First fishing weekend up at port

[GH1952]

Took the boat up to portstehpens on Saturday morning and was greated by a large swell coming out of broken bay

Ran up to Norah head in about 140m and set three lures out for the rest of the trip.

Off Lake Macquarie had a hit with an under size dollie and that was it for the day.

Sunday dawned and after a coffie did a run to the bait grounds and loaded the tank with slimies

Went to the fad and got pestered with more small dollies attacking our skip baits.

Left the dollies at the fad and headed east without much happening and then got hit on the swimming slimie and missing the hook uo but the fish then went and took the skip bait .

After landing the fish we decided to move closer to the coast as the temp was up to 27deg C with the current going pretty strong.

Got to within 3 mm off the south side of port and had a hit from a small black which we missed and about three minutes later got the second dollie

All in all a god days fishing and for anybody having a go save your fuel and stay in close in about 25 to 50 fns

[Scratchie]

Nice fish Gerry! Good to see you get out and get amongst them. Let's hope it's a good season.

Cheers scratchie!!!

[vo2c88]

Well done mate :-) They're stonkers.

[Divey]

Okay, after catching these couple of Mahi Mahi with Gerry and Karl on the weekend, I'm interested to know how big they really get. I reckon the fish Karl caught would have weighed in the high 30kg bracket as Karl is no ballerina and he was struggling to hold this monster up to be photographed. I'm asking this question because when we retuned to the Marina and were talking to some other game fisherman that we caught a Dollie that would have been in the high 30's, we were rubbished. One bloke said, bullshit, has it been eating snapper leads.

[DTROJAN]

Fish can be very deceiving when trying to estimate weight. Have heard people estimate weights of their catch time and time again only to find that when put on the lie detector they weren't even close. Not disputing the size and weight of your cracker dollies as I wasn't present but a good scale always helps silence the critics back at the marina. Have heard of a few this season called for around the 35kg mark so I guess they do get that big or the fish aren't really being weighed.

Great fish regardless!

Edited February 3, 2015 by DTROJAN

[Scratchie]

Divey,

From my research they can grow up to 45kgs and have a life span of about five years.

Here is a photo of one caught in Mexico in 2011.....

This fish weighed 90lbs (40.9kg)

What you guys caught was a cracker of a fish but I guess the only way to know would be to whack it on the scales. I've never heard a fisherman lie before.

Cheers scratchie!!!

[Divey]

Holy smoke that's a big fish, and, if he's 40.9kgs, I reckon we'll have to drop quite a few kgs from what we thought and say low 30kgs.

[Berleyguts]

I heard that they have been getting dollies in close around Little Island off Port. Is that true? Hoping to head up in early March and would like to find a few fish in reach if my 4.5 metre Stacer!

Baz

Edited February 3, 2015 by Berleyguts

[GH1952]

Hi berlyguts

The second dollie was caught about 3 m East of the light house at port so I see no reason why they wouldn't be on the other side

[Calcutta]

You're right Divey, I'm no Ballerina, I'm 6'2" and 115kgs (that IS on scales) It was a bloody cracker of a fish and while we'll never know how big it really was it bloody heavy enough. Thanks again for ripper weekend Gerry!

[GH1952]

Who cares what it's weight was it made for a good feed and we had it on ice within ten minutes to keep it good nick

We are only fishing socially it's all about having a good time with some mates and if we catch anything it's a bonus

By the way I fished all last weekend and couldn't catch a cold, I had four other boats around us and they all hooked marlin and I couldent get a bite.

[vo2c88]

Keep at it Gerry, the big blue should come this weekend :-)