Kings on Jigs

Down to Church Point Marina this morning at 4.30am (Sunday, 30th July) and loading my jigging kit on to Zac’s beautiful Cobia 24:

The plan was a 25 mile run up to the reefs wide of Terrigal. First stop before we went anywhere – the bait grounds at West Head. Plenty there:

Fast ride up to the grounds where we broke out our jig gear and favourite jigs. I was using our proven 250 gram size:

250 GRAM KNIFE JIGS

The go at this spot is to move around the big underwater plateau, trying to find a kingie stack. It’s been a tough season and that hasn’t been easy. But today it worked:

This mark gave us a triple hook up:

I was using our Bay Jig rod. I’m finding that, if you keep your cool and don’t use it as a lever, it’s way lighter and more comfortable to use. That’s important at places like Terrigal where you can jig for hours before getting a strike. Bay Jigs are $90, drop me an email or give me a buzz if you want one. You won’t regret it. Here’s a pic of the Bay Jig and a king I caught at the same spot last year:

There were not a lot of kings around! But by constantly moving and using the sounder, we started to find a few 75-80cm models. Here’s Zac bringing a good one aboard:

The action tapered off late morning so we decided to pull the pin. Back at the marina something pretty crazy happened. Parked in the berth just behind the fuel dock was a damaged 16 foot alloy centre console. The suntop supports were smashed, the bow rails were bent and broken, and in spots the aluminium plate had been peeled back around the bow. Four or five young blokes arrived and started inspecting the damage and taking photos. I asked one what was going on.

He told me that his mates worked at Newport Marina and had a beautiful 35 foot racing vintage sloop on a mooring out front. Last night, this boat had slammed into it, tearing open the side and causing the boat to sink. They had underwater pictures showing a smashed in hull and pics taken from a boat showing just the mast sticking out of the water. The sunken boat looked absolutely beautiful and was by no means a mooring minder. Anyway, the two blokes driving the tinnie had dumped it on the beach and bailed. The Water Police had towed it around to the marina (where their Pittwater base is.) One of the guys who was photographing the tinnie managed to get the owner on the phone. The owner said, ‘he lent his boat to a couple of mates last night and was trying to get in touch with them to get the whole thing sorted out.’ If anyone else knows more please share. Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow

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