Kyle & I decided to take advantage of the calm conditions this week with a pre-dawn jaunt to Peel on Monday morning. We were rewarded with calm conditions, no boat traffic and good shows of bait everywhere.
We picked up a few small snapper on blades and plastics before we headed to the eastern side for a deepwater drift. Kyle got smashed on the first drop by what we thought may have been a big cod or a small shark. Either way it didn't stop and eventually busted him off around some coral. Shortly after Kyle managed some small snapper and a nice maori cod. I got smashed on my blade and was busted off after a long fight. Clearly a big fish - too big for my gear, I'm thinking a big shark!
After that we did some breaming and Kyle outfished me landing a heap of small snapper and one bream. His best was a 38cm snap that went hard on bream gear!
Tuesday morning saw us at Green Island where we fished the reef edge pre-dawn and came up with a couple of nice snaps to 36cm. We then fished the flats on the high tide but could only manage undersize snaps. Suddenly my R2S baby crank is monstered and after a long tussle a nice 42cm snapper graces the net. Best fish of the morning. We then headed to the sand flats of Hope Banks where we managed a few sand flathead, a flounder and a plague of grinners!
Wednesday saw me head out in a blustery NE wind on my own. I hit the reef edge of Green on first light. Got smashed on the first drop with my blade and boated a 48cm snap!. Next drift was exactly the same except the snap went 43cm. Then a 38cm snap on the third drift and a 40cm fish on the fourth. I had 'bagged out' before 5.00am!
It went quiet after that so I stuck to breaming on the high tide where I managed 6 small snapper and a 26cm bream on light gear. Home by 10.00am...
A good few mornings on the bay. Saw some magic sunrises, got rained on once, saw turtles, dugong and mysterious bust ups (not pelagics) and only very few boats on the water. Expected it to be much more crowded in the week before Xmas. All fish released to catch another day...
Will post a couple of pics later...
Cheers
Pete & Kyle