Sufishent wrote:
Gave up and went around the corner to drift the last of the incoming/first of the outgoing down to the lighthouse - so missed seeing FQ and TKK. Damn!
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Sorry we missed you, mate. Weirdly I saw a boat at Admin Bay that looked familiar, and wondered if it was you...
Anyway, my take on the anchovy season fishery in that particular area is that there are better options if you're just after snapper. I've got a neighbour who's been doing very well on softbaits out by the Noises (on the Maria side), for example. Much bigger size snaps on average.
I've been out to the Gardners area three times in the past month (plus once in a mate's boat after work) hoping for big kahawai and a very lucky kingie. I regard hooking a decent snapper there as a big bonus, as there seems to be a lot of small fish.
It's reinforced to me that it's a game of odds, and quite reliant on tides. 'No run, no fun', and bigger tides better (maybe to concentrate the bait schools?). Maybe 1 out of 3 you'll have a dynamite session. And just because some guy on Facebook did a live feed two days ago with great fishing, it doesn't mean the next day will be firing too. I can testify to that! The first time i went out it was almost dead; second time, I was 800m away from the one big bit of sustained kahawai activity where someone I know hooked a good kingie on softbait; and on Sunday it was very sporadic.
I tend to cruise around at a slow speed if I move. Whereas it was pretty busy on Sunday and some guys were zooming right up to bust ups in some pretty big runabouts and even trolling lures through them.
No surprise that, as RF indicated, the action dies off.
Each time I've come home with a couple of big kahawai for raw fish dishes or fish cakes. And they are fantastic sport on softbait tackle. I got a rat kingie on the late afternoon trip, 65-70cm which hit on the drop, and so far have had a follow or two, and one big kingie materialised under a kahawai I was about to land. I've also been experimenting with some home-made 'skutes' to imitate the anchovies, and that's been fun catching fish on my own lures.