without a touch.When we got to browns we saw another boat pull in a small blue eye cod so it looked like there wasn't much current.The winch was rigged and we motered over to one of our marks.The first two drops were met with small bites which were hard to hook so we tried another spot.

The next three drops produced a gemfish on each drop,they wern't huge fish but still very welcome.Then we had a shocker loosing three sinkers in a row.We were down to one sinker so we motered over to a deeper spot and dropped the rig down.It was down for awhile when I got a little bite but I struck anyway and this was met with a big headshaking pull.Dad began to wind it in but he struggled to get the fish up the first few meters due to the powerful headshakes.It was tiring bringing it up as there was a fair bit of weight at the end and the waves were adding extra resistance.Then about 10m from the surface the weight was gone and I pulled an empty rig into the boat.We couldn't believe it loosing a good fish that close to the boat after all the winching.There was afair bit of cursing after that! Then just as I was about to rig up again dad noticed splashing on the surface about 20m away.We motered over and saw that it was the fish that we had lost,its swim bladder had blown and it floated up when the hook pulled.I gaffed it and hauled it in.It was a good blue eye cod at 13.5kg and we were really happy to get it into the boat after thinking we had lost it.

We did one more drop after that and got another gemfish.We were going to cube for tuna after that but as we had a good catch and the NE wind was going to pick up we decided to troll back.About five minutes from browns I got a good hit on a jet head but the hooks pulled mid fight.Then ten minutes later nearing the shelf a pusher goes off.Dad faught the fish and afew minutes later a nice 6kg jellybean was boated.

We trolled on but didn't get anymore hits,so we headed for home.After abit of a slow start it ended up being a great day on the water with a great feed to take home.

[namesay]

That is a pretty good catch. I'd be happy with quality eating fish like that.....by the way have you ever gotten any kings over there?Cheers Kelvin

[inhlanzi]

Another great report Mako

Glad you got that blue eye in the end.

Well done to you and your dad.

cheers

inhlanzi

[harry.dz]

Thumber Blue eye Mako.

Nice gem fish also.

Hazza

[netic]

Great report Mako, some very nice fish

[Flattieman]

Nice report, mate - great catch . Good to see you back on Fishraider.

Flattieman.

[SEAFEARER]

well done mako,you got yourself a great range of quality table fish,water looked pretty good out there yesrterday.

[Guest IFishSick.]

Good Cod mate, goes well with the Gemfish!!

Nice work

[kantong]

great work on winch mate!

[CR@ZY OS@M@]

well done guys on the catch that was lucky you still got to get the fish thought you had lost

[Martin]

Excellent out come guys and a real treat for the BBQ or fry pan. Just add chips Yum!

Cheers

[mako1]

Thanks for the kind words guys.It was really great to get out there again and get into some nice fish.

Namesay It's too deep for kings as it's past the shelf and just under 400m in the shallowest part.

crazedfisherdude you must have been the ones in the blue boat on the ramp,sorry I didn't say hi as I don't know any raiders yet and didn't know you were raiders but I am looking forward to meeting fellow raiders in the near future(hopefully at the next social if I don't have to work)and I have finally gotten round to putting the fishraider stickers on the boat.

Haraka we were using 2.7kg weights but as there was hardly any current on Sunday we could have gone lighter if we had them.We mainly use 13/0 and 14/0 mustad tuna circle hooks but we sometimes use 16/0's.

We use an alvey reef queen with 200lb braid to fish the bottom.I have seen guys use game reels but it's really hard work and you can't drop as many times with the rod and reel compared to a winch unless you are really fit!

The tuna that we caught was full of what looked like lobster larvae(I remember reading about them in a post afew months ago),two tiny squid and three tiny fish.It was feeding on such small food but still hit our 20cm pusher.That was one greedy little fish which bit off more then it could chew.