My first luderick

[GreyNurse]

G'day Raiders,

I've decided to put this in the chat rather than reports as, a) the event happened last week, and it's more of a "brag" than a report.

Any way, when going through some old fishing gear that I'd collected over the years from other people, deceased estates, etc, I came across two stem floats commonly used for fishing for luderick. I'd never fished for the species before, let alone caught one, so I thought I'd spritz them up a little and give it a go. There were two sizes, but the larger float looked a better one (I don't know why), so I cleaned it up and slipped some red tubing over the tip for visibility. I then rigged the float to a 6lb trace and, armed with split shot, took the rig down to the wharf and proceeded to balance it all up. When satisfied it was tied on to 6lb mono-filament line on a 5" Alvey reel teamed up with a 9' Daiwa "Aussie Stick" rod from the late 80's. The Aussie Stick is a great rod for bream / black fish as it's got a slow taper, but being graphite, it has good strength.

Now I didn't have any weed with me, but I had bought some fresh prawns on the way down, so I cut them into small sections and placed them on a size 10 bait keeper hook. I immediately started to get "downs" and pretty soon had the strike timed right to hook up to the usual culprits; sweep, little trevally, tarwhine, that kind of thing. Then I struck a bite that resulted in a very different kind of fight and lo and behold, up came my first ever luderick. He was all of 21cms, but I was rapt. I had actually targeted a species with the specific setup for it (albeit the bait), and was successful first time out! With that, I was perfectly happy to call it quits after a quick happy snap and a careful return to the water so he can reach a nice legal size.

Thanks for reading.

Edited May 27, 2015 by GreyNurse

[Witha]

Ayyy nice man! Planned and executed. Well done! They put up a good fight too I'm sure we will see more!

[Ryder]

Well done.

They are a great target species, and it can be very productive.

Watching that float is hypnotic.

[Paikea]

Love Luderick. Great to catch and great to eat.

Cheers

Paikea