26/4/15 Sunday Funday down in the Hacking

[allen_f]

Hi Raiders,

This is my first report so I hope you guys enjoy it!

So this week has been a crazy week full of rain, floods, lightning, thunder and even the crazy hail/snow storm. I hope everyone is doing okay and is safe! I've been itching for a fish the whole week and went over the past few days to test out the George's river only to find that it was a chocolate milkshake with absolutely 0 fish about. Not even the little baitfish... So it's been a disappointing past few days fishing but today I took a friend down to the Hacking to give it a go to see if the waters were nice and to my surprise when I got to Wally's I could actually see the bottom. Not only did I see the bottom but earlier that morning, someone discarded what looked to be a now filleted 1m+ kingy carcass. After a week of staring at disgusting brown water, you could imagine how excited I was to feel even just a nibble, I ran across the little bridge thing almost slipping and dieing in the process but made it alive. As we go onto the actual pontoon, the arvo rain picked up and on came our raincoats. Super excited, I put on a piece of chicken and cast out, 5 seconds later I was smashed by what I thought was a whopper but out of the drink came a MASSIVE 5cm juvenile snapper. As you can tell I was probably very excited to even feel a nibble let alone a bite, so off the hook he came and back into the drink he went. Now the heart rate was pumping and I was getting crazy happy, re-baited and cast out again and bang within seconds picked up by what was definitely bigger now. Pulled it up and saw that it was a 25cm juvenile snapper, and damn they are beautiful. A nice dark crimson red with glowing green dots and blue fins!! So majestic as they reflect light. Anyway as I hook up a 3rd time my mate is finally ready to cast and within seconds brings up his own fish. Not sure what it was but I'm going to guess its a baby trevally (edit* it was a sweep), the photo will be below. By this stage we were super excited as we had both just come off exam week aswell and hadn't brought up anything in the past week or so. It soon turned into an all out competition on who could catch the most fish. We were literally getting smashed off everything, chicken, squid, heart, beef, and even the hardbody. All in all in total we brought up 47 fish with another friend joining after work. The competition tally ended up as (drumroll please).

Me: 32 fish

Friend 1: 11 fish

Friend 2: 4 fish

Unfortunately none of them were keepers so atleast we had a bit of fun practicing our striking techniques and casting techniques! But hey a bite is a bite and that's why I love fishing, just feeling the fish's weight behind the rod is an awesome feeling! Definitely excited for another sesh later next week!

The fish species count turned out something like this:

Tailor: 14

Juvenile Snapper: 26

Yellowfin bream: 6

Mystery Silver (trevally?): 1

oh and I snagged a starfish which was pretty interesting...

Happy fishing raiders, the waters are clearing and it's looking good. Hopefully I can plate one later this week

That's the strange one^

Edited April 26, 2015 by allen_f

[reubs]

good report mate sounds like you guys had some fun!... your fish are as follows... tailor, snapper, sweep, snapper, snapper, tailor

[allen_f]

Awesome Reubs, never seen a sweep before, thanks for the ID

[papafish]

What time did u go? I was there at night!! 4 hrs a 3 squid and 1 keeper beam. Got no idea how I hook it, but I can tell u that there where no bites at all in the evening. 1 small whiting and a 2 little snapper that's it. All the fish were caught in the 1st hr. The last 3 hrs were the slowest ever without a single nibble

[big Neil]

Great report Allen. It's exciting catching that many fish, irrespective of whether they're keepers or not. Good luck with the exams and keep the reports coming mate. Neil.

[allen_f]

Hey papafish, i was there around 12-5 during that rainy period of the day. I read somewhere that fish go crazy on the bite just before and during a rain. Something about the low pressure making them want to feed and the rising pressure turning them off. When abouts were you there? And how does a squid feel? I've never caught one before but im eager to try haha

Thanks Big Neil, hopefully ill keep smashing those exams and then straight out for another fish!

[papafish]

I got there at 8.30pm. There were another 4 ppl there. We were fishing and jogging for squid. Just little tension on the line once u feel it start reeling it back. Nothing big just around 15cm. But it was dead from there