Hairtail.
Not the strongest fighters, and not the most delicious table fish, but they have a special magic all their own. Fishing for them (usually) in the freezing dark during the middle of winter. Down on Cowan Creek or some icy cold waterway, hours passing with no result. Then suddenly it all comes together and you remember why you love chasing them:
The pic above is from the Hairtail NSW page on Facebook. If you’re interested in chasing these chrome bumper bars I can’t recommend that page too highly:
With reports on that page last weekend showing a late season hairtail run was happening I jumped at the chance to fish with Mike Fitzgerald and his friend Stewart on Monday afternoon. Pic shows Mike's boat and was taken when we got back to the ramp:
We started off at Jerusalem Bay – the spot where we’ve caught some crackers in the past:
Hairtail were showing on the sounder – but not taking our baits. But with an icy westerly blowing straight down the Bay it all became too much. We had a show of hands and the unanimous vote was, let’s move to Waratah Bay. Way more sheltered from the wind. They’re not far apart and only ten minutes later we connected to a public mooring and got the burley going. The fish were there but just like at JB, they weren’t biting:
That started to change as evening crept into the Bay and light levels dropped. I was bouncing one of our 40 gram jigs along the bottom, and came up with this little 35cm trevally. At last we were on the board:
A few minutes later and Fitz hooked up on a good one:
It went hard and a few minutes later we boated our first (and biggest) hairtail of the night. This one went 155cm:
Stu was super keen to score his first hairtail and eventually it all came together. But as he held it up for a picture it twisted sideways and bit him on the nose! Not good, because just like gemfish, their teeth are coated in an anti-coagulant:
Such a fantastic night chasing these spectacular fish:
We were back at the ramp just after dark with four keepers:
Just praying they hang around for another couple of weeks so we can get another session in before the season comes to a close. Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow