Snapper antics in the North

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    Posted: 13 May 2019 at 6:50pm
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Each year Stevo and I escape the rat race and head North twice a year on our 5-6day fishing trip, these trips comprise with all fishing techniques we love to do. Straylining the shallows, bottom bouncing baits in the deep, softbaiting, micro/slow pitch jigging, jigging for kings, setting the kontiki, surfcasting and fishing for reef fish.

There is one place that we look forward to fish every time, not for big fish but the quantity and quality of the fish and hectic-ness that this place can hold at times. Dropping a couple big berleys Snapper, Kahawai, big Trevs and occasionally Kingfish turn up - we have caught some nice Reds to 6kilo and solid Trevs around 4-5kilo and this is why we love to fish this area at least a couple of times on our trip.

Our trips are late Oct and mid Feb but this year we had a bit of a change it wasn't going to be so hard out and we also had to move it to mid March. We only got to fish it once this time around one mid morning and the great thing about this spot - sun up, bright, calm or rough and only in 5-8mtrs of water the fish just seem to be there in huge numbers. Every time fished, it turns into absolute mayhem you can only fish one rod and once they arrive you can't even sit down nor put the rod in the holder.

Dropping two big berleys once again we hoped our little spot would preform like it usually does, I also chopped a few pillies to send down the trail to really get it going. Sometimes it can take a little while for them to turn up and a little while is only meaning 5mins. At first you get the nibbles, then the grabs then it turns into fishing madness. The fish seem to patrol this area as abundance of food is on the offer from shellfish to bait fish and what ever else rides the tides in and out of the Harbour. As usual we got a few bites and the crazy thing here is we pretty much never catch anything under 40-45cm, it's as though the fish are testing our baits because we know the nibbles are not small fish.

Pumping the berley really gets them going and soon those nibbles turned into grabs, Stevo hooked up first and it was a nice little red at around 40cm. Soon after I was also hooked up to another nice little Snap. One thing I look forward to is having that chance of hooking a nice big Trev - they are such a cool fish to catch on light line and pretty much all my fishing is done on 3-6 or 4-8 kilo rods with little 3-4000 size reels. 

As usual the bites came on more and more and soon that hectic-ness crept in, fish were just smashing our baits half way down. You could basically count the seconds before striking knowing a fish would have your bait in it's mouth. Stevo hooked up to something more solid which meant either a King or a nice Trev, with the little nods on the tip and the line going round and round with just a couple of burst runs I knew it was going to be a nice little Trev. As stated above we have caught some Donkey Trevs here and for me it has become part of the reason I like to fish here, they are such gruntey fighters and on the light gear makes for fun hooking into these guys. Stevo had a bit of a hard time but after 5mins of seeing a bit of silvery flicker and a couple of good runs he managed to get it to the surface, we were able to just net this guy and release it with out even touching it. 

I was trying to do a bit of filming but only having the one camera this time it got a little crazy trying to fish and film so I downed my fishing rod every now and then, It was pretty cool just filming Stevo dropping baits and getting smashed. The filming didn't last long as my fishing instincts kicked in and I found my self dropping baits and being smashed also. Stevo hooked up again into a another nice Trev but they were eluding me. I was still busy on the 45-50cm Snapper that were plaguing us, sometimes with such numbers I think the bigger fish don't get much of a chance. Stevo hooked up then I would hook up which happened the whole time there "Double hook up" was the phrase of the day and over a couple hours of fishing mayhem we called it a day.

Once again our far North spot X didn't let us down and although we only managed a couple of better modeled Snapper around 70cm the rest were of that standard 40-50cm, also to its true nature we didn't catch anything under that 40cm the whole time. No Kings turned up for us this time but we had an absolute blast on the Snaps and Trevs - every time we fish here at the end of all the carnage we endure every time we still can't get over how much fish this special little spot can hold. We only keep a few fish and let go the strong and healthy in hope our spot remains like this for years to come.

Tight lines


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Tinca Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 May 2019 at 2:43pm
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A comprehensive report as usual. Recognise the location but only fished around there in summer, so wondered how it goes at other times. Cheers.
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