First King for the summer

[The Poacher]

Merry Christmas Raiders,

Had a crack at the kings about 2 weeks ago with no joy whatsoever. But the reports on FishRaider were pretty consistent, and with a good forecast thought we would have a crack yesterday. Went up to our usual spot, a shallow inshore reef, and work it for an hour with livies for one rat. So went to a deeper reef, but no one home. Finally, tried a headland I have driven past for years. There was a school of yellowtail on the surface and it felt fishy. Had a solid king (prob 80 plus) follow the second cast on the soft plastic to the boat, but it didnt hookup. So stuck the livies out. Here is the embarassing part. 10 minutes later I was on the floor cleaning up some of the assorted crap, when I heard a noise that I thought was the bilge pump having a heart attack, but no, it was my rod double over with line crackling off. The fish went nuts, and I was only in 5 metres of water, after a couple of shortish runs I got it up, and was quite surprised to see a relatively modest king (73cm) come up. No world beater but was really happy to catch one after a couple of lean summers on them inshore. 10 minutes later the unweighted livie was smashed off the surface in a spectacular strike. We were expecting a king, but were surprised to see an absolute horse of a bonito come up. He went 73cm as well, but was like twice as fat as the king. He went straight on the ice as well!

Was a great feeling to pull a couple of fish just before coming home. Cant wait to get out again.

Merry Christmas all,

The Poacher

[A.dawg]

That bonito is a cracker

[bharris]

Yeah big bonnie

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Tapatalk 2

[Formosan]

Well done poacher. What livies did you use?

[whittley580]

Great feed there....that Bonnito would have been fun doing the tango with !!!

Hey what method were you employing with the livies..? eg drifting with a livey down deep and one on the surface ?., or downrigging,..squid/yellowtail ?

thanks

Edited December 23, 2012 by whittley580

[The Poacher]

It was so shallow we had one yellowtail unweighted and the other with a 4 ounce sinker and was slow trolling them. Got one fish on each. The surface takes on the unweighted yakka were unreal. The bonito attacked the yakka - big splashes, lots of noise - it was cool,

The Poacher

[shak4g63]

Nice work bro, that Bonnie put that kingy to shame

Tight lines,

Shakeel

[rjc123]

What a Bonnie

Kings good too

Good to see your getting into them. I'll have to do the same ASAP!

Cheers, Tom

[erroll]

Nice work there mate. I love it that the strikes happen when you are diverted by something else. a distracting phone call has been a good trigger for a hit on more than one occasion!

Well done..

[whittley580]

Thanks Poacher.....hope we can get amongst the fish in the coming weeks...

Edited December 23, 2012 by whittley580

[innovative]

Monster bonnie there Poacher, nice to see the kings are finally starting to make there way in close.

Well done mate

[Ray R]

Well done mate and yeah that is one horse of a horsie...

[djbazzab]

Great catch!

Will be heading out tomorrow morning, hopefully I'll get stuck into something similar.

Cheers, Baz.

[tinny1]

It was so shallow we had one yellowtail unweighted and the other with a 4 ounce sinker and was slow trolling them. Got one fish on each. The surface takes on the unweighted yakka were unreal. The bonito attacked the yakka - big splashes, lots of noise - it was cool,

The Poacher

Great stuff mate

[Aqua Naut]

That sure is a cracking Bonito good signs to come if they are around that size means the bigger fish will be close by.

Good job!

[Basil D]

cracking Bonito mate, it puts you just behind my record of 75cm