Went for a walk and a sight fish this arvo with Richard Dobbinson. Me with one rod and Richard with his camera. Not expecting much but found a lovely big porae in a small pool. It was not that shy at all. A snapper would have spooked in no time in the same position. I estimated its weight at around 4kg.
Unfortunately I had a large, heavily dressed 2/0 fly on at the time. Probably a bit big for porae. It swam over to the fly several times and followed it down enthusiastically. It stood on its tail and examined the fly very closely several times. I'm absolutely sure it was pecking at the fly, but because they can do the whole sucky thing very easily without moving a muscle it was a bit hard to figure out what was going on. With snapper you'd see a gill flare or slight tail kick. all I could see was the porae putting its nose down on the fly.
I struck about four times anyway, but there was no connection. Then the porae seemed to slowly become aware of our presence and wandered off. Possibly a smaller fly it would have sucked right in and chewed on. Next time.
Good to see though. They really like this cold offshore wind that flattens out the sea and makes the shallow waters extremely clear. A great sight fishing challenge at this coldest time of the year.