Just a PB? Or more than that..

[TheFishosGrill]

On 11/29/2022 at 11:47 AM, fish-aholic said:

26th November

Three of my mates and me went to Nelson Bay for a weekend fishing trip. We started little bit late , around 1:30pm we found a nice local bait shop <name removed>. Matt from the bait shop is a guy with full of local knowledge and humour. We got few beach worms, salted pillies and prawns from him. We checked in to our Airbnb house around 3:30pm and was busy preparing dinner. Around 6:30-7pm just after dinner we thought to walk towards the beach and have some fun. 

 

While I was fixing my 9ft long 6-8kg beach rod, one of my mate started fishing with salted pilchard. I was still busy with my pre rigged paternoster rig where the top hook had a Zman Grubz 2.5inch lure, and got a live sand worm bait in the bottom hook and then at the very end 85g sinker. Approximately 350 meters of 20lb braided line were spool in a DAIWA EMCAST 4500 reel ( don’t laugh ; I know it’s a vintage reel). 

 

Just before I cast I saw another mate of mine is also using salted pillie. But he got a tiny little sinker, so I moved a little bit away from them to avoid tangled lines. It was hard to find gutter in the dark, kinda guessed looking at some wave breaking whitish looking areas and cast a bit further. 

 

Within a minute my reel started making the sweetest music that we all eagerly wait to hear. That ‘zzzzmmmm’ was a long one, approximately 250-300 metres line is already gone. I know I have set my drag close to 8-10kg; I shouldn’t go more than that. Dilemma ; heart beating like a drum, reel screaming like it’s never going to end, I’m screaming like I’m in a roller coaster. 

 

Then it stopped for a minute or two and I had a chance to reel back probably 30-40 meters only and it goes again. But this time not a long one. Only a small run; reel back again and run again… can’t remember how long that fight lasted. Last time I saw my watch to check that all live worms were still alive @7:12pm just before my set that worm in the hook and later I realised the first pic of the fish were clicked @9:10pm. So I definitely finished more than an hour of intense gym session with a 1.5 meters Jew. 

 

We had a measuring scale and it went exactly 1.5 but we couldn’t weigh. Later Matt from <name removed> told us it should weigh 34kg as per Jew fish growth rate. After gutting, bleeding we cut the beast into 3 big pieces to bring it home. Once we reached home , it placed in a scale to show 30.4kg. 
 

Many thanks to Matt from <name removed> and my mate @dlvbw Dunc who always pushed and helped me to understand fishing and write a fishing report. This one for you mate. 

Wow mate well done!!

Caught plenty of jews but still waiting for the big one!!! 

[Flex]

Crazy! What a monster ! 💪