South west rocks offshore

[juicy233]

Hi All, today I went on my first ever fishing charter out of south west rocks targeting snapper, pearl perch and other bottom fish. I was up at 5 for a 6 o'clock start out of the maclaey river and heading out into the ocean. I was with the rocks fishing charters and as we had just set off, I was helping the deckhand set out a spread of 3 overhead rods and the second I had put the one I was getting ready out and into the rod holder, a little tailor smacked it and I was onto the first fish of the day, 5 mins into the trip as we were still in the mouth of the river. What surprised me about this instant hookup trolling was the lack of success I've had trolling similar lures in Sydney although it was only a 35cm tailor, I was stoked and looking forward to the rest of the day. After crossing the bar out of the mouth of the river, we barely made it out of the chop before running through a school of Mac tuna and hooking up to a nice 60cm Mac tuna. The old timers on the charter were happy to let me take it and pull it in as they could see how eagerly I was watching the rods . On the way out to the reefs off Stuart point, we hooked up to about 10 other Mac tuna and at one point, even had all 3 rods right on mac tuna at once! The captain told me they had been coming in in plague amounts to the area and this was awesome because I think they are a great fish to catch and make excellent bait. Once we made it to the first reef, everyone hastily dropped down their bottom rigs with the big snapper sinkers and the crew on the ship asked if anyone wanted to learn their special technique they called 'floating'. No one was interested but I said sounds good as I thought these guys knew what they were doing and boy am I glad I listened to them. This technique involved casting out a whole pilchard / Mac tuna strip with a ball sinker directly on it up current and letting it drift back towards the boat. Once it hit the bottom, you'd jig it up a tiny bit, then open the bailarm and let it drift along the sea floor along the current. At our first spot, I was still learning how to feel the bottom and do it correctly and was a bit discouraged as I saw the guys fishing their bottom paternoster rigs pulling up some nice snapper and tuskfish and I didn't even end up catching a fish at this first spot! The other weird thing was when I got hooked up to the reef on the bottom, the crew said it was good and means I'm doing the method correctly. After the bite slowed down, we moved on to another spot where i started to see the benefit of this odd method I had been taught. All the other guys were getting their baits taken by slimy mackerel and I had landed my first decent snapper, measuring about 45cm. The others began to get some snapper as well although mostly smaller and below legal keeper size. After this some tuskfish decided to show up and after 3 rebaits and 20 mins, I had hooked a decent sized tuskfish and having never caught one of these before, I thought it was a super fat snapper that didn't fight that hard as it came up. An hour or so later after the spot became quiet, we moved on and went to check out a new reef. On my first drop down, I felt some bites and then a fish had grabbed the bait and ran under some rocks, I pulled the rod up and felt a big weight because I was reefed and head shakes. After this I spent 10 minutes trying to get it out from the rock thinking it was a monster snapper however eventually I free it and as I begin to pull it up, I realize it's a little sergeant baker. Around 45 minutes later and some nice snapper caught from other people on the boat, I had hooked something that I originally thought was a snag and began to slowly pull it up. This was like nothing I had hooked today and once again, thought it was a big snapper. As it reaches the surface, I discovered it was a pesky 70cm shovelnose ray so now I had been tricked twice by these fish. We quickly moved on from this spot as the bite shut off hard and the waves and current picked up pushing us off the reef. We had settled into the final spot for the day where I went on to catch 2 more slightly smaller snappers (around 40cm) and a smaller tuskfish along with some pesky slimy mackerel. We eventually packed up after a good 4 1/2 hours fishing and trolled some small skirts back to the mainland not to get a single take on the skirts the whole way back. I guess the mac tuna are fired up around sunrise which correlates to what I've seen walking around and fishing hat head, as I've seen schools of Mac tuna in the early morning feeding, but never at any other time during the day. Overall an awesome day fishing and an epic feed for a late lunch. If anyone's read this far I'm surprised as sometimes I tend to just keep on writing.

 

 

 

 

[james Cutler]

Great Story. Nice fish. Well done.

[wazatherfisherman]

Great story and pictures, sounds like you enjoyed the charter

[Yowie]

Nice work. Sometimes charter fishing does not produce many fish for the money outlay, however, it sounds like a good day out.

[bessell1955]

Great to see that you were so successful on your first charter.

[Hoods]

Well done. You were very fortunate to get outside. And congtaulations on giving a new technique a go and sticking with it.

Thanks for the report and good luck next time.

[linewetter]

Wow!  Awesome catches.  I bet that fish tasted 10x better knowing you caught it yourself.  As a self proclaimed chip connoisseur as well, those chips look great as well 👌

[rickmarlin62]

Great report  top spot up there

[Larkin]

That fish looks delicious!

well done on your days fishing!