NSW 21/11/12 Cockatoo Island - Searching for Kingie

[nbh00d]

I'm sure everyone is as curious as me wanting to find out how is Cockatoo Island doing with Kingie. Therefore, I have decided to go for a spin and abandon my original plan at Camp Cove. Jeffen from AKFF has provided tons of insights into his local waterway and much of my appreciation goes to him. Anyhow... here's my side of the story....

I launched today at more than one hour later than as schedule after having some issues with sounders and batteries. Mine has the connection plug corroded and my mate's battery has no juice. So no sounders for both of us and we have to rely on birds. This makes it difficult for both of us as we have never been in this waterway before so have no clues on structures and the water depth.

Once we get to front of Cockatoo Island, we scan around the water and can see a few group of birds sorta working on something. After casting soft plastics there and having tails bitten off I can confidently say those bloody chopper tailors are here!!! (I seriously need to get some z-mans) There are small swirl actions happening from time to time but sadly we didn't come at the right time to witness those massive surface action.

I made the switch to cast out a few different rapala x-raps in a range of depths in an attempt to search for their holding positions (Damn it's sux to be without sounder :-x). Finally I hooked on to something powerful and it leaps out of water, literally right next to my yak. It is definitely not my pb but it is so FAT and thick across the shoulder. For some reason I lost my cool and was doing those early celebration thingy. I was yelling across to my mate telling him to come over quickly. I took my eyes off the line for around 5 secs and next thing I know the line went slack. I couldn't believe I made a rookie error and yes... the fish is gone. I have caught tons of sambo before but this one was thick as!!! It was also the first fish we were able to hook up so I definitely wasn't too happy .

The next hour or so we spent around looking for schools and any signs of life. We can see school of birds there and here but it was hard to work out whether there are actually anythings underneath. We decided to go back to the original spot and change tactics to use fresh squid strips. Finally my mate hook onto something powerful. He screamed across to me and I turned my head and saw his rod buckle like crazy. His reel just kept peeling lines so fast that there is nothing he can do. It dives straight down and reefed him without any mercy. KING!!! we both agreed there are kingies around it's just hard to entice them for a bite.

The next 30mins we spent focus on using fresh squids but all we got was some pan sized snappers... no kings . In my view, If we have got there before sunrise then should able to see those classic birds diving and massive surface feeding actions. The water went quiet as usual when the sun starting to be right on top of us. If anyone is going there I will suggest bringing as much different lures & baits as possible to have a wide range of options at your hands. The kingies are there, it's just maybe due to the overstock in food supply they are bloody fussy eaters. Anyhow, it is a great experience seeing these pelagics exist in this part of the system and I'm sure I will have better luck next time. Next time, I will definitely get my sounder ready, be there during the sunrise/sunset period and arm myself with more lures & squids. Speaking of squids, it is time for me to do some bait collection as running out of supply .

Edited November 21, 2012 by nbh00d

[reubs]

Definitely sounds like a fun day out on the water