Bate Bay

[Yowie]

Headed out to Bate Bay late yesterday arvo with my mate.

Caught a couple of large slimies, which provided enough strip baits for the night.

First trag not long after anchoring, then an occasional one until semi dark. 4 each, and mate dropped a couple boatside. Biggest at 48cm.

A few tailor started biting after sunset, with a couple being released. Biggest at 45cm. The bonnie was 50cm, and all fish on slimie baits, pillies chewed off by pickers - mados, sweep, yakkas.

I hooked up 2 kingies about 60cm long, and one tried to get into the reef as I could feel the line scrape a rock.

One bait was taken by either a large squid, or cuttlefish. It hooked up and I dragged it almost to the boat before the hook let go. All I could see was a large wide body in semi darkness. An average sized squid grabbed a yakka and hung on so I netted him.

Headed home on full darkness. I was cleaning and filleting the fish at my mate's place, throwing in the skeletons and some good sized bream were feeding on them, could see them with the light from the filleting table. During this, a turtle swam past then stopped, swam up to the skeletons and began feeding on them. It grabbed a skeleton in it's mouth, shook it's head and appeared to be using the front flippers to push the skeleton away while chewing on the meat and guts. Water about 5 foot deep, so we had a good view of this for about 10 minutes, then the turtle swam away.

[corro]

Great haul again Yowie!

Do the trag ever make the way into the system or are they always only ever outside?

Cheers

[Isaac Ct]

Well done Yowie, very nice bag there. 

Good feed again.

[zmk1962]

Nicely done Dave. Lots of feeds there - Mrs Yowie will be ecstatic. Now this is more like your usual report - all is good in the world now. 
cheers Zoran 

[Yowie]

3 hours ago, corro said:

Great haul again Yowie!

Do the trag ever make the way into the system or are they always only ever outside?

Cheers

I caught one in Port Hacking many years, legal size, then nothing until early last year when I pulled up a few over several weeks. Mostly undersized, though a couple just over the size limit.

3 hours ago, Isaac Ct said:

Well done Yowie, very nice bag there. 

Good feed again.

Thank you Issac, plenty for the weekend.

2 hours ago, zmk1962 said:

Nicely done Dave. Lots of feeds there - Mrs Yowie will be ecstatic. Now this is more like your usual report - all is good in the world now. 
cheers Zoran 

Thanks Zoran. Mrs Yowie was happy 🤣 -  fish again. 

What else do you expect if I go fishing? "Well you could throw them back"  Not happening dear. 

[jenno64]

Very nice bag Yowie!

The turtle would have been a sight too!

[Yowie]

1 hour ago, jenno64 said:

Very nice bag Yowie!

The turtle would have been a sight too!

Thank you Rob.

I have seen turtles feeding in the Hacking on sea grasses, but not fish frames.

[Larkin]

Nice catch Dave!
some good eating in that lot.

Trag still about - thought they may have move on by now. I did see some marks on the sounder that looked like them yesterday, but maybe the livies I was using were too large.

enjoy the feed!

[Yowie]

11 hours ago, Larkin said:

Nice catch Dave!
some good eating in that lot.

Trag still about - thought they may have move on by now. I did see some marks on the sounder that looked like them yesterday, but maybe the livies I was using were too large.

enjoy the feed!

Yes Chris, happy with the catch. A couple of feeds each with the trag.Tailor and bonnie fillets salting away for bait. I quite often eat the tailor, but enough trag fillets for a feed instead. Fishing at a reef location that I have spoken to you about previously.

Mate and I have picked up a trag or 2 over the years, but this year they are in numbers like I have never seen before. The largest one at 48cm had a medium sized yakka in it's stomach, the bigger yakkas probably too big to catch and eat.

Had a swim at Wanda on Friday, spoke to a surfer there who happened to be a retired copper, and we talked about the places we worked, then onto fishing. He did a bit of trawler fishing at times and said the trag numbers were always low in the catch, and he was surprised/happy to see the trag about in numbers again. Don't know how long they will stay around.