First Trolling Experience

It has been a very very long time since I've been on Brooker and the time had come after so many dramas trying to get on the water to test out Chen's new Tohatsu (toey) motor. As I wasn't rostered for Myer the last weekend, all we had to make sure is wake up at the bloody ungodly hour! Luckily this time we stood the test and managed to pull ourselves out from bed. Launched at Tunks this time with no dramas. Why I said that was because the last occasion when we wanted to test toey, the bloody mechanic screwed up the steering! Yup, the moment we left the pontoon, we wanted to go left, the boat goes right! FUCK! Luckily all's good and with a little mental challenge, we got back to the pontoon safely, thank god! Took quite awhile to get the mechanic to fix up the problem but all's good now as we need to begin the 10 hour first service run. Because it's a new motor, we needed to do the pre-run service thingy and so to keep a good compression, it had to be run at only super slow speed! Yup, that's like going at less than 10 knots kind of speed! But on Sunday, we had brought bait and the usual stuffs to fish and the only thing was getting to the spot late. Anyway, when passing slowly through Balmoral, I thought why not give trolling a try. Quickly used the Blackhole and clipped on a Berkley Frenzy Firestick minnow which could dive to about 3m. After trolling for some distance, we both noticed the rod tip was behaving funny and true enough, a fish was on the other end. Sweet! My first troll-caught tailor just barely legal. After Balmoral, there was no more action, even when Chen went slower past Middle head.

Got to our bait fishing ground and it was totally dead. Burley hard out for less than 45 minutes and practically we packed it up. We didn't have our anchor with us but the water wasn't making brooker drifting at all. Anyway Chen had to work in Myer in the arvo and so we packed up early since the trip back is painfully slow. Took us about an hour plus just to come from Tunks! Did the usual and whacked on the Berkley minnow behind brooker. Troll past middle head, nothing. Troll past Balmoral, nothing. Then, as we were passing Clontarf, almost coming to the Spit, that's when Blackhole did the thing we haven't been hearing for awhile... Zzzzzzz... (to tell the truth, my fuctup Daiwa Samurai reel's drag is kaput). Picked up the rod and felt some weight and I called for a good fish. Only hung on for like few seconds before the thing went limp... KNNBCCB!!!! What was that?! Both of us felt super gutted but that's FISHING! Oh well, continue the troll past the Spit for nothing. Then the same thing happened again when we were out of the Spit, Zzzzz... pick up... and then throw hooks! Shit, the trebles in fact is quite rusty since it was a cheapo lure from BigW. Continue trolling and within moments, Zzzz... and this time NO HORSE RUN! Caught a tailor of about 34cm and released it. Just as we were about to move off, Chen saw some birds working on the surface and indeed there was a small boil. Motored over there but the troll didn't catch anything. Chen stopped the boat and I did some random casting as the boils can't be seen and the bird weren't there anymore. What do you know, as I could feel some hits on the far cast but as soon as it was almost reaching the boat, Zzzz... and got a good hookup, another 30+ tailor. After that cast, it went quiet. The water was by the way quite chocolaty in colour due to the recent storms. No wonder there's heaps of tailors around. Then, time to move off and just when I fired a cast behind brooker to continue trolling, it only took a matter of seconds before the reel goes Zzzz... What?! That fast?! This was a good fish but as usual, tailors only do short bursts. This was my best tailor taken on trolling! Forgot my camera so it was taken on Chen's mobile phone.

Finally get to use the BRAG MAT! Ha! Released all the fishes but if we had a smoker we would have tapao them, hehe. That was it and the troll past the 4 knot zone towards the ramp didn't produce anymore fishes. Asked some other fishos at the ramp and they did it tough as well. Good weather but the fishing front was not that spectacular. Secured brooker and made our way back to HQ. Luckily we were still on time for the last brekkie at maccas and so we went to get our usual feed which we hadn't done for a long long time since brooker was out of action. Damn it, didn't know trolling was so much fun!!!

Ronald