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resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:28 pm
by cheaterparts
6 of us headed north for a week leaving late good Friday and arriving at South West Rocks Saturday after noon for our annual trip there ( my 4th time )
After getting set up in the house and rigging done for the morning it was off to bed for a well earned sleep

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some flash glass at the house we rented for the week

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the rigging table and a nightly chore to be ready to fish the next morning

Sunday morning
3.30 am alarm to be on the water before light ( to beat the boats to the bait grounds ) bait was easy enough to find only Yakkas - slimmies were not playing the game
The water however was very dirty with the resent rains - we all trolled livies and kept them out of trouble and none of us troubled the scorers
So day 1 no fish back to the house to re rig and hope the day would improve tomorrow

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back up the ramp - no fish today

Monday
was a mirror of the day before dirty water and no fish even with bait easy to find - over the nights re rigging a new plan was worked out - off to Coffs Harbour in the morning

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trailers full of kayaks

Tuesday
the hour and 20 run up to Coffs Harbour launching at Diggers Beach ( an easy little surf break ) but bait was proving hard to find - moving out to Mc Auleys reef ( wide ) I found a bait ball on one bommie - this had it's own problems with a breeze at lease 10 knot and maybe more blowing me off this bommie quite quickly but with a few runs back got 2 Yakkas - these were live baited on Mackerel rigs ( wire and stinger hooks ) with quite a bit of trolling I seamed to be keeping them out of trouble
moving in closer to shore and on Mc Auleys reef ( close ) I found that a couple of the others had baits taken by small reef sharks - chatting to Mozza and saying that nothing was taking any interest in my bait he said why not try a run in closer
So only a 100 meters or so off the front of the rock and in about 8 to 12 meters that happy Zing of a reel going off - a bit of a fight and the gaff was in a 107 cm Cobia - a great little fish to slide in the fish hatch and finally a result to give the scorers something to do

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107 cm Cobia @ Diggers Beach Coffs Habour - fun to catch and great to eat

Wednesday
back out the front of SWR the water had cleared and on the bait grounds at 11 fathom reef we found some bait balls when dropping the Sabiki though all hell broke loose these were leaping Bonito ( how to stuff a sabiki in one easy lesson ) they straightened hooks - broke hooks in half and made a tangled mess of the sabiki rigs but we did get enough for a feed - I landing 3 myself adding to the 6 the other guys got
Leejo hooked something that he could only make out had blue and yellow in it before busting off 30 lb braid - the line went down the side on the line roller on the bail arm which of cause cut the line - no one caught anything else that day

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Eoin did his magic with the Bonito - not sure what he marinated that fish in but it was perfect on steamed rice and some Japanese sprinkles
the dish both looked and tasted amazing

Thursday
it rained over night so there was a dirty line of water through Trial Bay but out the front was till clean - this worked it's way along pushing us further south to stay out of it by about 9.30 it was down past the bins and the only one to hook up to anything was Chenski who had the leader bust before sighting the fish - stumps came early due to the dirty water

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Mozza ( Stealth fisha 500 )and Eoin ( fisha 460 ) heading out the front from the dirty water inside trail bay

Friday
only 2 of us Leejo and Myself headed out friday - but somewhere different , we headed for Scotts Head about 45 min north from SWR this is a surf launch and the waves were probably around a meter so we watched from the look out for a while and worked out there was a deeper channel though the break - as it was we both got out easy enough but bait was again a problem , we met up with another kayaker ( a Local ) and he was also find bait to be a problem and we were on the right areas that normally hold bait
time for dead bait rigs - Leejo had 2 slimmies from the day before so rigged them to troll I had Pillies so rigged one side with pilly and the other with a HB - to pilly did the damage with that happy reel zing this time a small ( 86 cm ) long tail tuna and a little time later a small hammerhead shark
we pulled the pin around 11 am as we had to pack for an early start for the way home Saturday
coming back though the surf was again easy enough -

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Launch at Scotts head has a deeper channel about 100-150 meters out from the rocks ans away from the main bunch of surfers

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my profisha 525 and leejos 575 @ Scotts Head read to head out

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Leejo packed up everything stowed ready for the run in through the surf

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86 cm long tail Tuna caught @ Scotts head but back at the South West Rocks ramp and cleaning table to rip some fillets off it

so that was our trip not many caught but still a great rip - roll on next year

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:37 pm
by purple5ive
That's an effort and a half mate. Well dine on tbe captures and thanks for sharing.

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:50 pm
by Lightningx
Nice report mate.
Well done :thumbsup:

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:55 pm
by smile0784
Sound like a slow trip but still got a few.
Well done mate
Great report

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:58 pm
by Texas
Great report cheater, sorry about the fish
Cheers Gra

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:33 pm
by DougieK
107cm Cobia... freaking awesome.

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:48 am
by Nude up
Sounds like a great trip I think the fish your mate lost was possibly a rainbow runner. Ripper cobia.

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:33 am
by cheaterparts
I've added some pics to the first post

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:45 am
by Nude up
Great pics cheers

Re: resent trip north to South West Rocks

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:14 pm
by Lightningx
Couldn’t see the pics when I first read the report.
Great pics. That bonito dish looks tasty :thumbsup: