Back On The Jigs

Zac and I talking on the phone last week and we agreed Friday’s forecast looked pretty good. Phoned Marcus who said he was up for it, and all three of us met at Church Point in Pittwater early that morning. Fishing out of Zac’s Cobia 24 centre console. Don’t have a pic handy but here’s one I photographed on holidays:

Plenty of yellowtail at the West Head bait grounds:

But they weren’t hitting the handlines. What they wanted was the Gamakatsu S150 sabiki, which I am finding DEADLY. Can’t recommend them too much and the interesting thing about this sabiki is that the bigger models get more bites than the small ones:

Up to Terrigal with the first spot being one of our wider marks. NOT GOOD. Lots of marks but way too regular, for there to be hungry kingfish around. Should mention we were a bit uncertain as to how the day would go – because it was a full moon on Friday. Kingfish are sight hunters which is why you don’t catch them at night. Full moons mean they can often hunt right through the night:

Dropped one of our 250 gram jigs down anyway (of course!) and came up with this little mack tuna. It went on ice for Zac’s snapper expedition this week:

But it wasn’t really happening for us on the deeper marks. After an hour or so, we decided to come back inshore a few miles to the main Terrigal marks. First thing I see there is old mate Murray McGuire, who sent me this update later in the day:

Kingfish were showing on the sounder, stacked in small schools of less than ten fish. And they were down deep. I put a live yellowtail on a paternoster rig and got hit on the drop:

Marcus dropped a 250 gram jig down – and hooked up:

Result? A keeper on the jig:

But as you can see in the background, the seas were pretty lumpy. With a few nice ones in the kill tank, and a 25 mile run back to Pittwater, we decided to bail. All good! We’ll be out chasing kings and – this year – getting back to Browns Mountain on a regular basis. Will keep you posted
Andrew Hestelow

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