Botany Bay Session 17.03.11

quintrex480 · March 18, 2011

Hi Raiders, been a while since my last post, as reporting on rats, rats and more rats becomes a bit mundane. But had a day off yesterday and decided to hit the bay. Checked out seabreeze on Wednesday night and a nice 5-10 knots for the morning picking up to around 15 in the arvo. Boy was it wrong!, got to the ramp at 6am, and it was blowing at least 20knots SE.

Had a chat to a couple of old folks who were contemplating going home, but I wasn't going to be deterred

The plan was to try and get some squid and then hit the Kings, and then maybe some bream afterwards. Heading out straight into the wind with about a 1-1.5m swell, felt like I was in an episode of deadliest catch but again, this was not going to deter me!

Hit Yarra Bay for the squid, knowing that this was going to be a really tough! took a few goes to even get the anchor to hold. 30 mins into it, nothing, when usually I'd have a few in the live well already, then I tried Egimax which was suggested to me from a mate at work and believe it or not, first cast, I get a little nudge, but it doesn't stick, left it there for a couple of seconds, and it hits again, this time it sticks, WOOHOO! a couple of casts later, I am onto another. After about an hour of squidding with 2 in the well, decided to hit the Kings, it was really eerie at Mollie Point being the only boat there when there is usually at least 100 . Landed 5 rats and 1 just legal at 66cm, wasn't too bad.

All out of squid, I decided to head for the breams with an arsenal of prawns, chicken, bonnie fillets and pillies. Now where to try, the SE was still blowing pretty hard, so the only option was around Kurnell. Anchored up (a lot easier this time with a lot less wind and swell), and burleyed up. 3 rods out each with a different bait, straight away the bonnie fillet gets hits, nice solid 30cm bream. Then it was on, for about the next 2 hrs, pulled up 5 flatties, all around the 45cm mark. 8 bream (30-42cm), 5 trevally, 4 tarwine, 1 flounder.

On the way back to the ramp, decided to try the old runway for a little, picked up a few under size bream, then the little ugly stick is bent over backwards and line starts to peel off the little Capricorn 1500. First thing that came to mind was possibly a jewie, picked the rod up and it stops, gave it a strike and it's running again. There was no way I was going to have enough line to get this thing in, but with some patience and a lot of luck I start getting some line back. After what seemed like ages, I start to see colour and to my disappointment it was just a ray but also glad that I got to see what it was.