Browns mountain and Fads - big Cod

[99FishingWorld]

Tarik checking in... how good was the long weekends weather???? Soo many people were out. A moment of silence for those who had to spend it camping or something else…

After spending 8 hours replacing both of my boats windscreens the previous day alone, the boat was fueled up and ready to go for Saturday. 

We started off with no bait or burley, so catching livebait was not easy. We had to ask other boats for some pillies. We caught a few enough for some mahi mahi. Headed off to some fish traps off Sydney and caught a few mahi but due to a slow current there wasn’t many interested. So decided to head to browns mountain to deep drop as slow current is perfect for this. 

we used squid, bonito and mani mahi which landed us two blue eye in the first few drops. They got bigger as we kept dropping, with the third blue eye measuring 1 meter and around 25KG. They couldn’t resist the mahi mahi strip baits.

This beast was brought up 30m off the bottom then my Tanacom 1000 started to struggle and no line was being brought up anymore. I left the reel in retrieve mode but I had to hold my rod and pump the rod to help retrieve the line. 450m later and it surfaces, bubbles everywhere, all of us screaming had no clue what we were expecting but we knew it was something big… I’m wondering if it was the biggest caught that day.. surely not? 

Best thing is I I recorded it - have a look if you prefer to watch it unfold:

https://youtube.com/@99FishingWorld

 

 

Edited April 4 by 99FishingWorld

[Yowie]

Good bag of blue eye and dollies. The big one is a great fish, and having to wind up manually. 😂  You would still be happy though.

[99FishingWorld]

Just now, Yowie said:

Good bag of blue eye and dollies. The big one is a great fish, and having to wind up manually. 😂  You would still be happy though.

I didn't wind it manually but I had to take the rod out of the rod holder and lift the rod up and down, a little trick I learned off Ultimate Fishing...

[Yowie]

6 minutes ago, 99FishingWorld said:

I didn't wind it manually but I had to take the rod out of the rod holder and lift the rod up and down, a little trick I learned off Ultimate Fishing...

Yep, I know what you mean. Too big a fish for the system. Not easy to do.

I have seen a couple of fishos out there with a large wooden reel on the side of the boat, then wind it up with a good fish on the hooks. I still fish with handlines, but not out there at Browns.

[zmk1962]

Outstanding result Tarik! ... way to go. There are few experiences in life like hooking up big ... fishing the deep drops ... look forward to the video.

Cheers Zoran

Edited April 2 by zmk1962

[AlbertW]

Good stuff mate, any tips for the blue eye haha. We headed out on saturday but had zero bites on squid :(. There were some dollies around at browns mountain as well

[bessell1955]

Well done!

[jenno64]

Very nice Blue Eye, my mouth is watering!

[99FishingWorld]

On 4/2/2024 at 11:01 AM, zmk1962 said:

Outstanding result Tarik! ... way to go. There are few experiences in life like hooking up big ... fishing the deep drops ... look forward to the video.

Cheers Zoran

Thanks mate, it's like a lucky dip, not know if its gonna be a 5kg fish or a 20+ KG monster. definitely my favorite spot in sydney.

On 4/2/2024 at 12:05 PM, AlbertW said:

Good stuff mate, any tips for the blue eye haha. We headed out on saturday but had zero bites on squid :(. There were some dollies around at browns mountain as well

I heard of the dollies. I didn't see any though. MY sounder completely shits itself whenever I visit Browns so I cant see anything. Did you only use squid? We used three hooks - 1 bonito strip, 1 squid, 1 Mahi Mahi fillet. We got hits on all three. 

At first we caught nothing then we moved spots towards the center of Browns, where all the boats were, we started hooking up instantly. bite died off around 1 and all the boats had left around then anyway.

Edited April 3 by 99FishingWorld

[Hoods]

Maate, I love your Plan B. Well done. Can you tell us about your boat(s).

How did you deal with the fish? Bar Cod get very slimy & we leave on ice then guernie them to remove the slime

Thanks Hoods

[99FishingWorld]

9 hours ago, Hoods said:

Maate, I love your Plan B. Well done. Can you tell us about your boat(s).

How did you deal with the fish? Bar Cod get very slimy & we leave on ice then guernie them to remove the slime

Thanks Hoods

It's a 5.75 Stacer OceanRunner - 130 2 Stroke Yamaha. I probably spent around 90 litres of fuel that day but I was also driving 20-28 knots most of the time.

I put the large fish in my kill bag (too big for esky) after gutting it and stuffing it with ice and putting the roe/liver in ziplock bags. I scaled the fish when i got home and filleted her up. Wasn't really slimy!

The rest of the fish was just in an ice slurry in the esky.