Morning at Macleay

[ellicat]

Arrived at the Viccy Pt ramp at 5.15am today to see @benno573 had arrived earlier and was castnetting some live goodness. He had a heap of live and dead fish with hard heads as well as some herring, small tailor, a tiger prawn and a trev of some sort....entries for the Northside to the comp.

We hit Macleay in calm conditions and set out some live baits and dead baits and two mackerel lines - one deep and one not so deep. It was a quiet start and I was hoping it wasn't going to be one of those days, but after a few minutes Benno's line went for a spin and up came (you guessed it) a shark. We took a pic for the comp. He went 75 or thereabouts to the tip.

 

Not long after, Benno's line went off again - this time a 45 snap hit the deck.

This capture attracted a couple of boats - like moths to a flame and someone with a pea brain decided to cut across 25 metres off the back of us and suddenly my mackerel line was screaming as it wound its way around his prop. They stopped and apologised after getting a mouthful from the decky, then set anchor - a little too close if I have my etiquette gauge set correctly.

Anyway, next up Benno was on again. Unfortunately this time an approximate 8 foot shark tried to take it beside the boat leaving the fish whole but with a nice slice in each side. Just under, so released to the sharks. I had one rod with half a whiting out and another with cuttlefish. Both decided to go off at almost the same time. I was winding in the one with the whiting bait, that seemed to be a decent fish, while Benno grabbed the other one and landed a decent breambo. The one I had on got sharked and the shark took off - last seen heading briskly towards Peel with a hook and trace trailing from its mouth.

Benno landed another keeper (He'll post pics later I hope) and I got sharked again but it let go of a just-under snap. The bite slowed on the turn of the tide. It came on again once there was a bit of run but there was no quality/size to them though, except for a Giant Trevelly that I had to rest on my legs for a pic...without doubt the best catch of the day. Again, Benno has the pics. A swag of picker snapper, bream and tarwhine pestered us until the end. Benno landed the final contribution to the esky with a flattie about 45cm to join 2 x~45cm and 1 x 35.5 snapper.

With the wind starting to pick up we headed for home with Benno going close to his snapper bag and me just happy to come away with the 2 points. Bloody sharks.

A successful and entertaining morning session. Thanks for coming along Benno.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Sounds like a nice session Benno and Brian, good work.

[Angry51]

Sounds like Benno's the deckie to take fishing Brian.

Good day for both of you.

[Kat]

A much more exciting day for you today than us yesterday - the master's at work

[Kat]

What was the bait of the day Brian?

Livies, cuttlefish or other?

[ellicat]

Benno had the most luck with either dead or live hardies. I had a decent fish on a dead diver whiting, with cuttlefish and whiting tails accounting for most of the rest of pickers.

[Bretto77]

You got some action anyway. Well done to the pair of you. Love the form of @benno573 with the cast net and the etiquette policing

[benno573]

[benno573]

Thanks for the morning out @ellicat, very very annoyed you bumped me down the trev leader board though - I’m amazed your legs could hold that one up too. Glad we packed the Stella’s and stickbaits… Glad my random inclusion of a cast net paid off - haven’t thrown one since back in the pre-child days…

[Old Scaley]

Good to see the old firm back in action. I need to do a software update on my sounder so I might take the opportunity to rename that spot to “Shark Hole”.  A bit frustrating but good to see the Benno family will get a feed.

i can never understand why people think it is ok to drive so close to an anchored boat where someone is obviously fishing. Welcome to holiday time fishing, I guess. Was the ramp busy?

[benno573]

22 minutes ago, Old Scaley said:

Good to see the old firm back in action. I need to do a software update on my sounder so I might take the opportunity to rename that spot to “Shark Hole”.  A bit frustrating but good to see the Benno family will get a feed.

i can never understand why people think it is ok to drive so close to an anchored boat where someone is obviously fishing. Welcome to holiday time fishing, I guess. Was the ramp busy?

3 x feeds bagged and in the fridge - Dorothy has requested snapper tonight so snapper it shall be!

 

I pulled hooks on another decent fish going hard to try and beat the sharks - would rather that than the alternative!

 

ramp wasn’t too bad - would have been better if old mate who had launched with no bungs had moved his car at some point during the beaching/bailing process but we made do with the one ramp in the meantime…