Another "EPIC'Strayline sesh in 2-3mtrs of water on a Westcoast harbor
With the weather Gods beaming great weather down upon us Sat we set a plan to fish all day in the shallows on a Westcoast harbor - I have been fishing this harbor for a good few years now and once you get to know it the fishing can be of some disbelieve at times.
The great thing has been learning from a mate over the years that use to live out there, 95% of my fishing this area is done in 6mtrs or less. Saturday we were going to concentrate around the 2-3mtr mark in a few different places. Most times these fish aren't big but they are to me the perfect eating size - not to big and not to small (Perfect to fillet) 40-50cm of prime Westcoast Snapper...
Fishing these shallows through out the whole harbor has still allowed us to use our normal straylining techneics, most people use a heavy dropper rig or great big heavy sinkers tout West o keep on the bottom but fishing these shallows we normally get away with 1/4 - 1/2 oz and sometimes even floating baits. It's amazing what these fish feel like in very shallow water sometimes, at times you would think you were into a good 8-10lb fish.
Ariving at my mates at 4.30am with snoring going on it gave me a chance to set up my rods for the day :-) - sometimes I think he don't set the alarm and just uses me as one.... Just after 5.00 it was time to load up and get out there, the plan was a full day mish and I didn't want to miss that magic part of the day to sleepy heads :-) - with a few grummbles after poking my head through the open window we had loaded up the 380 and we were on our way...
Arriving at the ramp just after light we dropped the boat in and waited for Jase to park up - Our first distnation only took us 1min - we anchored up in 1.9mtrs and Jase set the burley in motion - The water was a bit dirty from the rain run off but we thought we would give it a chance - over 20 odd mins and a few small Snaps the dession was made to head down the Harbor in search of some cleaner water...Our second spot at 3mtrs saw us in some nicer water and once again Jase set the burley, it didn't take long for the hits to come on and over the last hour of the outgoing tide it got pretty hectic with multipl double and tripple hook ups.
It got to hard to film and take pics as no one wanted to down there rod and film :-) if you were the last one to hook up it was tough luck with the camera given to you to film and then with in sec's you had a fish on ya line as well but had to wait to wind it in. Over the hour we had picked up a good 40-50 fish with all being 35-40cm with the odd bigger to 45cm and the beaut thing being in 3mtrs of water there was pretty much sero mortality rate going on, 10-20 secs they were landed then released - the ones we kept were the ones that were gut hooked and a couple of better sized ones. We let go 40 odd fish that powered away wondering what the hell just happend in the last 30secs...
The day would of been over before it had begun if we were there for just a feed, it was a lot of fun scouting new ground through out the day and fishing a few old spots that all held fish...fishing all day isn't for everybody but this is one thing I love to do - spending time with a couple of mates, scouting new ground and just lax fishing for most of the day...
Another "Epic" day out and about on a Westcoast Harbor...
Tight lines
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