Broken Bay Wide - Flatties, Bonito .. and a surprise ! 28.02.2023

[zmk1962]

Hey Raiders,

A belated report from early last week ... delayed due to the Amigo's Dollie FAD trip and associated report I posted earlier.

Ok, so after several days of the Tuesday offshore forecast showing possible thunderstorm activity, the last forecast issued on Monday came in with a prediction for cloudy but calm conditions. That was enough for Maria and Wayno to tip their hats in and the trip was on.

We had frozen pillies and burley ready and the plan was to stop and collect live yakkas in Pittwater, before heading out to the Broken Bay flattie grounds. 

Hit Parsley Bay ramp dead on 6am ... to a smooth launch and minimal ramp activity.

Well Pittwater was dead - three boats around us all burleying - no one catching anything - and after 45min of effort all we could manage was 1 yakka in the tank. But Maria picked up a keeper 30cm bream which was a bonus.  We pulled stumps and headed offshore to the 50m flattie grounds.  The water temp in Pittwater was a cool 22.4C and offshore 23.0 C. 

Hmmmm - over the next hour we collected an array of spikeys, juveniles, puffers, and toads .... (Maria also turned a shade of pale green - too long between trips) ... we moved south to slightly deeper and warmer water 23.4C ... and found some decent bluespot flatties above 45cm. The bite died and we moved further south basically nearly inline with Bilgola head, depth 54m and water temp 23.9C. Picked up some more bluespot and some large tiger flatties ... and a SURPRISE 3ft hairtail on an SP shad !!!!!!  That's a first for me .... about 7km out  and in warm water.

By this time Maria was NOT in a good way ... so we created Plan B - head to the coast and troll hardbodies from Bilgola and along Whale before heading back in ... 

Bingo ... BONITO action ... look at how lively the crew got ! 

We managed 4 hookups, and landed 2.  

 

Back at ramp at 2.30pm with the final count being 13 flatties (45-60cm), 2 bonito (60cm), 1 bream (30cm) and a lonely hairtail (90cm)... and Maria feeling much much better.

All in all a great day ...

Cheers Zoran

PS - Wayno ate his bonnie sashimi style ... and wants to go get more. Maria and I served ours smoked ... it was one of the better smoked fish I have had.

 

 

[bessell1955]

Wow, sounds like a productive trip.

[big Neil]

A great report Zoran. Just enough fish to maintain the interest and ensure that you will be back out there soon to replenish stocks. I hope Maria is feeling better. Great photos too..

bn

[GordoRetired]

Sounds like another good day on the water putting the new boat through it's paces. And a good feed to take home 👍

[Isaac Ct]

Great stuff, nice bag of fish.

Good reward for an early day.

Well done.

[Yowie]

Nice bag of fish again Zoran, and some better sized flatties.

[kantong]

Great report mate and good feed!

[Larkin]

Nice catch Zoran - Hairtail on a shad out deep wouldn’t be a common occurrence - that’s for sure.
Good to see your getting some good use out of the new boat!

[zmk1962]

On 3/6/2023 at 9:36 PM, bessell1955 said:

Wow, sounds like a productive trip.

Thanks mate. It turned out that way in the end !

On 3/6/2023 at 10:35 PM, big Neil said:

A great report Zoran. Just enough fish to maintain the interest and ensure that you will be back out there soon to replenish stocks. I hope Maria is feeling better. Great photos too..

bn

Thanks BN, spot on... I was back out that Friday with the Amigos. Maria came good when the reel started to sing from the first bonnie 😁.....  amazing sea sickness cure that !

On 3/7/2023 at 8:51 AM, GordoRetired said:

Sounds like another good day on the water putting the new boat through it's paces. And a good feed to take home 👍

Sure was Gordo, still getting used to it, but couldn't be happier.

On 3/7/2023 at 9:05 AM, Isaac Ct said:

Great stuff, nice bag of fish.

Good reward for an early day.

Well done.

Yup. Early bird gets the worm ... or these days.... the parking spot at the ramp.

 

On 3/7/2023 at 2:36 PM, Yowie said:

Nice bag of fish again Zoran, and some better sized flatties.

We had to search for the bigger ones ... and would you believe 2/3 of them came up on SPs (sorry to say).  I still have that mega SP ready to go when we go out next 😁!

23 hours ago, kantong said:

Great report mate and good feed!

Thanks

16 hours ago, Larkin said:

Nice catch Zoran - Hairtail on a shad out deep wouldn’t be a common occurrence - that’s for sure.
Good to see your getting some good use out of the new boat!

Thanks Larkin ... it's been a long wait to get it out ... but that's behind me now !

Cheers Zoran

[Pickles]

Great report Zoran, great to see Devocean getting lots of use (brilliant weapon). Bonnie’s are great eating and lots around at present. Glad Maria is feeling better - nothing worse than feeling seasick.

[Madkanu]

Great report and result Zoran!  Glad to hear that Maria didn’t suffer too long before coming good.  Nothing quite like having fish on to reset the equilibrium!