So after just two days back I was champing at the bit to get back out there. That is a tough one to sell to the wife but I somehow managed to pull it off.
I met the usual suspects at the ramp at 5 am and in half an hour we were paddling our way out through the drizzle with highly fishy expectations.
The fish calendar was telling me I should have stayed in bed but the water smelt fishy.
We arrived at our first mark and the lines were deployed. Armed with a Powerbait and a piece of my treasured cuttlefish it didn’t take long for the first fish to hit the deck. It was a bonito and although not my target for the day, he was quickly bled and thrown in the bag to eliminate any possibility of me returning empty handed.
With that monkey off my back I returned to the snapper hunt.
Lines back in the water and within no time at all I was on again. No rapid tail beats and a couple of head shakes and I was starting to smile well before I saw the pink colour in the water.
After dispatching this 40 odd cm fish, we decided to head out to deeper water.
I threw out a HB and a plastic and set off on the troll.
The light was fantastic, with a mist over the sea and and the land just peeking through it was begging to be photographed but as I was about to find out, today grabbing the camera was a trigger for the rods to start playing my tune.
This time it was both and after boating one bonito and losing the other fish, I found that this was to happen each time I put my lines out and if I wanted to get anywhere, I had to do it with the lines in.
Arriving in the deep water, I dropped the lines down and decided that as I had managed to lose the bonito, I could get the camera out and focus on the other sort of snaps.
Hmmm big mistake, my line started screaming and I was on big time. I would get a bit of line back then off he went again, at one point I was thinking it must be a kingy as I haven’t had a snapper pull this hard. Anyway to my delight up pops a very tied 56cm snapper. I let out a wooohooo that probably gave Marine Rescue our current location.
In the background we had been hearing the flutter of a mass of shearwaters mixed with the sound of fish breaking the surface. I love it when the wind drops and any sound travels across the water.
We headed over to see what all the fuss was about but I think we knew it would be more bonito, although there is always the chance of something else lurking below. With this in mind I sent a jig down and quickly came up solid on a good size bonito. I got him beside the yak and he took one more dive under the boat. Now here comes the weird part, I had just got excited about it being a good sized bonnie and then it reappears from under the yak and it’s turned into a bloody sweep. HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN ?
I got a couple of trevally, one on the jig and another smaller snapper. Work was calling so we left the bonito biting and started the long paddle back in.
How ironic that you can spend a week away in a very fishy spot, put in a lot of time and effort for very few fish but then come home to Sydney and have a trip like this.
How lucky are we ?
. 
(not this trip but still hurting from a previous one).
