Benzeenees Posted September 10, 2011 Share Posted September 10, 2011 (edited) Headed out around 11am having driven down from Wamboin. Surprised to see that the water temperature had dropped to between 14.8C and 15C. It was 17.6C ten days earlier. No evidence of any bonito but as we motored on to the reef off Moruya Heads (the depth drops abruptly from 30m to 17m) John's lure was hit by something energetic. Turned out to be a snook or sea pike about 85cm long. Then he got its brother (or sister). Clearly they were preferring his red rapala to my green and orange one. After that we picked up 2 barracouta or snoek. Headed a few km further south and collected 5 good flathead in 40m, along with a mowie and a small snapper. As the wind picked up the drift became too fast so we headed back. Next day we were out early. Once again no bonito, but we landed some more coutas as we crossed the reef. Lots of fish showing on the sounder so we dropped down some baits. Wrasse - there must have been thousands of them with a few 20cm snapper mixed in. Headed out to the 50m mark to try for flathead or other bottom fish. Found a patch of mixed tigers and blue spot flathead - mostly between 40cm and 50cm - good fish, very nice fillets. Water temperature was a bit higher - around 15.5C. Also picked up a snapper and a couple of mowies a bit further out in 65m of water. We read that Victorians reckon coutas are OK to eat so we took 4 home and salted the rest and the snook for bait. I steamed the coutas to make fishcakes. Talk about long fine bones! Tasted OK though. Hearing this John decided his 2 would become bait. Later I read that snook (sea pike) are a top eating fish. And we used ours for bait! Still, we had plenty of good flathead fillets. Edited September 10, 2011 by Benzeenees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brettmann86 Posted September 10, 2011 Share Posted September 10, 2011 Couta's fresh bled quickly and put on ice straight away and battered are quite nIce not in the top 5 but definitely in the hIgh 20's Good report too mate I'm in viccy now might have to make a Pitt stop tomorrow ha ha ha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benzeenees Posted September 10, 2011 Author Share Posted September 10, 2011 how do you handle all those bones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brettmann86 Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 With great perseverance lol.. That's all I can say Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benzeenees Posted September 13, 2011 Author Share Posted September 13, 2011 Forgot to mention the surprise of the day - trolling in 17m of water with a lure 6m down I picked up 2 large Sgt Bakers. Didn't fight much - felt like a big chunk of weed. But I thought they were bottom dwellers. Obviously not! Having just read the thread in "The Kitchen", I may have to try eating the next big one I catch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now