The snapper are in closer

[doublebarrel]

Had my boat in the water all last weekend fishing with one of the northern beaches fishing clubs. I had to be somewhere else on Saturday so i left the boat in the capable hands of my accomplices. The weather was awful on Saturday, too rough to be outside for long and we had people coming and going so the boys mainly fished pittwater. Very quiet, one nice flathead and some frigate mackeral, that was about it. The kings, so prolific in recent months, appear to have gone from pittwater, more or less on cue since its that time of year. Saturday night we went looking for hairtail at portugese beach, a known haunt, but no luck there either.

By sunday morning the weather had improved so we shot out wide to some of a favourite snapper grounds around 300ft where only last month we'd done very well including a 6kg monster.We thought we might also be a chance to spot some yellowfin or even bluefin which are due to show up off sydney some time soon. Nothing. Could find a red for love nor money, not even any mowies or pigfish etc. And we didn't see birds working at any stage much less catch any tuna. Disspirited we eventually picked up a few small reds at an inshore reef on the way back in but overall it was one of our worst weigh-ins of the last year. Worse, others had fished some of the closer and mid-depth areas like Bolton's and Ezzie's and had good bags of snapper and Trag (quite a few snapper around 60cm). Done like a dinner, we were miles of the pace.

In hindsight the mistake we made was to go wide. After the big storms of the last month or so the snapper would have come in closer looking to feed on the run-off and collateral damage to shoreline crustaceans etc (a well known dynamic). Some of those fish are obviously hanging around the inshore reefs perhaps waiting for the next storm. More to the point there is probably an annual migration of snapper to the inshore areas after the first major storm near the beginning of winter since winter storms typically gouge out the beaches, unlocking all manner of food sources like pippies etc. Probably more chance of catching good snapper off the rocks than out wide at this time of year. Better luck next month i hope.

cheers .

[Mr Squidy]

Thanks for the report doublebarrel. Bad luck missing out but thanks for sharing some really great info there!!

Cheers,

R