Bonito from Neutral Bay

[ginko]

I've had a conversion to the packed lunch.

Last week I bought a new beachrod and blew my budget by a wide margin, so I thought I'd make up for it by packing my own lunch rather than buying a sando for oh, say, a few weeks.

The unexpected upside: no need to buy sando = freedom to go to waters edge at lunch, no need to wait for someone to prepare sando = a few more minutes free time.

So I jumped in the car and hit Neutral Bay. I found great conditions for a quick spin: moderate breeze, clear water, and a falling tide (I was at a point next to deep water, not the flats at the north end of the bay), sunshine with a touch of cloud cover.

I wolfed down my lunch in record time, grabbed my pliers, broke out the spinning rod, and started sending out a 35 gram silver metal lure. The lure was tied to a loop on the end of 6kg mono trace, and then a swivel and 8kg braid. The casts were going out a huge distance and I retrieved at high speed with the lure waggling along across the surface, moving well in the loop of the trace. I didn't attempt to give to much extra movement on top of the natural movement of the metal lure, just kept the reel spinning at a pretty even pace with just a slight pull on the rod tip from time to time.

5 casts in, and Bang! I'm on. Bonnies are great fun to catch land based: he raced all over the shop, left and right of me, rising to the surface and then diving to the depths. I got him up, dispatched him, a quick pic, into the bucket, a quick stop to buy some ice (much faster than buying a sando)and back to work.

A classic scene as I walked back to the car: there was a mum and her ~5 year old daughter walking down the pavement opposite me. The daughter spotted the beautiful fish in my hand and stared at it as she walked along. Her mum's gaze alternated between looking at her daughter's looking at the fish, and just looking at the fish herself. The mum smiled at me, I smiled back... and the daughter just kept walking and staring at the fish, and then she walked full tilt into a recycling bin left out on the pavement for rubbish day. Thankfully, the daughter was fine, and laughed at herself and went off with her mum talking about "that nice fish".

thanks, packed lunch!

In the pic, my beach tackle bag (best purchase this year), my serious pliers, the 35g lure is visible on the rod, and the bonito(some 40cm).

[SCOTTYB]

Very Cool story.

[J Hooked]

Great report

Love those Bonnies.

[CarlRak]

Great read. Congrats.

[Keflapod]

Hey Ginko,

Mate what a story.

It all happened for you - lunches, fish, mums and their fisho-daughters...

I reckon that the lesson to be taken away is that if you wore bonito-coloured clothing and walked with a bonito in your hands,

the daughter would stare at the fish, the mum would stare at you and they would BOTH walk into the recycle bin !

LOL....Give it a go next time....

Just kidding mate - great story, great catch and yes you will need to catch fish like this for a few weeks to cover the broken budget...

I'm sure you'll be happy to do this again a few more times...

Cheers.

Tony

[redpump]

Nice report! I love how you told the story, great that you can duck out for a fish during lunch time (I am very envious!!)

Beautiful Bonito, I can see why the girl was mesmerised .

[finallyOnline]

What a great report,i was cracking up when i heard the kid went into the bin,glad the kid's alright though....