Sometimes you can have more than one good day!
Not expecting one certainly helps and so yesterday started slow finally raising a fish that followed the bait but disappeared when Reel Chase got mixed up in a traffic jam(!) Another pass over the area and a big strike on the scaley – a nice 650lb-er tagged for Kurt. Ten minutes later a 700lb-er jumped off and the day was looking better.
It had already started well with a social call on Inya Dreams and some successful bait fishing; the big mackerel Jo caught being a little too big at 28.4 kg. By the end of the day we had tagged 3 again; a 400lb-er and a baby 150lb at 6.00 pm.
Yes, it’s hard to get a good shot of a big fish in the water at the back of the boat!
All around us boats were fighting good fish at the Marks and further South on Number 10. Inya Dreams released a fish Brian described as ‘as big as the one weighed the day before’ and Capt. Luke on Kekoa released 2.4 granders being 950, 850 and 600 lbs, a big effort and a very busy day.
Tiger on Mistress with Barry wanted to gaff a really big one and despite catching 2 impressive fish after hard fights, chose to release and wait for the monster that will surely show up soon. Capt. Luke saw said monster briefly but it didn’t stay tight and Deano on Castille said the 3rd fish he released on Saturday was the biggest fish he’d ever caught – and that’s from a guy whose been here 20 years this season! Hopefully a photo is on the way.
At one stage the 15 to 20 boats were starting to thin out with Fascination 2, Allure, Reel Ripe, Kekoa and Mistress all just dots on the horizon heading East on the pursuit of hot fish. It will be interesting to see if the bites slows today after the Full Moon last night, however Capt. Jim has a feeling it is still building into what could be huge by this weekend as we move into neap tides and another big aggregation.
Jo and Kurt’s smaller fish on a another 3 tag day on board Reel Chase and Kekoa heading out to sea with fish (photo Capt. Jim in the tower) and Jo’s mackerel, a bit too big for bait ;-)
