Lake mac mixed bag

[Jo5hC]

Hi all, my dad and I went out with a mate and his dad yesterday morning to lake mac. We had a boat hire from 8:30 to 12:30, and the conditions looked good. I've pretty much always fished land based, and my other experiences on boats have been in pretty bad conditions, but I was still hopeful that today would turn out good. Got to the boat hire at 8:15 for a briefing and was on the water by 8:30. We had done some prior research and decided to go to the artificial reef balls first up. No sounder on the boat or gps so don't exactly know where we stopped but according to google maps we were pretty close to the reef.

My mate and I started out with soft plastics going for snapper. I still had my small bream grub on as I didn't feel like retying at the moment, but as @AlbertW has shown, the snapper still seem to like it. Second cast on the drop I hooked on to what seemed like to be a good fish and my reel started going. Brought up my first legal snapper ever, at around 32cm. Mate then caught a small flatty and his dad a tailor in the mid 30s. After about 15-20 minutes since the first snapper, my mates reel starts screaming and I see his rod bent over. We were both using light setups, but he was using a large jerkshad. After a small tussle, a larger snapper comes into the net, probably going mid-high 30s. 

As I was flicking my grub back to the surface, I felt something grab it but not get hooked straight away, so I set, and immediately my reel started screaming, and I see a torpedo of a fish fly out the water. My rod immediately doubles over as the fish dove down. The ensuing fight felt like a lifetime, but probably was only 5 minutes plus. Still the longest fight I've had. Every time I felt like I was gaining some line, it immediately took all the line back. There were a couple of these cycles before I even saw my fish. I only had a 2-4kg rod, and it was bending over so much I thought it was about to break. Eventually we see it and it's a really fat salmon. My mate nets it for me and once it was in the boat, the net just snaps off the handle (albeit it was a cheap telescopic net). We also had pilchards out as bait, and ended up getting 3 good tailor, high 30s-low40s.  

The bite slowed down a little bit, and we wanted to try next to Pulbah island. Even after switching to a heavier jighead, I wasn't able to get the plastics down to the bottom, so resorted to dropping pilchards on a paternoster rig. Managed to get hit by many undersize snapper on every drop, but no bigger ones. Eventually went back to the reef but a bit further north. No more snapper caught but we did get one flounder. My mates dad also hooked onto the biggest octopus I've ever seen, and it got off at the surface. 

We had to go back in by then, but in total we had 2 snapper, 3 tailor, one salmon, and one flounder. Probably one of the best fishing outings I've had so far.

[Little_Flatty]

Nice work Josh. Good catches on lures and aren’t the salmon fun on light gear!😎

[AlbertW]

3 hours ago, Jo5hC said:

Hi all, my dad and I went out with a mate and his dad yesterday morning to lake mac. We had a boat hire from 8:30 to 12:30, and the conditions looked good. I've pretty much always fished land based, and my other experiences on boats have been in pretty bad conditions, but I was still hopeful that today would turn out good. Got to the boat hire at 8:15 for a briefing and was on the water by 8:30. We had done some prior research and decided to go to the artificial reef balls first up. No sounder on the boat or gps so don't exactly know where we stopped but according to google maps we were pretty close to the reef.

My mate and I started out with soft plastics going for snapper. I still had my small bream grub on as I didn't feel like retying at the moment, but as @AlbertW has shown, the snapper still seem to like it. Second cast on the drop I hooked on to what seemed like to be a good fish and my reel started going. Brought up my first legal snapper ever, at around 32cm. Mate then caught a small flatty and his dad a tailor in the mid 30s. After about 15-20 minutes since the first snapper, my mates reel starts screaming and I see his rod bent over. We were both using light setups, but he was using a large jerkshad. After a small tussle, a larger snapper comes into the net, probably going mid-high 30s. 

As I was flicking my grub back to the surface, I felt something grab it but not get hooked straight away, so I set, and immediately my reel started screaming, and I see a torpedo of a fish fly out the water. My rod immediately doubles over as the fish dove down. The ensuing fight felt like a lifetime, but probably was only 5 minutes plus. Still the longest fight I've had. Every time I felt like I was gaining some line, it immediately took all the line back. There were a couple of these cycles before I even saw my fish. I only had a 2-4kg rod, and it was bending over so much I thought it was about to break. Eventually we see it and it's a really fat salmon. My mate nets it for me and once it was in the boat, the net just snaps off the handle (albeit it was a cheap telescopic net). We also had pilchards out as bait, and ended up getting 3 good tailor, high 30s-low40s.  

The bite slowed down a little bit, and we wanted to try next to Pulbah island. Even after switching to a heavier jighead, I wasn't able to get the plastics down to the bottom, so resorted to dropping pilchards on a paternoster rig. Managed to get hit by many undersize snapper on every drop, but no bigger ones. Eventually went back to the reef but a bit further north. No more snapper caught but we did get one flounder. My mates dad also hooked onto the biggest octopus I've ever seen, and it got off at the surface. 

We had to go back in by then, but in total we had 2 snapper, 3 tailor, one salmon, and one flounder. Probably one of the best fishing outings I've had so far.

Good stuff mate, you gotta try the gulp plastics like i am haha, salmon and snapper will just hit them like crazy 

[XD351]

Great fish and report mate ! Not having a sounder in a place as big as lake Mac makes life much harder !

[Guinness]

Super effort considering you didn't have a sounder to identify structure and bail schools. I might head over to the reef myself and give it a go. Well done

[Yowie]

Nice work. Good fish for the plate, and a sporty salmon for exercise.

[bessell1955]

A very rewarding day.