Port Sephens Sat 08 Nov

[andysinmexico]

G'day guys,

bit of a late post but better late than never.

Managed to get a late notice flex day and was able to take the boat to Port Stephens last friday, with the weather looking perfect for Saturday morning a cunning plan was hatched to head up to Broughton and chase Jewies and snapper on the sponge beds south of the island.

My primary decky (the wife) managed to twang her back so an emergency call was sent out to a few raiders for decky duty without any luck as every one was working (always the way when the weathers perfect) but thanks for the replies guys.

Ended up launching by myself before 4am from soldiers point and headed out to my favourite spot without incident on a beautifully calm sea with next to no wind.

Initially had a lot of trouble anchoring on my marks as the wind and the current were cancelling each other leaving me to do lazy circles around and above my rope. Managed to put a couple of livies down and then started stuffing around with a SP.

As soon as my SP was on the bottom the livies started going nuts !! i quickly dropped the sp rod and checked the first livie, limp nothing there brought it up nothing left, checked the other same deal but the hook was gone also, re-rigged another livie and slowly lowered it poor thing lasted until about 15M from the bottom and then it was gone, the sounder was showing a solid band of something at about this depth so i rigged a couple of long shank hooks with squid and sent them down.

My suspicions were confirmed about 30 seconds later i was on and brought up a bloody chinaman jacket, at this point my sp rig went limp too, tried to perservere for another half an hour but i was donating too much tackle to these mongrels so i pulled the pick and headed wide.

By this stage the sun was up and i could se that the water in close was a green tinge with lots of stingers/jellyfish, water temp was 18.2 in close, i found blue water on the 50 fathom line which was 19.8 degrees but there was still a lot of algae present.

I was able to drift in 50 fathom pretty much straight up and down without the sea anchor i was only going .2 Knots so ideal but just no fish showing on the sounder or taking baits, ended up trying a few known spots on 50 fathom before heading to springers then 3 mile, a flatty spot further west produced spikys, then tried drifts across 21 and outer 21 with no baits lost and ended up back at my original starting spot.

The wind and current were still working against each other but the current had picked up so i dropped the anchor and then put out 2 sea anchors to put some tension on my anchor so i wasn't fishing over it.

This worked but it was still covered in jackets so after an hour i admitted defeat and headed home.

A great day on the water unfortunately lacking in fish, if i had known conditions would be that good/stable it might have been worth a run to Allmark.

Cheers

Andy

[Towlersbay boy]

That's painful mate I've had many a perfect day ruined by jackets !

When their under the boat its the only time I've considered dynamite fishing.

Better luck next time.

[antonywardle]

bugger. I was at Anna bay then and could have popped out.

NO internet/phone reception where I was staying meant

i was uanble to check in.

maybe next time ;-)