Friday
Launched inside the harbour not really aiming to catch kings, the wind was from the south so I just drifted north for a few kms with some baits on the bottom and picked up a couple of pinkies and some wrasse. I chucked a 200mm squidgy and a 9 inch zman grub and trolled them back towards the breakwall for no result. Did a couple of drifts from in close with a couple of squid jigs out and picked up a pair of squid. After that I though I head out wide but as I was passing the harbour entrance I spotted a boat haul in a couple of chunky salmon so I cast the big Zman at the rocks and started winding. Got a huge hit and a really strong run but it spat the plastic but I was on again next cast. The wind kept pushing me away from the rocks so in the end I did some circle work trolling big plastics close to the rocks getting hit after hit. The smaller fish were just hitting the tails of the lures and only the big ones were hooking up. They were going aerial too which was fun. Ended up with 8 nice salmon, plus I picked up a floater that someone hadn't looked after well to keep as bait. Would have dropped a similar number which was a bit frustrating. Maybe someone can help with this; I was using Wilson jigheads, they were pretty cheap on Motackle and I wonder if they are prone to being spat out compared to other brands. It was my first time catching a lot of fish on plastics so I don't really have anything to compare them to.
It was pretty bleak weather on Friday:
Saturday
We launched from the beach ramp at the caravan park on the North Shore, light winds made it a simple launch. I trolled plastics and a couple of hardbodies out a bit wider than most of the others and did a lap of the ship that was anchored in the bay. Someone got a kingfish near the ship and I got a big hit on the 200mm squidgy I was trolling but it spat the hook and having never caught a king before I can't say from the run whether that's what it was or not. A wrasse on a 6 inch Gulp Nemisis was the only other action on the lures. I needed to give the arms a rest so I put some baits out and picked up a couple of just size pinkies which I let go, plus a couple more wrasse and a scorpion cod/gurnard. Was not happy to see that spiky ****** because I'd lost my pliers that morning and that is one thing you don't want to have to grab to de hook. Ended up cutting the line and sending him off to impress his mates with his fully sick new piercing. I returned to the ramp in the afternoon having done about 20km, the beers weren't touching the sides on their way down after that.
Sunday
The others planned on launching at Wally's but I thought I'd take the safer option and launch on the harbour again. Turns out I was right (I like it when that happens), apparently they caught **** all and got blown off the water after a couple of hours. I got a pinkie in the harbour and a salmon at the entrance, both on a little wriggler I was trolling. I rigged up the sambo and trolled it around for a few km but got no interest. By lunchtime the wind was picking up and it was getting pretty sloppy outside so I headed back. I was thinking of hanging around for Monday but I wasn't convinced the fishing would improve enough overnight to make it worthwhile so I pulled the pin, packed up and headed home.
It was a good weekend despite the lack of kings, the vyak people seem pretty cool. I've got 4kg of sambo fillets sitting in the freezer waiting to be smoked which I'm happy with too. Need to do a bit more work on the yak because the mount that the front rod holders sit on got wrenched when the salmon were hitting and now it wobbles around a heap and I'm worried I'll lose the whole thing over the side if something really big smashed a lure.
