Ammo Dump Report

Decided to do an all nighter at the Ammo Dump jetty on Monday night, which consequently resulted in me sleepng for 18 hours after aha. But nonetheless, its always worth it when if your fishing. Got to Ammo Dump around 7.30 Monday night, and got straight into the scalies. Cleaned up with a bucket, while using the occasional one as live bait. Decided to go with a personal snapper rig of mine, with the addition of a 9' lumo jig, as it had worked previously. Every bait that was sent out resulted in some sort of run. To kick things off, a decent banjo shark was landed, 2 5ft black tips, and a solid North West Blowie (92cm), however it was no match for  a Shimano Saragosa 18000 on Tiralejo 1100S running 50lb braid. Around midnight, I decided to balloon out with some New Zealand mackies I purchased, as some guy was spooled 600m of 50lb braid earlier. However, yet again no luck with the balloon all night. Meanwhile, we collected a handful of crabs, keeping 11, with the smallest going 16cm and largest 19cm. At around 5am, the Saragosa went off, with the result, a tailor nailed on two 7/0 circles, so cut the tail off and sent it straight back out. Within 5 minutes the rod went screaming, just as the sun came up. No head shakes what so ever so I knew it was a ray, however I was surprised as the bait was situated a good 2.5m from the ground. Nonetheless, no matter how hard I cranked the drag the fish wouldn't stop, taking runs of 100m at a rate of knots. Half an hour later with a good 300m lost, I was starting to make some ground. Now, Honsu once told me about Eagle Rays jumping out of the water, but I never believed him aha, until now that is. Once it was around 150m away, it jumped about a dozen times almost a metre out of the water, and each time taking more line. So around an hour and a half later, I got it within 10m of the jetty, quickly guiding it towards the beach as I didn't want to gaf it, but almost got bust off trying to do this. I managed to turn its head getting it around 10m to the side of the jetty, and rather than pulling it, it actually swam towards the beach. With clear and silky smooth water, it was an absolute sight to see a ray about 1m below the surface swimming through the water. Eventually I got myself and the ray to the beach, where plenty of beach goers crowded around what I thought was a monster eagle ray (wing span well over 1.5m). Cut the line close to the hook as it would have been a lot quicker than removing it, and carefully guided it back in the water with my mate, while the old bugger was huffing and puffing. Helped it through the water and watched it swim away after a good fight and quick release. We stayed for another few hours and grabbed our bag limit of whiting. So all in all, not a bad night, would have prefferred something big and edible, but thats fishing :)

 

Only pic I got http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=820805276

Sorry about quality, only had mates crappy phone with us. Every time I don't bring a camera or my iPhone, I catch something worth a photo aha

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dkonig82's picture

Posts: 2091

Date Joined: 06/07/10

Good report mate, sounds like

Wed, 2011-02-16 10:01

Good report mate, sounds like a good night.

 

Needs some pics next time!

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When asked by a non-fisherman 'how many fishing rods do you really need?' the correct answer is either:

n+1 (where n is the number of fishing rods you currently own); or

n-1 (where n is the number of fishing rods which would cause your significant other to dump you. 

cuthbad's picture

Posts: 1266

Date Joined: 22/04/09

nice size ray? doesnt seem to

Wed, 2011-02-16 11:52

nice size ray. doesnt seem to have the blue stripes a lot of eagle rays have.... different species?

Posts: 967

Date Joined: 17/01/10

 It did, but very faint.

Wed, 2011-02-16 12:09

 It did, but very faint. Dodgy camera work doesn't really give it much justice aha

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cuthbad's picture

Posts: 1266

Date Joined: 22/04/09

oh right, yea looks really

Wed, 2011-02-16 17:36

oh right, yea looks really different there.

good on ya for puttin in the effort to beach it instead of gaff it as well!!

Posts: 912

Date Joined: 23/07/10

 Nice work John, looks like

Wed, 2011-02-16 13:16

 Nice work John, looks like the same size that was following me at Pt walter when going for crabs hahah.

Posts: 967

Date Joined: 17/01/10

 haha man, was pretty happy,

Wed, 2011-02-16 13:33

 haha man, was pretty happy, was first fish to put a decent bend in the rod. 

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ish_lovesfishing's picture

Posts: 217

Date Joined: 24/02/10

nice report

Wed, 2011-02-16 14:56

nice report John, thats a big ray! good one

 

ish

spanishmackeral's picture

Posts: 940

Date Joined: 05/01/11

good report mate, that ray

Wed, 2011-02-16 17:00

good report mate, that ray sounded like good fun

Posts: 2925

Date Joined: 27/12/06

Nice report john

Wed, 2011-02-16 20:04

Sounds like a good night, gee thecrabs are thick everywhere at the moment