Another Wazza

Hahaha, there was an underlying sense of urgency to this trip, having depleted the last of my Tuskfish reserves on what's become known as "Tuskfish Tuesday" at my joint, the need to acquire fillets to ween me off those blue beauties was greater than ever, and besides, I haven't kept any Squire in ages so I'm actually looking forward to them. There weren't too many boats out today, maybe 6 or 7 at Harry's, and about 5 at West Peel, maybe a few people had sore heads after QLD's victory last night?

Having seen today's forecast on Monday, the descion was made to dodge work & head out for a fish, no brainer really. The conditions were prime, albeit a touch brisk, I made the call to venture up to Harry's in search of a Snapper. I worked the first spot with the ever faithful pink grub for a couple of hours but couldn't manage anything other than a foul hooked winter whiting, as tempting as it was to rig him up as a live bait I decided against it as it would've required re rigging a rod, and the feeling in my fingers wasn't quite there yet. With the tide having turned, I motored off to another spot and sent down a lightly weighted 5" plastic, it got hit on the way down and after a brief tussle up popped a nice Squire. Into the esky he went, I stayed for another hour or so before heading down to West Peel to try my luck. Having left my sunnies in my car I didn't want to be out for too long squinting today so a few drifts through a section of West Peel produced a couple more nice fish, a few undersized, and a just legal one that I didn't need to keep, the chase bait flick prawn did all the damage through there, great fun on a 6lb setup All in all, it was a fun little session and by mid morning the Bay had completely smoothed off making for a quick run back to the ramp.

There seems to be more than a fair bit of it going on across the board everywhere now, gone are the days where people actually take pride in their work, possessed by greed, always looking for an angle, and happy to rip people off, modern society's great....

For light work I’ve got an Infeet 732LFS paired up with a 1000 Stradic running 6lb braid, it’s a nice little setup and is mostly used for 1/6th or 1/8th oz rigged soft plastics, can’t fault it, casts pretty good and is as light as a feather, haven’t tried pegging out anything lighter with it, but as @mangajackhas said, distance is all in loading it up.

Very nice Jew, well done

As a memento of that fish, the jaws were removed , and after a fair bit of cleaning & allowing them to dry, then a peroxide soak followed by more drying, then a whole lot of gluing all the pieces back together again, they are finally done

Hey mate, both ways would probably work, but if your going to collect the bait yourself, you’d really want to look after them & keep them alive.

Given just how keen @AUS-BNE-FISHOis, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had offered to hook it up to his bike and pedal it to the ramp, having to let him & Charlie down would’ve been devastating

It’s good too see you were able to keep a level head Brian and prioritise the things that really matter.

Nice work boys, you relish days like that in the bay, the box of fish is just the cherry on top.

Thanks @benno573 I gave both heads & 1 of the smaller fish to a mate on the way home, there was still a bit of meat left on one of them & I think he was going to chuck it on the bbq.

One can only imagine how hard it would’ve gone, what a fish

I get around in a 4.27 with a 40, and totally agree with what everyone has stated above, on good days it’s great, but when it picks up a bit, it can become a very slow wet ride back in.

Cheers Neil

Cheers man, hard to describe just how much they can pull, losing good fish is all part & parcel of chasing them, but still, losing them doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.

Cheers mate, even with that gear I was just a passenger for the first 5 or 6 seconds, all I could do was brace for impact, luckily he didn’t get me on anything, hands down one of, if not the hardest fighting fish I’ve encountered.

I’m having visions of Stevie Wonder burning around the bay!, Hahahaha

I didn’t even hook it properly Hahahaha, I was just in the right place, at the right time, and had a bit of luck. I can tell you though my quest to find these fish started ages ago, there has been many, many, outings without even getting a touch.

Oh Greg, I’m not willing to reveal all..... Mum’s the word

Hahahaha, I did struggle a little to get enough bait, I ended up going twice in one day and still didn’t end up gathering that many. And I doubt very much that fish gains me guru status, there’s a saying that a blind squirrel still finds the occasional acorn, I consider myself the blind squirrel, Hahahaha

Cheers Damo, I used the heaviest gear I own, a popping rod with a 14000 Stella, the drag wasn’t far off being locked, it still folded that rod in half and screamed off!

Yep, it requires a little bit of effort

Thanks Kat, not too sure about skill considering where I hooked him, Hahahaha, and yep, crab

Thanks Steve, it’s proof that if you really want something bad enough, you just keep at it until it happens.

I decided to brave the crowds last weekend and head out for a fish as it had been quite some time since I’ve been, the plan was to launch early and go in search of some Jew first up. Having arrived at my chosen spot just before 5am I began sounding around, and not long after that it began to rain, cold, dark, and now wet I was beginning to question my life’s choices, I kept at it for a while but had no luck locating any fish so made my way to another spot in search of a squire or two, there wasn’t much going on there except for a jumbo size grinner that took a liking to my plastic, I kept at it but other than having the tails bitten off my plastics there wasn’t much happening there either. With the day getting on I decided it was time for the main event, I headed off to another spot hoping to jag a Tuskie or 2. Upon arriving I sent my first bait down and after about 20 minutes I was rewarded with a nice little Tuskie, he was probably in the 40-50cm range and wound up in the esky, I kept at it and eventually hooked another one, this fish was a little bit better than the first and after a brief tussle he grew considerably in size, knowing all to well what just happened I tried my best to at least get something back, I ended up winding in a head of nice sized fish, spewing!, fearing the tax man was conducting an audit I held off for a while before dropping down again, it seemed to work and I boated another nice little fish. Hoping the shark may have gone I kept at it and hooked up to a really nice fish, I wound this thing in like a man possessed whilst fearing the worst, with the fish less than 4 or 5 metres below the boat I watched what I think was a Bronzey burgle me in broad daylight, very disappointed, the profanities came out thick & fast. Having regained my composure, and now down to my last bait, I decided to roll the dice with one more drop, my bait sat untouched for 15 or 20 minutes before I wound it in to check if it was still there, yep still there, so back down it went, I had to wait patiently before feeling a very subtle tap on my line, thinking it may have been a picker I waited, and waited until eventually I saw my line moving away, I went to set the hook and then the fish exploded with a huge run on an extremely tight drag, I’ve been here before I thought, I got smoked big time last time I targeted these fish and was just waiting to get busted off again, but this time I got lucky, very lucky, after an almighty fight it eventually came along side the boat, it was the fish I’ve been after for quite a long time. Not bad at all, he wouldn’t quite fit in my net, official weight was 9.85kg, just a touch off a holy grail model but I couldn’t care less, I was super stoked it didn’t get sharked! I reckon he was pretty unlucky, or I was very very lucky as I ended up hooking him in the face, you can still see the hook above his mouth. It would’ve been a great haul if they all came in whole, but having now achieved a goal I set for myself awhile ago, I can finally give these guys a rest.