Fishing Reports

RUMINATIONS ON SPOT “X”

Three out of three is starting to look ominous. Last time I had a spot “X”, it lasted a full eight fishing trips. On the last trip, caught only one fish, and that was after some serious perseverance. Thing about the spot at the time was that the fish were all in excess of 5kg, so after a half dozen or so, we normally left grinning and content. Sadly, I’ve never caught a fish there since – and that was about ten years ago. For a while, on most trips I would cross the spot with fish-finder on, but eventually gave up.

So here I am looking at a new spot “X” with some trepidation. The spot alluded to above was in fact a spawning season location, so was bound to be seasonal. The spot this time has pelagic snapper located well up the water column and it’s already winter. Will it prove to be a seasonal phenomenon with the fish about to move out to their deep water winter haunts, or is this in fact their primary location? Or is the habitat the kind that attracts mobile schools to stay a while – a bit like an aquatic oasis – with food and shelter instead of a watering hole? Only time will tell.

Interesting though, how we humans are inclined to thrash a good thing while we can. Managed to fish another possie the other day with some success. Didn’t want to over-do the luck angle or over-fish the place, as I’m sure most of us will do if we can. Pretty much the story of our human species – to make hay while the sun shines – to mine a resource until it’s all gone.

Interesting fishing spot “X” the other evening, the way the fish were reluctant to bite. Had to tease them, more or less like you would a kitten with a feather on a string: tugged it away to make them strike. Added to the challenge and made the fishing lots of fun – reel cat and mouse stuff.

Interesting too how, after 18 years serious fishing, it’s only in the last couple of years that I have really gotten into the tease strategy. A slow-learner perhaps? Also managed to work it with two rods at a time, which added to the sense of satisfaction when it worked. My reluctance to adopt the tease strategy in the past has risen from a fear that it might frighten the fish off. And it seems that it does on some occasions. However, at this stage I’m it would seem the odds are in the fisherman’s favour when he teases snapper.

Something about the threat of loss triggers a feeding response even in all animals. It’s even a primary strategy used by canny sales-persons to lock us into sale. I’m sure we’ve all heard it before: “If you don’t, someone else is about to”, ….. and “do you want to risk losing it….?”

Got into hiding behind an Island/rock thingy the other morning. Wasn’t that bad on the open; it’s just that my buddy ended up getting a bit green around the gills. Despite the protestations that he never gets sea-sick, he ended up white as a ghost. Heard it before? So while the crew dozed, I fished on. And there were snapper about, just couldn’t land even one - cleaned me up every time. Was confident I would eventually stop a couple at least - but no!

Trouble was I was stray-lining over foul with only a 30lb trace. Great in open water, but not enough grunt in the rough. But even with a 60lb trace I still failed to make headway. Came to the conclusion that the fish were actually taking my baits either just above or from under the kelp.  So tried a couple of floats with a one metre trace hanging below.

One of my floats was the real-deal in bright colours, the other I fashioned out of a cork. Eventually lost sight of the cork against the sea but when I decided to call it a day, the colourful float was still clearly visible about 50 m astern. Was thinking that the float idea was a bit of a waste of time when I realised that the reason I had lost sight of the cork wasn’t a problem with my eye-sight. A snapper [I presume] had come up and dragged it down into the kelp too. So maybe another time – but bright visible floats are the way to go.