Headed out with the younger brother on Saturday for a last go at some demersals. Knowing the ramps were going to be a bit mental I told him i wanted to go pretty early this time and asked him to be at mine at 4am for a 4.30 launch and was surprised he agreed without complaining as its usually pretty hard getting him out of bed early on the weekends. Alarm buzzed at 3.30am and after only getting 1 hour of sleep I felt pretty groggy already and wasnt even on the water yet, I even had a spew at BP at the first whiff of petrol on the way to the ramp, "Cody, grab me a redbull when you pay for the fuel, im going to need it today."
4.40am I backed the boat down the ramp and there were already boats tied up at the jetties, boats ready to be backed down to the water and a dozen cars already in the carpark. Rounded the heads and could not believe the conditions, we were ticking over at a little over 30 knots with not a ripple on the water. Heading south down the back of Garden I was pretty confident with the amount of fish starting to push into the sound I would just sound around for fish rather than the usual anchor and burley technique.

By 5.05am we came across the first school.

Cody got out the already rigged up plastics and hit them with the camera flash to really get them glowing. We followed this school for a good while, dropping plastics right on their heads but they just werent interested yet. The thought of anchoring and burleying started creeping in as they were hanging around the same piece of structure but persistence paid and finally got the bite.

Following the school. Jazz charters in the background.

Persistence pays, redbull was kicking in but still looked like shit.

By the time I caught and despatched the fish the rest of the school must have bolted as I could not find them again. Wasnt until around 7am that I found the next school a fair bit further north towards the rest of the boats. This was the biggest school I had come across this season but they were moving quick, almost as if they knew that just half mile further they were untouchable in the sanctuary zone.

We plucked 2 on the first drop before the plastics even reached the bottom.

I had seen Wazza out there in his tinny earlier in the morning and got straight on the phone and called him and told him to hurry before they disapeared. I sounded the school for him and told him to drop, his mate hooking up on plastic before reaching the bottom aswell.

We werent fussed on catching another as I wanted to leave room for 1 dhu as we were heading out wider for a sambo jig. Unfortunately the sambos werent really playing the game and neither was the hope of a bycatch of a dhu. The fish were pretty small and spread out over a large area, not schooled up and angry.

Was stinking hot out there and I had made the rookie mistake of wearing pants so off they came.

Finished off the day with a couple salmon from the back of the islands on the way in.