Jump to content

Narooma Gamefishing

Ovington

By Ovington
in Saltwater

Recommended Posts

Ovington Newbie

Ovington

Posted
Posted

I am have ventured down to my home town to visit the family and wet a line. I normally get down once or twice a year for a Marlin/kingy fish and a run at the Southern Bluefin in winter if I have the time. This year the Marlin and Kings have been a bit slow unfortunately but we decided to head wide in hope of finding some good water. I had booked the old man for 3 days off to fish Friday, Sat and Sunday and the weather gods really turned it on for us. The first day involved getting a heap of little slimies for livies and heading wide via Montague to see if there were any kings. No kings and no current so we buzzed out to the FAD where we managed a couple of dollies on livies and one on a stickbait. 

The fad went quite so we headed north to tuross canyons where we found a massive school of dollies with some monsters among them but unfortunately our livies kept being eaten by the smaller fish and we ran out of livies and couldn't find any big bait out wide. The wind came up and they weren't interested in lures so we called it a day with 7 legal Dollies from 65-80cm.

Day 2 involved a similar game plan but with more livies and my younger sister also attending. As soon as we arrived out wide near the fish traps and deployed our live baits a curious mako came up to see what was going on. I quickly rigged the tiagra with a circle hook and whole sqiud and the mako was on it in no time. As i watched 6ft of mako swim off with my bait I slowly wound but the drag to feel a secure corner jaw hook up GAME ON! The mako took a decent first run and gad a small jump before it stuck it out under the boat for about 10mins before I secured a tag in it and let it go. I decided to cool off for a swim immediately after where a giant bull seal attempted to take advantage of me so that was short lived. 

We started trolling some baits when we saw a bait ball erupt with a massive (3m+) blue marlin and a few stripes shred it to peices. Unfortunately they disappeared soon after and we didn't manage a fish of it. We did however find a good school of dollies again and bagged a few more for the table before calling it a day.

Day 3: We took off with my other sister this time to nail some more dollies around the traps where I was outfished once again by the sis with her bagging 2 legals in 2 casts. I managed a good sized arrow squid on a sabiki jig in 150m when catching slimies BONUS! And we started the day of trolling livies for a beaked bandit. We dropped one big bull dollie on a skip bait after a few jumps which was unfortunate but persisted for a few hours with no luck. We were about to call it a day when the adrenaline pumping scream of the tiagra started to sing followed by a short lived run on the TLD. I came up tight on the Tiagra where a beast of a run (200m+) tested my arms out. I lost tension for a second before I regained tight lines and after a 45min fight in below average conditions up came a 7ft mako that I had foul hooked in the dorsal fin!!! It was a great fight and we decided to keep this one as they are great on the table and we were heading home anyway. Overall excellent trip and although there was no marlin they are my first makos and loved it!20170203_111728.jpg20170203_111600.jpgWP_20170204_07_49_52_Pro.jpg20170203_103500.jpg20170205_080209.jpg20170205_140744.jpg20170205_142142.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Luvit Newbie

Luvit

Posted
Posted

Nice report,

Usually if the Kingy's are on at the island so are the seals! taking the vast majority of fish hooked.

You're way braver than me to jump in for a swim knowing the predators that lurk beneath our boats. Well done on a couple of Mako's a great sport fish to catch did you get many jumps out of them? Mako fillets are at the top of the shark list to eat along with gummy shark.:15_yum:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ovington Newbie

Ovington

Posted
  • Author
Posted
1 hour ago, Luvit said:

Nice report,

Usually if the Kingy's are on at the island so are the seals! taking the vast majority of fish hooked.

You're way braver than me to jump in for a swim knowing the predators that lurk beneath our boats. Well done on a couple of Mako's a great sport fish to catch did you get many jumps out of them? Mako fillets are at the top of the shark list to eat along with gummy shark.:15_yum:

Yeah mate all too familiar with that unfortunately. I grew up there so know the island and its occupants all too well hah. Yeah I am well aware but am just stupid enough to overlook that. I figured the seal wouldn't look so calm if there was a 400kg tiger shark lurking beneath hah. The one I released had one big jump and flip but the one I hooked in the dorsal went deep. We did see another boat hooked up to a mako which went ballistic and did a few dozen flips which was cool to watch anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ovington Newbie

Ovington

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I can only imagine we have had a plenty of good years at the island on kings with a few years accounting for plenty over the meter mark but the last 2 have been fairly average and I have never caught a Yellowfin at the island but have definitely heard stories. The yellowfin have been difficult to come by the past few years out wide too. Lovely location none the less

Link to comment
Share on other sites
aussie123 Newbie

aussie123

Posted
Posted

I got a 207lb fin about 100m off the seal colony on the north end.

We thought it was a seal for ages until it swam so far East of the island which we decided it was too far away from the colony to be a seal as they will head back to safety if you can hold them for long enough.

I have lots of great memories from those days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ovington Newbie

Ovington

Posted
  • Author
Posted
6 hours ago, aussie123 said:

I got a 207lb fin about 100m off the seal colony on the north end.

We thought it was a seal for ages until it swam so far East of the island which we decided it was too far away from the colony to be a seal as they will head back to safety if you can hold them for long enough.

I have lots of great memories from those days.

That is a bloody Mammoth well done! Few and far between those fish these days. The seals on the other hand.... In my memory there was never as many as there are these days! Do you recall a island with a fair few less seals?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...