A couple of bay trips

[Another Wazza]

Towards the end of February I headed out in the bay in search of some Jew, I found them and had an absolute shocker!, I lost 4 fish (& plastics) to line break as I was going extremely hard on these fish to try and avoid being sharked, I also got snagged once, got snipped by a mackerel, and when I finally managed to get one close to the boat it got sharked about 3 metres away, I was devastated but not willing to give up, having lost 7 plastics & jigheads I headed off to BCF that afternoon to restock & get some new line.

The plan was to head out there the next day and see if they were still around, well, what a difference a day makes, I dropped the first fish, but managed 2 in 2 casts after that, the 1st went 95-96?, there was a little bit of chop out there and they weren't behaving themselves on the brag mat

I'll admit I took a pretty ordinary pic of him, but you get the idea. After I gave him the treatment and got organised again, this little guy paid me a visit

With 2 onboard in quick succession, the decision was made to leave them be, as its just too risky sport fishing for them with the sharks never too far away, so I decided to move on in search of some more fun.

That fun came via a little 30cm small mouth, which was a first for me in the bay, a Trevally not much bigger came after him, then I headed back in. It was a pleasant few hours all up.

Fast forward a month or so, with very little fishing taking place because of some average weather, when I saw the conditions for Tuesday just gone, it was an easy decision to head back out in the bay.

Jew were on the menu once again, so I deployed the same plastic from the previous outing and after working him for about 15 minutes I hooked a big grinner, now I "technically" didn't land him, no leader was touched, I swear!, I just let him chill next to the boat while I grabbed the pliers, when I came back to the rod he was gone, result!, the scoreboard remains unchanged.

Not long after that incident I hooked up to what I initially thought was a small shark, it hit the plastic just off the bottom and started to scream off, then it started coming up, rather erratic mind you, thinking it was a shark I wasn't interested in playing it out, with a heavy drag set to try and beat the sharks, I wound it in with little respect, that was until I saw it was a nice Spotted Mackerel, perfectly pinned in the centre of the top jaw there was no way he could've escaped, I swung him over the side and swifly gave him the treatment.

A surprise, and very welcomed addition to the esky, Jew were still on my mind so I kept plugging away, I missed a good hit, then the next flick resulted in a nice little Jew, success!.

Another dodgy pic, he got a little bent out shape in the esky. So far that 1 plastic has nailed 3 Jew & a spotty, he's almost earned his retirement I'd say??.

After that Jew I headed off in search of some Tuskies, having arrived at the spot and deploying the bait, I had a few enquiries early up which saw nervous anticipation almost reach fever pitch, you just never know how big it is until you set the hooks, this one sadly was no beast, and I made very short work of him. Still a very tasty fish though.

Thinking the bite might be on, I hung around for a few hours but couldn't manage anything else, which in all honesty wasn't such a bad thing as the esky already looked pretty good, and I'm well stocked for the next few weeks.

I pulled the jewels out of the Jew this afternoon, they are something I don't usually keep but I might start doing so in the future as they do look kinda cool.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rebel]

Top Story.

Keep on Truckin.

[Old Scaley]

Great report @Another Wazza That spotty is pretty handy bycatch, and a big fella to boot. 

[Andrew_P]

Unreel efforts there wazza. Jew and tuskies pull as well as they taste!

I reckon that’s a small largemouth nanny, aka saddletail snapper. 

[Another Wazza]

48 minutes ago, Old Scaley said:

Great report @wazza  That spotty is pretty handy bycatch, and a big fella to boot. 

Thanks Steve, I was pretty stoked to get him actually as a spotty was the last thing on my radar, the plastic he took didn't have a mark on it, usually the mackerel slice the tails up a bit.

The yeild off that fish was considerable too, having devoured that little Tuskie last night, I'm looking forward to sampling him this evening.

[Old Scaley]

I love a fish curry and mackerel are a great ingredient for curries. I had some school mackerel on the weekend that I made with my favourite fish curry recipe. Very simple but really tasty 

https://shop.rickstein.com/pages/madras-fish-curry-recipe

[ellicat]

A couple of high quality, productive sessions, Wazza.

I believe the technicality call on the grinner is fair. haha

[mangajack]

Thanks for the report Wazza, some good fishing was had there.

It might just be the camera angle but the last jew looks like a hybrid, having a small dark base to the pectoral fin and the head shape of the northern black jew....interesting.

[Another Wazza]

46 minutes ago, ellicat said:

A couple of high quality, productive sessions, Wazza.

I believe the technicality call on the grinner is fair. haha

Brian, it will be a technique that I'm trialling from here on in, next time we head out it could make all the difference!, hahaha

[Another Wazza]

Hi @mangajack, I'm not too sure to be honest?, I had a look at another photo of an 84cm model, it too had a dark base around the pectoral, both fish were photographed probably 6 hours after capture.

[Andrew_P]

The most reasonable explanation is a mulloway with a normal head looking odd when photographed after being on ice for 6hrs. 
 

hybridisation is definitely the least likely reason for a funny looking mulloway head. Black Jew and mulloway are in different genus (Protonibea vs Argyrosomus) to each other so even more unlikely. 

[crazywalrus]

23 hours ago, Andrew_P said:

Unreel efforts there wazza. Jew and tuskies pull as well as they taste!

I reckon that’s a small largemouth nanny, aka saddletail snapper. 

I was going to say the same thing.  Looks like a large mouth to me. 
 

Great  report Wazza. Some quality jewfish. It is funny, when they increased the size limit to 75 everyone complained and said they would never catch a legal fish. Many years on and there are quality fish being caught.  
 

that spottie is a ripper for the bay. 

[Another Wazza]

1 hour ago, crazywalrus said:

 

Great  report Wazza. Some quality jewfish. It is funny, when they increased the size limit to 75 everyone complained and said they would never catch a legal fish. Many years on and there are quality fish being caught.  

Thanks Ted, the funny thing about that is I actually haven't caught an undersized one yet, the smallest to date was 77cm caught with Brian. They are a great fish that tick all the boxes.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Great work @Another Wazza. Lots of good fish there.