Mahi on the Trap Floats

mars 04, 2021

Down to Bayview boat ramp at Newport, early Sunday morning. To be greeted with 25 boats queuing to launch - due to the Berkeley bream competition:

Crew - and plan - the same as the Sunday before. Alex, Xavier and Oscar, lure fishing for mahi around the trap buoys east of Terrigal. First stop, the Valiant wreck, for live bait. Plenty there:

Up to Terrigal FAD, where we had a lot of success last week. Everyone has their own preference but small live yellowtail always deadly. Working the FADs and the trap floats means we are often all hooked up, at the same time:

I then rigged a couple of garfish on our Head Starts:

Head Starts

And swam them behind two spreader bars, running off the downriggers:

Spreader Bars

We headed straight to the trap floats. Current was running hard and most of them had only one float - out of five - above the water. Note mahi halfway between the outboard and the float:

The fish were there, not big but keepers:

Here’s Xavier, hooked up:

With the fishing steady - but not spectacular - we decided to run up to Texas Reef, and see if we could find any kingfish on the humps. On the 4 mile transit we ran out our purple troll lures. Striped tuna love them:

Zuker Clone Lures

But when we got to Texas, I couldn’t believe it! The hard running current had swept the reef clean of not just kingfish, but everything else:

Mahi on the Trap Floats fishing photo 10

The good news was, the weather was clearing up. We had been dreading the 20 mile run back to Pittwater, with a steep southerly chop on the nose. But all okay. On the way south, a marlin appeared in the wake and tapped a couple of lures - without hooking up. We consoled ourselves with a few more dollies:

Mahi on the Trap Floats fishing photo 11

Back inside the Heads and psyching myself up for a long wait to retrieve the boat. But before we could get to the ramp there was a tuna bust up to deal with. Triple hookup, here’s Oscar’s: