How the barracouta?

[iceman191]

Hi Raiders,

So I think I'm slightly obsessed with fishing and I'll tell you why.  I have this routine where every single night without fail I look up the wind, seas, swell & BOM for the coming weekend.  It's updated everyday so i need to monitor it to see if I'm going fishing, that way I can plan my weekend as far out as possible.  If the all the stars align then I'm going fishing if they don't I'll be making plans to do something else.  So this week Sunday was looking like a cracker so plans were made to head out and this is what happened.

I head out from Tunks Park so I know if the weathers looking good the boat ramp will be busy so we planned a 4:45am launch.  Even getting there that early the carpark was full and I was the first car on the hill.  Tets and I get the boat prepared and head on out to the heads in search of live bait.  We sat just inside South head and found a few small patches of yakkas mixed with a few slimies but they where hit and miss so we headed to the artificial which looked like a car park.  I love watching the routine out there, the drift then drive back around for the next drift then repeat 20 more times, such a spectacle.  Caught a heap of lollypop yakkas then headed south to the Wedding Cake which produced a big fat zero.  So we then moved to The Peak and wow was there some action out there.  Dolphins everywhere chasing schools of bait fish, birds diving and getting their share.  What an amazing place to live, I love Sydney.  Did a few drifts got a few bites but no fish then bang my brand new rod bends in half and the line is flying off the reel.  My hearts racing I can't stop this fish it just keeps taking line, I then get some line back and straight away it's on the go again and all that line I just got back is taken by the fish plus more.  An exhilarating 10-15 minute battle and up comes my very first bloody barracouta (AKA Gemfish look alike boo ) measuring 99cm.  I'd only ever seen these fish in the forums on here when ppl go fish with electrics at Browns so I never thought I'd see or catch one at The Peak.  So after that excitement we went back for a few more drifts to no prevail.  Then we see this 200 meter bubble trail come through The Peak then about a 100 meters of it just explodes with bait fish hitting the surface, something I've never seen before, it was amazing.  It was thousands of slimies eating surface algae.  We head on over to them and threw a few lures to see if anything bigger was lurking below but unfortunately there wasn't.  So we throw in our bait catchers and filled the live tank, the slimies were just jumping onto the hooks which I wish happen every time we went fishing.  

It was time to head home so we trawled all the way to Long Reef wide but didn't get anything.  The water was only 22-23 so maybe a little cold for anything big to be looking around that far in?

So I got my R&R or what I normally tell my work colleagues my meditation from hanging on my boat all day.  Got back to Tunks around 2ish, so a rather big day out there in the big blue.

Cheers

iceman191

Edited January 22, 2017 by iceman191

[finin]

Hate to tell you after such an epic report,  but m8 it aint a gemfish its a barracoutta, green boned pieces of sh!@. ?. Endemic of cold bottom, enjoy cooking it?. Then enjoy throwing it out?

Edited January 22, 2017 by finin

[iceman191]

Hey finin,

 

I was just told that what a bummer.  So not good on the tooth I gather?

 

Cheers

iceman191

[Yowie]

Bony fillets, not the best eating. I have smoked the fillets in a shoe box size smoker, taste a little better than fried, but still not that good (though better eating than rock cale)

[PaddyT]

Yep- couldnt get past the smell personally to even think about trying!