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Persistence pays off...


jim77

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After a few average trips of late I was planning to fish early and give it a real go for some decent Kings.

Things didn't quite go to plan due to my son keeping me up all night so i eventually got on the water about 1pm. I was hoping to go outside but after chatting to another bloke at the ramp who told me it was pretty sloppy i decided i would just try the harbour.

My first plan was to catch some Gars. After 30 mins without seeing one i gave up on that.

Next plan - catch some slimies. Fail again!

So the humble yakka it was - although they were a much better size today than the horse ones that seem to have been the norm!

Downrigged a couple of spots with Yakkas. Masses of bait showing and just as i'm thinking how can there not be any Kings aorund my rod starts screaming!

Those who have fished with me know that i run pretty heavy drag... This thing was taking line in a big way. I finally managed to get the rod out of the holder and get a few winds on the reel. I tried to get the downrigger bomb up out of the way but there was no chance of that as the fish took another screaming run and pulled me up against the rail.

Lucky for me the fish went to the other side of the boat and the fight was pretty much straight up and down. I knew from the amount of drag it was pulling that it was a decent fish... Luckily i was over sand so i was fairly confident that it couldn't bust me off on anything. After a really decent tussle i finally got it up near the boat. It still had enough energy for one more run when it saw me peering down at him but i knew i had him beat.

When i got it to the surface i quickly spotted that it was only just hooked on the outside of the mouth. I got it in the net first shot and just as i did the hook fell out!! I quickly hoisted it into the boat and gave myself a high five.

Tape measure straight out. 114cm and a very fat well conditioned fish.

Phoned a couple of mates to gloat :blah: and then got the fish on ice. Motored back around to where i got the hit and put another bait down. Still lots of bait aorund but no more action.

Got back to the ramp where Andrew (Fishmaniac) was good enough to come down and take some pics for me. (I'm very superstitious and don't take a camera) He's going to post them later.

Weighed the fish when i got home 12.8kg bled (lets call it 13 :-) ) Its guts were full of yakkas.

I have caught much bigger fish in NZ but they don't count right... Any mug can catch a 20kg Kingy in NZ - so i increased my Sydney PB from 107 to 114cm. I would have preferred to catch it on a jig but still great fun!Slowly closing in on 120cm and maybe that elusive 20kg fish....

A weird/slow season for Kings but there definitely seems to be bigger numbers of better fish.

Get out there and get into them.

Cheers

Jim

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Nice work Jim. You are right, with a bit of persistance, you do manage to get them when things are quite. Would of been such a buzz reeling it in.

Landing a 120cm fish in sydney is pretty hard work. I have only ever managed one and he definitly had me on the bottom at one stage and it took another mate to help me lift him off the bottom on sunset.

Hope you enjoyed ever moment of that fish, they are a ball of fun.

Squidboy

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So... envious Jim, thought you`d gone off fishraider with the lack of post but cant blame ya for the super slow start to the season. Funny how you equal Andrews sydneys PB but a fatter ( Sorry Drew) Always feels good to smash a PB...u deserve it :thumbup:

Edited by Dangler7
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Know how you feel Jim. My metre plus kingie took me 18 months of persistance, everytime we go out i'd be the first to drop my jig down and i'd drop every single drift, frustrating at times but it finally paid off.

I agree with the NZ theory, getting 20kg+ kingies over there is the norm.

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