Where do lost floats end up?

[stormy]

Someone mentioned N.Z. I will keep a look out in March, as I will be there for a couple of weeks.

Had a relatively early start this morning (for me anyway - Whispering Jack goes for a swim at 5am, nuts) getting away at 6am. Arrived out the coast about 7am, to find two boys already fishing there. They got up at 3.30am to go fishing. What's wrong with the youth of today??? The swell was forecast to be around 0.5m, but it was more than that and made the ledge a bit tricky. Found out that five men are too many for this possie when there is a bump on the water and no wind for a drift. Anyhow, we managed but a 6th arrival saw him turn around and fish a rock to the north. Bob cast out and hooked in almost right away, landing a nice fish of around 40cm. That was to be his one and only for the session. He had a strange day, losing two floats and a bit of gear. Standing too far back off the edge and letting his line drop onto the rocks was the problem. John got two fish and lost a float as well as some gear. Some of the larger swells hammered into the rocks and we all got thoroughly drenched several times. Steve and Sam, the bikkie boys, managed a dozen or so fish between them and went off to fish the blue hole, doing quite well up there too. I don't know how many they ended up with, but they always do good. I was fishing a rod length under the fixed float and getting baited consistently, with no indication of a take, so decided to fish only 1m under the float and started to get regular downs. Told the boys the fish were feeding high, but they didn't improve on their bags. I ended up with 11 fish and dropped a half dozen trying to land them in the tricky swell conditions. It was right on the cusp of deciding to fish inside waters or being very cautious in the current ones. It was a glorious day out there and the water was perfect, but the fish were being a bit coy. Overall though, when the catch was tallied, there were around 30 fish landed by the five anglers and more were added by the two boys from west of the black stump, when they moved over to the blue hole.

A pic of my fish. I released one to grow a bit and fight another day. Promised a couple of friends some fillets, so kept the 10.

Edited January 21, 2013 by stormy

[Guest hawkesbass]

Good day out stormy as for the floats there is certain ledges i find them washed up on after a big southerly swell has subsided generally clean with up about $100 worth off all types off floats.

[jkm1667]

Nice report stormy and some really nice looking fillets there.

well done as usual.

[elferoz777]

Nice work!

I hope to get out and give it a go this weekend.

[bharris]

nice work. use to wonder about the floats to till i fished bass pt havent had to buy any floats since that was 2 years ago

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Tapatalk 2

[seacow]

You must be using one hell of a knive there cause those fillets look like they are ready for a sushi table.

[Ron Howes]

Talking about floats, the bait shops dont seem to supply a suitable design, either they are to short or they are too boyant and require too much lead, my question to you is where do you source your floats from?

When in NZ if you are travelling up to the Bay of Islands check out Kerikeri lagoon beside the old store building just up to the right where the roadbridge crosses over the fresh water stream that flows into saltwater lagoon. The size of the blackfish there was unbelievable(Estimated 4-6kg) feeding on the moss on rocks below stream. When I was there in October 2 years ago I was touring and had no blackfishing gear and it was Sunday afternoon and no fishing shops were open where I would have brought a rod and reel and I was booked to fly out the next day. The locals call them Parore and are considered the undesireable like mullet as their staple diet is snapper as they are so readily available. The professionals dont net them.

Also in past years when fishing the coast I used to catch the wide mouth sea blackfish after a big southerly bump, the widemouthed fish on your posted pictures so far displayed have not cropped up, do you often strke them now?

When younger I used to holiday at North Stradbroke in Morton Bay and catch these sea blackfish with wide mouth at Amity breakwall where they came in in shoals to breed in August and September.

Howsy.

[stormy]

I generally make my own floats. I have a small source of cane stems and virgin, unused champaign corks. Yes we often get a few wide mouth luderick in our catch. The flesh tends to be 'rubbery' at times, so when I select which ones to kill for a feed, the wide mouths usually get released. In saying that, I have also had wide mouths which have been moist and perfect when cooked. I have tried to find out if these are a sub species, with no luck.

[piratesgold]

During an afternoons drifting off Bass Point i picked up about 8 floats, mostly with the rigg still on. I guess they were either bad knots, or casting with the bale arm down (we've all done that ay) also picked some off the shore along there, along with some nice lures, in amongst the blue bottles. someone will find the one i lost there on saturday, yep bale arm again, pertwack! lol

[mangonui]

I grew up in mangonui about an hour north of keri Keri,Blackfish or (parore) are regard as a pest to net fisherman and generally are not targeted

as they are regard as one of the less better eating fish readily available,i use to bycatch a hundred at time sometimes in my flounder net when we got big tides

and they came into the shallow water,some of those were easily 6kg to my memory.

Vaughn.

[stormy]

Bail arm???? What's that? Oh I remember, that's the thing on a reel which isn't designed for blackfish haha.

[jkm1667]

Vaughn 6 kg blackfish, are you refering to luderick ?.

They would have to be huge.

[stormy]

Well, they have the same scientific name and genus details, so one can only assume that they are the same fish. Might see if I can spot one or two in a couple of months time.

[mangonui]

forgive me for being wrong I thought they were the same fish,yes they were luderick.

[mangonui]

Actually,can someone clarify,I have thought for my whole life blackfish were luderick??

[Guest hawkesbass]

Both names are correct they were named blackfish instead off the non politicaly correct term they were known as

[luderick -angler]

They are the same fish parore in nz and luderick here! If you draw a line across the north island found north commonly from Napier and taranaki occasionally as far south as the kapiti coast I used to target them in the Auckland area north on fly gear! And they get as big as 5 kilo they do though look bigger! Hope that clears it up from an Aussie that spent five years on the north island!!!!

[mangonui]

thats what i thought,Im an ex pat kiwi that spent 13 years living in the far north deck handing and commercial fishing flounder so i didnt think I was mistaken.

i had plenty of cut fingers in my time from there razor sharp gills getting them out of my nets!!