Southerly Goes Rock Fishing 28/7/07

[southerly]

Having not been rock fishing since buying the yak late last year, the temptation of hard fighting pigs was too much. With a warm winters morning, a high tide and calm sea's it was my kind pig fishing fantasy.

Got to North Curl Curl car park in the dark and headed out to the pool armed with ab gut, pippies and bread. A dead flat sea greeted me, it was a tad too flat but made for less wet and less stressfull fishing (my favourite spot is very exposed!).

Started a berly trail and got on with it. First 10 fish were all cockies, then a school of big black fish moved in and started smashing the bread on the surface, a couple of missed hook ups and I had a 40cm fish on the deck, a few more missed hook-ups and it went quiet for a while as the sun came up.

The cockies were driving me nuts so I swapped to bread exclusively to get away from them. A little while later the backies were back smashing the berly and I hooked up again, this one going 41cm. I also landed two small pigs around 35cm on bread. I kept the blackies for a nice feed and released the pigs. On skinning the blackfish the blood lines were very dark in colour even by blackfish standards.

Sadly no big pigs today, not even a bump from one, there was one huge boil under the berly that may of been a big pig but I did not connect with it. The blackies were a great consellation prize though their fighting ability on pig gear (15lb Maxima, 6in Alvey and old Butterwoth MT6144L) is pretty minimal. I get so may backfish while pig fishing at day break that I have often wondered how blackfish gear at that time of morning would go, I guess I would hook up to a big pig and it would be all over.

It was such a clear and peacefull morning it made me yet again realise this is one of the greatest places on earth.

Cheers,

Southerly

Edited July 28, 2007 by southerly

[Kiwi Dan]

Nice report Southerly, good feed for the day also.

cheers

Kiwi Dan

[Novicefisherman]

nice pair of fish there, il be happy with em both....

[luderick59]

nice pair of fish there, il be happy with em both....

nice size blackies

peter

[Penguin]

Nice Luderick there Southerly, enjoy ur feed.

penguin

[coastspinna]

we are gettin the same on central coast pigs round 35 and blackfish around 38-41..... the blackies are nice fun but where are the BiG PIGs?

don't you eat drummer?? i would eat them over blackfish any day

well done

flatty fanaticcc

[southerly]

don't you eat drummer?? i would eat them over blackfish any day

well done

flatty fanaticcc

Hey FF,

I eat both, I caught the black fish first and had elected to bleed them rather than swim them in the rock pool as Pelicans were a problem last year, so I had enough of a feed when I got the pigs. I agree that small pigs make sweet eating.

Southerly

[coastspinna]

Hey FF,

I eat both, I caught the black fish first and had elected to bleed them rather than swim them in the rock pool as Pelicans were a problem last year, so I had enough of a feed when I got the pigs. I agree that small pigs make sweet eating.

Southerly

cool....

swimming drummer or blackfish in a rockpool is a recipe for disaster hey.....

wd again...

if it wasn't for the rockfishing my rods would be out of use til november

[arpie]

Well done Southerly! Nice looking fish. Fun to catch too.

I had a problem with a pelican yesterday - he nearly attacked me! I had to cut the head off the fish then & There to give to him as he wasn't going away till he got something!! His beak was about 5cm away from me!

Cheerio

Roberta

[tyrone07]

Hey mate have had quite a few sunrise sessions on Blackies, not for a while and we always land quite

few. The key is burley as you have been doing, we use a fine sand and the weed we are using and throw

this into the wash and onto the barnicles, and works well as the wash moves it around. Have seen some suprising bycatch including a salmon on luderick gear and have had kings chase the hooked blackfish right up to the rocks. Pigs are always a challenge but good fun.

[southerly]

Hey mate have had quite a few sunrise sessions on Blackies, not for a while and we always land quite

few. The key is burley as you have been doing, we use a fine sand and the weed we are using and throw

this into the wash and onto the barnicles, and works well as the wash moves it around.

Thanks for the hints Tyrone.

Southerly