Cliftons with Krispy - 18/5/15

[SgtBundy]

Having not taken my recent birthday off from work, and with an invitation by Krispy to hit Cliftons on todays morning tide I thought I owed myself a day off for fishing and grabbed some leave. Got there around 6am with only a few other people out and plenty of room at the end of the pier - I had left over salmon fillet from the palm beach trip, plus some squid and salted pillies - but as I was hoping for some kings I was planning on trying for some live squid or yakkas.

All quiet to begin with - I tried some small squid strips and pilchard pieces to begin with but no real hits. Others had the odd fat yakka and trevally. Krispy arrived around 7:30 and was pretty quickly onto some bream.

From there the day was ups and downs - huge trevally were showing up in the burley trails being dropped, but being elusive to everyone. I tried for squid off the side wharf but had nothing to show for it. The yakkas showed up for a period mid morning although they were quiet small and took some work to get on the hook. I tried making up a burley mix with some pillies, tuna oil and some of Krispy's breadcrumbs and that brought them on and with some bait tweaking I got a few. I set one out under a float and for a while it did nothing, then as I checked I realised the float had disappeared although oddly my rod was not reacting. As I picked up I could feel it was on and in quick order had a 32cm tailor that threw up half of the yakka he attacked. Kept this for the table. The other yakkas I had were accidentally released in a Mr Magoo manner as I managed to either drop, or lose them while knocking over my rods or gear, so there went that option.

After that back to another quiet period - I borrowed some of Krispy's prawns but was not getting any luck with them despite there seeming to be plenty of trevally around.

Bonito or frigates were smashing the surface all day but must have been chasing something small because no one could get them to take a hit.

Later on in the afternoon I noticed the yakkas were back and some new burley mix had them fired up, so I tried a bait jig instead of single hook and for once actually got a few on that. They got set out with one on a sinker out deep hoping for a jewfish and others under a float but nothing showed up to have a go at them.

Thinking it was nearer to 3 I packed up to beat the traffic but by the time I was in the car ready to go it was apparently 4:30, so I was straight into traffic anyway, but I was pretty tired from limited sleep and an early start so I wasn't about to stick out a later finish.

A little disappointed the day off was so flat and the kings didn't show up but I guess no-one told the fish. Better than a day in the office at any rate

Thanks for all your help and tips today Krispy - great to meet you.

[Krispy !]

Pleasure meeting you mate, shame the fish didnt want to play ball but it was fun getting teased by those trevs.

[Guest no one]

Good onya fellas, next time the Kings will play!