Saturday morning arrives and the wind is still humping, the same as it has been doing for the past couple of months. The only decent days seem to be during the week when I have to work. I tried convincing my boss to allow me to work from Thursdays to Mondays, and I guess you know what the answer was.

After consulting WillyWeather the evening before it was evident that the afternoon would see a small window of fishable weather as the wind changed from an Easterly to a Southerly. Regular crew member Nic was unable to make it, the missus had an assignment to complete, and it was short notice to find anybody else interested. So it was another solo session, but what the heck! I had been becoming grumpy (or grumpier as the missus would say) and needed to get the smell of fresh Indian Ocean up my nostrils and escape the reality of the crazy world around us for a while.

I launched from Woodman Point at 10:00 and made my way toward Seaward Reef on Five Fathom Bank. As I approached the area I noticed two large schools of Tuna smashing the bait fish and tried unsuccessfully to entice them in taking my Halco Twisty. Being solo it was difficult to keep up with these fish as they were constantly changing direction. I decided to rather drag a couple of scalies behind the boat in anticipation of a good take. After two drifts I gave it up as a bad job and made my way to a bommie on the 40m mark about 10km further west in an area where I had seen activity before. When I arrived at this bommie the sounder indicated activity, but nothing compared to the previous time that I had been there. I tried a couple of casts with a soft plastic (7 inch Gulp Jerk Shad) with no success. By now the wind had abated somewhat and I decided to throw caution to the wind (literally) and race off to a spot near Rotto where I always seem to get a decent fish or two.

When I arrived at “the spot” I dropped the parachute anchor to slow the drift whist dragging a weighted scalie behind the boat. After a short while I picked up a bronzie and as I was bringing it up from the depths below I noticed a kingie following it up. I dropped the weighted plastic into the swim and continued fighting the bronzie which eventually bit me off (thankfully). The next moment the rod with the SP started protesting and I set the hook into what I believe was a YTKF, as it reefed me within seconds.

Without further action I anchored upwind from a fishy bommie and started burleying scalie cubes. Within a couple of minutes I started landing undersized (only just) pinkies and hooking up into a few bronzies. A little later I hooked into a YTKF which almost took my rod overboard before I eventually landed it. For the rest of the two and a half hours that I spent at this spot, I managed a decent sambo, a breaksea cod and a pinkie for the pot. By 18:30 the wind started picking up again and I decided to call it a day and make my way back to the ramp before either the wind or darkness caught me.

Even though the session was of short duration, it was good enough to satisfy the craving for another week, maximum two.

YouTube clip - http://youtu.be/tW-3RN-rEqk

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