JonD Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Haven't posted much in the way of reports as the catches haven't been overly good (or should I say big). Montague Island has been on and off with decent sized kings but almost guaranteed for the little 50cm fish. With that in mind we've been targeting them on quite light spin rods with reels in the 4000-5000 size. Also the snapper have been in good numbers but most are just under 30cm. The offshore seen is hotting up with the billfish but the dolphin fish and fad have gone again. Been in the water doing a few tropical surveys which is turning up the usual species as well as a few bigger rainbow runners. Over the last week we've had several encounters with sharks which include whalers, hammerheads and grey nurse. One high speed hammerhead 3m + was amazing to see speeding around the boat. My daughter jumped in with striped tuna as bait trying to coax a few in close to film but all but an angry little whaler about 80kg were to shy. She also found the rather placid grey nurse sharks become a different animal just on dark, so probably not the best time to be in with them!! Jon Bronzy bite!! Getting bigger!! A keeper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martyy Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Nice fish ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welster Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Nice fish, post and pics John. Your posts are always interesting. Not sure I'd be brace enough to jump in the water after seeing a shark. Actually I know I wouldn't! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blood Knot Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Nice work on the kings Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raymondo Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Nice one Jon. Not sure if its the light in the photo or I'm starting to go blind but those kings seem to have a brighter silver tone then the few I've been getting round the Illawarra this summer. Not sure if kings color match there habitat like snapper etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 46 minutes ago, Raymondo said: Nice one Jon. Not sure if its the light in the photo or I'm starting to go blind but those kings seem to have a brighter silver tone then the few I've been getting round the Illawarra this summer. Not sure if kings color match there habitat like snapper etc. Not sure if you know Montague island well or not but the NE corner has produced very light coloured kings for me on several occasions. I got a couple there last year that were almost white. Two from today were kept for a reasearcher friend of my daughters, we hope to get him two a week apart of different sizes each week. Ive also noticed kings that get landed very quickly tend to often be lighter, we got these in quick because of the sharks. Saying that we still fished quite light but didn't bully them to much untill they were about 3-4m from the boat ( when we had our 70lb leaders on the spool). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stimo1076 Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Nice work, Well done Jon D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raymondo Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Yea its interesting, mabye they release chemicals due to fatigue, kinda like Mahi Mahi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 30 minutes ago, Raymondo said: Yea its interesting, mabye they release chemicals due to fatigue, kinda like Mahi Mahi. The biggest one that took the longest to land is the darkest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billmack Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 Nice fish Jon, can see the island in one pic. I believe snapper in their natural unstressed state are silver w blue spots, the red comes from stress. Perhaps kingies are a natural lighter colour? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveBM Posted January 27, 2017 Share Posted January 27, 2017 No, snapper are pink/red. This myth might come from the inability of light at the red end of the spectrum to penetrate very deeply through water. Unless you're pretty near surface, everything just tends towards shades of blue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 27, 2017 Author Share Posted January 27, 2017 I've seen snapper at depth and agree they look silver but if you hit them with light from a video light or camera flash they are still red. The shallow snapper we see in water less than 5m are stunning, their blue spots really stand out. jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike89 Posted January 27, 2017 Share Posted January 27, 2017 What happened to the one in the third photo? Great stuff Jon, wish I could have a bit of your success chasing the kings this summer! Looks like it is all happening out there now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 27, 2017 Author Share Posted January 27, 2017 1 hour ago, Mike89 said: What happened to the one in the third photo? Great stuff Jon, wish I could have a bit of your success chasing the kings this summer! Looks like it is all happening out there now. Whaler kissed it just as I lifted it in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatsworking Posted January 27, 2017 Share Posted January 27, 2017 Your daughter is nuts!! Very nice fish there. Hopefully I'll get down there next Christmas as my dad lives in Narooma. Is that where you put your boat in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 27, 2017 Author Share Posted January 27, 2017 51 minutes ago, beatsworking said: Your daughter is nuts!! Very nice fish there. Hopefully I'll get down there next Christmas as my dad lives in Narooma. Is that where you put your boat in? Yes I normally launch from apex park (the main ramp). Does your dad fish or own a boat. Xmas time tends to often be quite windy, Feb March is my favorate time to fish here. Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatsworking Posted January 27, 2017 Share Posted January 27, 2017 Dad sold his little tinny as he's now in his mid eighties. I used to launch it round in Forster's Bay and fish near the end of the channel when I was there. I'll contemplate bringing my 5m quinny down this year... but we'll see. It's a long haul from Sydney especially with a fully loaded car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billmack Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 Jon D Near Denham, WA, there is the Ocean Park Aquarium, part of the guided tour is a boardwalk above water with fish below, it is here I saw 40, 50, 60 cm snapper swimming and they were silver with the blue dots. The guide said it was their natural colour, but I've been unable to back it up with googling research. The water was shallow and obviously not their natural environment. Interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wizza Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 Billmack,did you notice at the Aquarium whenever a pillie was tossed in ,nothing beat the tear arse sprint of the hungry kingie... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billmack Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 Wizza, I was there in 2014, don't remember the kingies, but do remember the jacks, smashing their offerings and returning to their den. Back on colours...the limited no. of coral trout I've caught, they seem to be a deeper colour depending on the depth they're caught at ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 Beautiful shots Johnny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 A few nice fish there. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NBFisho Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 Best thing about this post are all the smiles, makes it all worthwhile I'm sure. Mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raymondo Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 On Friday, January 27, 2017 at 0:48 PM, DaveBM said: No, snapper are pink/red. This myth might come from the inability of light at the red end of the spectrum to penetrate very deeply through water. Unless you're pretty near surface, everything just tends towards shades of blue. This makes it easy to visualize. Same reason I tend to use blue, silver or black for deep water jigging. The silhouette is more important than color at depth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonD Posted January 29, 2017 Author Share Posted January 29, 2017 This is something that I've puzzled over for many, as an underwater photographer I know and understand that red is the first colour to dissapear to the human eye beneath the surface, which is why I use a strobe or video light if I'm more than 5m deep. So why are some fish that live in deep water bright or deep reds, rock cod, nanygui, pigfish etc each of which is a different tone of red. Chassing kings in 40-60m it's always our pink lures that out fish anything else we drop. Deep dropping I've tried with red, green and blue lights and found that using either the blue or red we catch more fish (maybe just luck). I don't put the kingfish captures down to luck though, simply because we catch so many and so often. If we get to the point where we are down to the last pink lure and have to use other colours the pink often ends up being the only one catching anything. Last winter I bought an asortmeant of pirate and bootomship lures, after using them in 50-70m of water on snapper we once again found pink to be our most productive colour. Maybe it's just that pink turns to the most proffered shade of grey but they always seem to be the first colour to sell out and hardest to get. It was once claimed that fish see things in only black and white but more recent studies have shown some fish eyes to be incredibly complex. Some billfish can see in a different colour as the look up while seeing a different colour while looking down at the same time. Some see ultraviolet while other fish display it to confuse its predators. It used to be considered dogs only see in b&w too but that's another myth now changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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