Long Reef 4/11/07

[PPSGT]

Hi Raiders,

Fished today with a fellow Raider today Stipo and two of our mates - After checking the

weather the decision was made to go in one boat, so we headed out to Long Reef armed with

three bags of servo pillies and high expectations of catching some big spawning snapper,

we arrived at our first drop to find it covered in

slimies between 30-35cm. None of our burley was getting to the bottom, so after we filled the live bait tank with fresh bait we moved out to some deeper water - where a Fishraider potential record Sgt Baker was landed ( and released ), with no other bites we moved into 40 feet of water to target the snapper.

A burley trail of pillie cubes was set and the big wait was on.. 500 metres North of us there was a heap

of boats all around the same spot, but we persisted with our little ledge hoping to land a red.

Stipo floated out half a slimy and hooked up solid on a good red - but a short time into the fight,

a suspect knot or leader failure ended the battle prematurely and so I spent the next 1 hour given him plenty about all the things he did wrong, all the things i would have done right, its was his fault our day was ruined, and what ever else we could make up to make him feel worse.

My next bait was floated out a 30cm whole slimy with a 8/0 hook ready for big red.

10 minutes later, in true big red style the line screams off and then dropped, I picked up the rod and

waited for the second run - after letting it run and hoping its swallowed the slimy I set the hook

the rod loads up and the my first big NSW snapper is all but in the bag - the rod I was using had bagged

plenty of reds in the 6-8kg range, but this fish was a battle to stop, and considering the bait size and pulling

power this fish was easily in the 10kg+ bracket.

The fish swum around the back of the boat, then headed back under, against better judgment I thought

I had him beat and instead of walking it around the motor, kept fighting it under the boat until the inevitable happens - the keel cuts through the braid and its gone. Seems like Karma got back at me

for paying out Stipo so much, and the fish that should have been landed swum off to it freedoms.

A great day was had by all - water temp was 20 degrees and there was heaps of bait and

no leather jackets. We saw a couple of whales, and bagged the usual trevally, sweep, wrasse and rock

cods while waiting for the snapper, by now it was 11am and the snapper we well and truly out of the shallow

water so we headed home.

Jason

[sanger]

Better luck next time guys!!!!! Ill give you the tip that pittwater was very quiet this morning so a bit of snapper action off longreef sounds like a good place to be this morning!

[gretsch]

The old braid around the keel trick eh!! Don't you hate that!

Seems like you had a reasonable day all the same.