Tuesday and Thursday Offshore

Out with Cory and his friend Zack on Tuesday and not quite sure what to do! Reason being that, when we arrived at South Head, the seas were way worse than forecast. The usual problem - online forecasters like Seabreeze and Buoyweather just work off isobars and BOM data. But, offshore, wind and rain is controlled by localised storm cells. With a sloppy swell and nasty chop, and icy cold rain thrown in for good measure, we slowly made our way out to the The Peak. A place I’ve been fishing since the late 70s, which has generated some unforgettable memories:

The Peak is a series of bumps and humps in the 60 to 80 metre depth range. We moved around the dozens of GPS marks I have for this spot, trying to find a kingfish aggregation. After three hours searching, we had only boated one small kingie, thanks to Cory:

Then we found some good marks, and things came together beautifully. Four consecutive triple hook ups in a row – all on jigs. Mostly 65-75cm. Not big ones like we found last week at Texas, but lots of fun on the light jig combos we were using. Here’s Zack:

On the way back in we retrieved a spearfishing float:

Which I mentally connected with the spearo missing off Stradbroke Island:

SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING DIVER

With a good weather forecast for today (Thursday 1st June) and COVID making things quiet at work, I decided to go for a quick morning run. A last minute cancellation meant son Chris was the only crew aboard. After some online to and fro discussion we agreed to meet up with old friend Michael Gates out there. Gatesy had just won two beautiful jigging reels, in a raffle. He was keen to try them out:

The Peak was packed! I couldn’t believe it. Maybe 15 boats, including multiple charter operators. I could only assume some idiot had been talking about the place online. 😊 But the bumps and humps were bare as a badger’s backside. The only good things happening were:

Crystal clear water – which kingfish, being sight hunters only, prefer;

Water temperature 20.2 degrees – good temp for kings, speeds up their metabolism;

1-1.5 knot current from the north, meaning the fish would stack on the leading edge of a reef in the current, waiting for bait to wash down to them.

Putting it all together we decided to run 14.5 miles north, to Long Reef. The fish should be there. And if they were there – but not big – no problem. I had brought some light outfits which would make landing even an undersized one quite a battle. Was also keen to check out a new technique, using the downrigger. I’ve been following a Youtube fishing channel from New Zealand, The Lateral Line. Two top blokes chasing big kingfish in the northern part of that country, both from a boat and, from the rocks. They’re big believers in using burley logs to attract baitfish, which in turn attract the kings:

I drove up to Big Al’s Tackle at Pennant Hills a couple of days ago and bought a few logs. At Longie, we moored up in 18 metres of water, on the leading edge of the reef. We slashed the burley log, and put it in a keeper net with a 2-pound weight. Attached it to the downrigger, dropped it to the bottom, and raised it up one metre. The water pressure squeezed fish oil out of the log which, being lighter than water, made an invisible curtain drifting down current. The results were incredible:

We fished lightly weighted squid and cuttlefish strips off our light gear. It was hook up after hook up on kingfish, with almost all of them under legal size. Didn’t care. Two big ones hit during this fantastic session. The first one I couldn’t keep from reaching the bottom, using my light 7 foot casting rod. The second one hit a bait so hard – when the drag had been left on full – that the rod broke in half beneath the reel seat and went overboard. Unfortunately it had been left in a vertical ‘Wicked Tuna’ type rod holder. At one point, a big cuttlefish, which had just spawned and was already dying, drifted past the boat. We managed to cast across it, hook up and net it. It made a fantastic addition to our bait board and burley bag:

What a great couple of days, chasing kings. Got home, opened up the email, and Matt Ryan had generously sent a Texas Reef report from today:

Got one of our downriggers? Give this new burley idea a try. Quite sure it would work just as well on snapper. Note that it only works on our downrigger 😊 Thanks for reading
Andrew Hestelow

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