My 1st Undersize King

The quest for this late season Yellowtail Kingfish is still ongoing. After much hesitation on Wednesday night, JM messaged me if we're still going ahead on Thursday. The wind had died down but it was bloody cold on Wednesday night. I was contemplating about the weather but still gave the green light. Any psychiatrist out there that can cure these 2 fishing nutbags?

It was indeed very, yes.. I mean VERY cold on Thursday morning! Apparently it wasn't that bad when you don't really go think about it when you're busy squidding. Luckily the tide wasn't racing that bad and I was 1st on the scoreboard with a good size arrow. Yours truly scored another big cuttlefish and JM manage to add one more into the inkful pail. As usual, we'll lose hookups or drop a few of these tricky cephalods. The time had came for us to proceed to our window of opportunity and we got there earlier than usual.

JM was 1st down with the cuttle head while I was next with a strip. Then, we proceed to prepare our berley and wait for any impending action. The northwesterly hold true to its ground and howl at us even though the background cliffs should shelter us! So, we just bear with the bloody wind while doing anything possible to keep our minds off the cold. Finally, the action came when my blackhole combo goes nuts and the spool of line took off. Tightened the drag immediately and whilst JM was busy bringing in the lines, I called for a king. This bugger fought pretty well than my previous I would say. She played clean and soon we could see a king. However, it was a little small from the view and nonetheless, she was put on the lie detector. Alas, it was only a 55cm and therefore became my 1st undersize king.

And so there it goes, my 1st time ever to release a good tucker! She presented some drama whilst trying to let her swim away but in the end still manage to power off into the depths. The cuttlefish strip was still there and I re-used it, really in love now with using cuttlefish as kingie bait. Then, the berley was ready and on the 1st toss, JM saw his favourite scene. He readied his unorthodox method and gave it a go. This time round, fortune did not favour his bold. Apparently his decoy bait sank too fast according to him. However persistent he was, it did not go as planned. The surfacing kings soon left and we proceeded to cubing duties. The trevs were on bite but due to the wind coming at us, it wasn't enjoyable fishing there. A move was made and I suggested Middle Harbour.

During the last trip, while on the way back to Tunks, I saw a few boats working around some moorings and so I was keen to try there this time. The water there was deeper and it was kinda tricky to anchor in amongst the boats. A compulsory move was made and we went further upstream. JM picked a spot and so the anchor went down to relatively the same depth as the kingie spot. Soon, it was an outgoing tide and the baits went down so as the last remaining berley. Waited quite a fair bit before my ET combo went nuts. Engaged the bugger and this fight had me baffling. It didn't have the grunt of a king or headshakes from a trev but it was absolutely on turbo. Upon coming up after a good tussle, I could see that it was a mackeral shaped fish. At 1st I called for a Watsons Leaping but when JM netted it for me, it was a Bonito! Wow, a bonito this late and upstream in Middle Harbour? Spot JM is GOOD!

Then, spot JM slowly but surely produces the goods. With JM scoring an almost legal 29cm snapper while I got my 1st legal 30cm snapper and a 34cm bream. We scored quite a few good runs but failed the hookup. When the time came to leave, Brooker failed to start! I had to call Chen to tell him the bad news and then ended up calling the Seatow service to come help. In the meantime, JM continued fishing. He caught a good size trev and whilst bringing it in, a kingie was tailing it! Then just nice, the Seatow guy came. He helped us diagnose the problem and apparently it was the starter motor that stuffed up but we were freed from further drama when it finally co-operated. Got back late but at least safely and also to have discovered Spot JM with free-roaming kings swimming around.

Gave the bonnie and bream to my favourite cook Joe and kept the snapper to see how it will be on the tooth.

Ronald