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First post... first kingfish!

Tommy TJ

By Tommy TJ
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Tommy TJ FLATHEAD

Tommy TJ

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Good afternoon everyone!

I picked up fishing about 1-1.5 years ago, and have been lurking (not posting) on these forums for a few months now. It's been a goal of mine ever since i started taking the sport more seriously to catch a kingfish completely on my own. 

I got to the Malabar boat ramp at about 6am, and had my kayak in the water as the sun was just starting to come up. I had brought some frozen whole squids with me that I planned to trawl behind my kayak on my PE3 jigging setup, and I had also brought my PE1.5 snapper outfit along with an assortment of 5" soft plastics and jigheads. There were already 4 kayaks out past the headland by the time I got out there - it looked like there was some action in the area where they were all hanging about. I didn't want to crash on their spot straight away, so I spent some time casting soft plastics for snapper whilst trawling my whole squid about 5-10m off the bottom.

No hits on the plastics, and the opportunity to join in on the action with the other kayakers proved too tempting. As I got closer I could see huge schools of bait being pushed up on the surface all the way along the face of the cliffs. Seriously... I've never seen so much bait on the surface... there would've been at least 4 huge schools of bait within ~100m stretch of the cliff. I spent the next couple hours casting away with my 5" jerk shads and caught a handful of bonito. I had a few hits on the squid I was trawling - but wasn't able to land anything from it.

It was approaching 10am by this point, and I starting to think about heading in. I was the only kayaker left, and even though there was still plenty of bait around ... the bite seemed to have slowed down and I wasn't getting many hits. The current was very strong and I had drifted about 100-200m from where I had been fishing all morning. I decided that I would have a few more casts towards the cliffs/headland and then would be on my way. I hooked up to what felt like a very small fish, so I backed off my drag and played it out for a few minutes, however, as it approached my yak it shot off and my reel began screaming. I tightened my drag and the fight was on - it wasn't long until my first kingfish was in the kayak. I was stoked, and was trying to get a good photo of him without dropping my phone in the water. It took me a while to get this done, and by this point I just wanted to get him back in the water safely so I decided not to measure him. My estimate would be about 50-55cm.

 

A little background about me as it is my first post. Up until recently, fishing didn't seem like the kind of hobby that would appeal to me - even though I've lived on the east coast of NSW my whole life - I would even go as far as to say that I actively DISLIKED fishing!! When I was a teenager my dad bought a boat, which in his mind meant that we were going to catch heaps of trophy fish with little effort and be back home in time for lunch. Unfortunately this dream was quickly dashed and we spent many weekends waking up at ridiculous hours and coming home empty handed for our efforts. My dad had little clue how to safely and confidently operate the boat by himself, and even less of an idea about how to catch fish. I was left to do the brunt of the work for a hobby that i had little interest in at the time (learning how to tie knots, rigs, and how to dispatch/clean fish ... etc.). So I think you can see where my dislike of the hobby originated. Some time after this I took up fishing of my own accord and began to really enjoy it (not sure what switched).

Fast forward about 7 years, my dad has moved up to Queensland, he still has his boat, he's much more proficient at operating the boat... and I'm much more proficient at catching fish. So we actually work surprisingly well as a team - and I fly up to meet up with him and go fishing at every opportunity that we get.

 

Thanks for reading my first post everyone - sorry if it was a bit rambly - I really wasn't expecting to write that much!! 

Cheers,

TJ

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Tommy TJ FLATHEAD

Tommy TJ

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20 hours ago, Isaac Ct said:

Great stuff mate, glad that you hopped onto the Forum. If I am going to be completely honest, that kingie looks bigger than 50-55cm, is that just me?

I think it's just the angle! Although I'm certainly no expert at guesstimating the length of a fish - especially kingfish :D

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big Neil DOGTOOTH TUNA

big Neil

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Hi TJ, and welcome to Fishraider. Good job with your first post and congratulations on the Kingie. Wouldn't be an easy feat from a kayak. Glad that you and your dad manage to get together and fish, when time permits. It's a great hobby, and hopefully you'll be posting your successes on here for us all to enjoy. Cheers, bn

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