Port Hacking River with luck - Saturday 3/1/15

[Tome]

Hey all,

Me, my brother and 2 friends were bored on Saturday so we discussed going for a drive up to Maianbar and back in the boat considering it was a nice sunny day. Last minute decision before heading out, we decided to take 1 rod each and get some prawns and pillies to try out luck - mind you I had already fished Maianbar beach earlier that day by myself (5am-9am) with no keepers (1 octopus, 1 whiting, 3 flathead and 2 puffer fish).

We left the boat ramp from Grays Point at around midday and made our way out to Maianbar. We're all new to boat fishing (my brother recently bought a boat) and using a fish finder so it made the experience interesting. We decided to stop at a location along the way which seemed like a good ground for fish and also showed quite a few fish on the sounder. Stayed there for about 20mins with no luck so moved on.

I then decided to take over the wheel and we travelled further out of the river closer to Maianbar. The sounder looked promising (from what I've been watching on YouTube) so we decided to anchor up.

Within 10mins of dropping our lines in, my friend was on for quite an easy fight - turned out to be a keeper Bream (29cm). Then around 5mins later my other friends reel starts screaming - we're thinking possibly a stingray (very common around there as we've caught plenty land based). After about 5mins of fighting the fish, we start to see colour and other fish coming up with it - it was a Kingy (first one for my friend) - landed, measured at 55cm and returned to fight another day.

Another 5-10mins past and my brothers reel starts screaming away!! Fighting the fish for around 10mins, pulling line, swimming all around and under the boat making it an intense fight for first time boat fishers. As he begins to surface the fish, we see it's another Kingy (first one for him too) - this day is getting better. Landed, measured at 59cm and returned.

Another few minutes and my mate is on again, reel starts screaming!! He grabs his rod and within a few seconds my drag starts going off too! I grab the rod and BUST (I wasn't planning on this - I was using 4lb braid with 6lb mono for some light fishing fun).

My friend is still on and fighting the fish - now we're thinking another Kingy and we're right. Measured in at 58cm and returned to the drink.

We stayed for another 40mins or so with no more luck, only some small snapper about and a few nibbles. Packed up and headed back to the ramp. We were all extremely happy with how the day turned out!!

Will get some pics up soon as they're on my friends phone - my phone went for a swim at the boat ramp due to some guy trying to put his boat back on his trailer by himself (he was at his trailer winch and not in the boat) with the outboard running and prop spinning slowly drifting towards our trailer, I went it to push the boat away from our trailer forgetting my phone was in my pocket!!

[Krispy !]

Sounds like a top day on the water mate well done

[FishingGuy]

Good work on the Kingies mate!!

Cheers,

FishingGuy

[Tome]

Thanks fellas