First Hookup - Lost Fish!

[Andy Loops]

Hey raiders,

Rather than hijack the double bimini thread I thought I would post a seperate report.

Easter weekend I took the wife and kids up to Port Stephens to stay with family at Salamander Bay. Convinced the old man that we have to secure all loose items in the big Riv and get out wide to the warm water. Checked the SST's and saw a great temp break right on the 200m line due East of Port.

The old boy has his rig decked out with 12kg Penn Steeltip rods and Daiwa Sealine 600 jigging reels spooled with 50 pound braid. These reels are pretty much bullet-proof but having never really used one before I wasnt sure of their suitability for this kind of fishing..

Anyway, we picked up some big Slimies off one of the islands first thing Sunday morning and off we went to find the warm water.. The way out we crossed a large pool of 19.2 degree green but as soon as we approached the 200m mark the temp jumped steadily right up to 24.5 degrees with the warm current slopping up the 2-2.5m swell. We set the spread at 23 degrees and within 10 minutes we are hooked up to a decent fish! Slimy Mackeral coloured lure on the short corner got hit.

A couple of jumps right at the back of the boat gave us a good look at the fish and then it dived deep - stripping line very quickly.. I had set the drag on the reels at 4.5kg's the night before (rough estimate at 1/3rd braid strength) but this was not putting any hurt on the fish at all... I made the schoolboy error of adding another half kilo drag with a couple of clicks of the star and ping - the braid popped. I am not sure if this was due to a nick in the braid, me adding a half kilo more drag, or a dodgy knot - but it is something that we are thinking long and hard about...

(I admit I am a newbie to this sort of fishing so any pointers with regards to drag / at what point increasing drag becomes an option - would be appreciated)

We reckon it was around 60-80kg's - surprised the hell out of us as its our first hookup to one of these beauties!! ... Really gave us a schooling in tackle and the integrity of the connections - knots, crimps, etc.. Next time we head out I will be spooled up with quality mono as suggested by Warnie and will be triple checking all knots and connections as we DONT want to lose the next fish!

This was the first time the Old man had been wide fishing with me and I was stoked to see how excited he was when the fish was jumping at the back of the boat - he couldnt believe his eyes! The next morning he called me up and just said - Andy - I cant stop thinking about that fish getting away - we have to get back out there I think that is a great result!

We trolled around for another hour or two but no interest... That was our only slimey coloured lure so we switched to the livebait - nothing.

Headed in buzzing from our first close encounter with this majestic fish.

All in all a very memorable Easter Sunday! Cant wait to get back out there!

[sanger]

Nice one andy!!! i was half way through the thread and was thinking to myself trolling with braid, theres the first problem, Then kept reading on down to the part where you have been listening to the wise words of warnie!!!! Keep doing that and im sure you will soon be catching instead of just watching!!!! Congrats on raising the fish in the first place and being in the right water at the right time....Got to love it when a temp break is about 4 or 5 degrees.... kind of makes the whole find the break thing a bit easier!