As a lot of you probably know I pretty much fish exclusively with lures, but before I caught this lure bug I used to do a lot of surf fishing – predominantly for gummies. A while ago I promised to take fellow forum members GTShoon and Mazman for a gummy fish, so with my experiment finally finishing last week and the weather looking perfect on Friday night, I dusted off the surf gear and we made our way down to my favourite beach in Westernport:
I fished this spot a lot when I was a mad keen surf fisho and it was rare that it didn’t produce, so I was fairly confident of getting the boys onto a fish or two. And if the gummies weren’t playing the game, there is always a heap of by-catch to keep you interested. However, this spot can sometimes be a nightmare to fish as it is often very weedy, and if this combines with a large swell it can be almost impossible to keep a bait in the water. And unfortunately, the boys found this out the hard way:
We arrived just on high tide and we spent the first hour of our session hauling in big clumps of weed. Gummy fishing was just like I remembered – it was cold, wet, and frustrating. No wonder I gave it up. And the crabs were out in force making life extremely difficult:
We considered moving spots but I knew that if we just stuck it out and waited for the tide to recede a bit, the swell would die down and the weed would disappear. And sure enough, it did. So I chucked on a fresh salmon fillet:
And before I even had a chance to bait up my second rod, something snaffled it. At first it didn’t feel like much of a fish – I called it for a banjo or draughtboard. But when it caught a glimpse of the shoreline, it woke up and took off on a blistering run. And after a short but intense fight we landed our first fish of the night (modelled beautifully by Mazman):
A nice little gummy around the 6-7kg mark – not a bad way to start the night. So after a few quick snaps we let him go and got our baits back in the water, and it didn’t take long before one of my rods buckled over again. Like the gummy, this guy didn’t do too much until he got close to shore. I had him just behind the breakers when he finally realized what was going on and took off on a slow but steady run. After peeling off about 50m of braid my line went slack – he’d bitten through my 60lb leader. But before I could even tie a new rig, my other rod went off. And after an almost identical fight, the same thing happened – f$%k! I was almost certain of the culprit – a big, greedy seven-giller. The slow runs, big weight and massive headshakes were a dead give away. And over the next hour, we had another three identical bite offs. To say I was getting frustrated is an understatement, but it was by no means the first time a giller had soured my night at this spot. I once got bitten off half a dozen times in the space of an hour, before finally landing a 35-40kg giller with five of my rigs in her mouth. These things are seriously greedy. But eventually something different picked up one of my baits, and Cam landed this guy:
A little pinky. Not much of a fish, but it was nice to get something to the sand. And before I could even get another bait out, my other rod buckled over. This felt like another giller *sigh*. But when I got it near the shore, it went absolutely nuts. It jumped out of the water 3-4 times and thrashed around on the surface for a good 2-3 minutes before screaming off on one of the quickest runs I’ve ever experienced. It peeled off a hundred metres of braid in no time at all and when I finally turned it and started getting some line back, it went slack – bitten off again. I was shattered. I’m not going to speculate too much about what it was, but we caught a glimpse of a very long tail. And it was definitely no giller.
By this stage the persistent rain had soaked through my numerous layers of clothing and I didn’t think I could handle another bite off, so we admitted defeat and started to pack up. I think poor Louie was well and truly ready to leave by this stage too:
So we made the long trek back to the car and went home with our tails between our legs. This trip reminded why I don't fish for gummies anymore – I was soaking wet, cold, tired, I stunk like bait, I had a boot full of gear to clean when I got home, and I’d spent the majority of my night being bitten off and tying new rigs. But I’d had an absolutely ripping time – we fishos really are masochistic bastards - and that one that got away will keep me wondering for a long time. Back to bream fishing methinks!
Cheers!
