Little blowhole report

[NewToFishing]

Hi all,

Hope everyone is well.

I took some swimming lessons and can comfortably float and swim now.

So I bought a life jacket and headed out to little blowhole in Kiama to see what would happen.

Got there around 4:30 pm yesterday, no action until around 7 pm. 

Caught a large slimy mackerel and hooked it onto a live bait rig with a float and one metre of 100 pound fluoro leader with a uni knot.

Around 1.5 hours later, the reel starts screaming and drag gets pulled, big fish on, it straight away went under the rocks and after some struggle, took the hook with it and also cut the leader.

It might have been a kingfish, but I have never caught one before so I have no clue, but the strength of the fish was insane. I've attached the video of the fish pulling drag.

Overall, caught 18 slimy mackerel of good size and then went home.

Was a good result, but now I'm thinking of that one that got away lol. Not bad for my first time trying to live bait, I'm hooked now 😅

Edited January 10 by NewToFishing

[noelm]

Lots of Kingfish there, but it’s rough bottom and shallow-ish water, landing them is difficult (as you found out), lots of Sharks there too, so the possibilities are a Shark as well, dived there hundreds of times.

[big Neil]

Well done on your first visit to the Blowhole. It appears that you planned the trip well with safety considerations taken into account. Always difficult landing fish off the rocks but I think it will only be a matter of time before you succeed. Looking forward to your next reports.

bn

[Pickles]

Great report @NewToFishing, thanks for sharing. I don’t know that area, but if it dived straight for the bottom it could well be a Kingie - they are a hard and dirty fighting fish and a meritorious catch from the stones.

[Little_Flatty]

Good on you for taking the advice swimming lessons. So many don’t, with tragic consequences.

You must be a fast learner. Keep working on it though, it takes years to become a truly strong swimmer, especially in open water with currents and swell. Regardless you’ll be much better off for more swimming and it’s also a really nice thing to do in summer.

Looks like a good fish you lost there.

[jenno64]

Great post and well done on the hook up! Sounds like pretty unforgiving territory to land big fish! Be careful 🙏🏻

[99FishingWorld]

Looks like a shark. Kingies move much quicker

[noelm]

I kind of agree, there’s heaps around there, just small-ish 1.5m or so, see one almost every time I dive there, especially on the Ocean side away from the Blowhole.

[NewToFishing]

18 hours ago, noelm said:

Lots of Kingfish there, but it’s rough bottom and shallow-ish water, landing them is difficult (as you found out), lots of Sharks there too, so the possibilities are a Shark as well, dived there hundreds of times.

Yea it could have been a shark mate. I saw a few divers near the beach to my right side. This spot isn't flat and a bit dangerous, but it's high up and the waves can't reach it thats why I went there. Landing a good sized fish would be extremely hard here agreed. You might know it, there are 3 rod holders dug into the ground.

[NewToFishing]

14 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

Good on you for taking the advice swimming lessons. So many don’t, with tragic consequences.

You must be a fast learner. Keep working on it though, it takes years to become a truly strong swimmer, especially in open water with currents and swell. Regardless you’ll be much better off for more swimming and it’s also a really nice thing to do in summer.

Looks like a good fish you lost there.

True mate, I've got a ways to go still, but at least can do the basics and the inflatable life jacket is a good measure also. Hoping to become stronger swimmer over time.

[NewToFishing]

16 hours ago, Pickles said:

Great report @NewToFishing, thanks for sharing. I don’t know that area, but if it dived straight for the bottom it could well be a Kingie - they are a hard and dirty fighting fish and a meritorious catch from the stones.

Thanks mate, yea I hear they fight dirty, don't worry the first ever kingy I catch, will be posted here straight away hahaha.

[Volitan]

It’s hard to deal with a fish that knows instinctively how to cut you off on the bottom, but a couple of things that might turn the odds in your favour are:

more drag. If you watch the guys catching kings off the rocks in NZ the drag is ‘pliers tight’. They don’t give an inch. If your mainline is 50lb then you should be able to set drag at 17lb or a slightly more risky 20 in a snaggy area. Measure your drag with a spring balance or a bucket of sand and you’ll be surprised how tight 20lb is.

mix it up, discombobulate the fish by pulling left, pulling right etc. the fish needs to get its head down and tail back towards you for maximum thrust and if you watch videos of a hooked fish you’ll see that’s what it’s trying to do. What you need to do in effect is throw them off balance.

If the fish is definitely snagged, give it line. It should swim out after it’s calmed down - it has to eventually. Remember the fish is panicking because it’s terrified by these unfamiliar events but panic doesn’t last long with fish.  This does work, only sometimes, but is better then keeping the pressure on and getting sawn off.

Mono has MUCH higher abrasion resistance then braid, so if your using braid for the main line switch to mono for the rocks.

Anyway, a great effort and I assume no drone in sight.

[noelm]

While the above it true, sometimes a “soft” approach will get fish where attempted brute force will fail, caught literally thousands of Kingfish over the years, including shallow water and off the rocks, in shallow water a low drag will almost certainly beat a “pliers tight” every time, people need to stop watching fishing movies.

[Blackfish]

You triggered a memory Noel.
I remember back in the “Australian Angler Magazine” days. Joe Gospel (Irons fame) did a bit of a road trip and was down at Port Phillip bay fishing the “Rip” when he encountered very large Kingfish, he found that when hooked he would lead them out of the very bad area where he had been reefed numerous times on a very light drag and then fight them in deep water where they fought differently and showed no sigh of wanting to reef him.

Mind you he was fishing out of a boat but Noel said he’s done the same of the rocks.

[Volitan]

56 minutes ago, noelm said:

While the above it true, sometimes a “soft” approach will get fish where attempted brute force will fail, caught literally thousands of Kingfish over the years, including shallow water and off the rocks, in shallow water a low drag will almost certainly beat a “pliers tight” every time, people need to stop watching fishing movies.

I’ll agree with you in part about using a soft drag approach, and ignore the comment about watching too many fishing movies.

Ive caught hundreds of kingfish around channel markers and after loosing a few the strategy I evolved was to hook up, take the pressure off, gently tow the hooked fish (below panic threshold) away from the marker, and then once it was in clear water put the pressure on safe in the knowledge they would seldom return to the marker. I think all fish will quickly calm down once the pressure goes off and kingfish are the most extreme example. Of course these were hooked on a fly rod so a tug-of-war was not really a valid option.

hard thing for a beginner to do off the rocks though.

id probably reverse the success ratio of hard to soft approaches and leave it at that.

 

Edited January 12 by Volitan

[NewToFishing]

On 1/12/2024 at 12:52 PM, Volitan said:

It’s hard to deal with a fish that knows instinctively how to cut you off on the bottom, but a couple of things that might turn the odds in your favour are:

more drag. If you watch the guys catching kings off the rocks in NZ the drag is ‘pliers tight’. They don’t give an inch. If your mainline is 50lb then you should be able to set drag at 17lb or a slightly more risky 20 in a snaggy area. Measure your drag with a spring balance or a bucket of sand and you’ll be surprised how tight 20lb is.

mix it up, discombobulate the fish by pulling left, pulling right etc. the fish needs to get its head down and tail back towards you for maximum thrust and if you watch videos of a hooked fish you’ll see that’s what it’s trying to do. What you need to do in effect is throw them off balance.

If the fish is definitely snagged, give it line. It should swim out after it’s calmed down - it has to eventually. Remember the fish is panicking because it’s terrified by these unfamiliar events but panic doesn’t last long with fish.  This does work, only sometimes, but is better then keeping the pressure on and getting sawn off.

Mono has MUCH higher abrasion resistance then braid, so if your using braid for the main line switch to mono for the rocks.

Anyway, a great effort and I assume no drone in sight.

Not a drone in sight mate, I'm learning by experience that the big fish aren't always far out.

Yea I had the drag set pretty high, the reel has about 30 kg of max drag so it can deal with anything. 

I instinctively lowered the drag once it went the bottom to allow it to come out by itself maybe, but that didn't work it just kept going deeper. I reckon next time il just have to drag it up before it dives down and not give it a chance, as my tackle was strong enough to handle it.

True about the mono with abrasion resistance, good tip mate Il give that a go thank you.

[NewToFishing]

On 1/12/2024 at 1:02 PM, noelm said:

While the above it true, sometimes a “soft” approach will get fish where attempted brute force will fail, caught literally thousands of Kingfish over the years, including shallow water and off the rocks, in shallow water a low drag will almost certainly beat a “pliers tight” every time, people need to stop watching fishing movies.

Noted mate, will keep that in mind for next hookup, hopefully soon. Would love to fish with you one day down in Kiama and learn from all the knowledge you gained over the years would be a goldmine. 

To be honest even if it was a shark or kingfish or whatever, it's the first big fish I've hooked and the terrain wasn't the best for bringing one up even if it got to that stage as I was fishing solo, no gaff and high cliff, probably would have snapped the line on the rocks trying to lift it up.