Went out the other night to the FFB for a bit of a snapper run.

Was windy as a bastard out there, howling from the West, which made things pretty unpleasant.

Got a herring on the first drop, which went straight in the esky as bait.

First big run of the night was on the lightest rod I was fishing that night (always the way) and the length of the 7foot Okuma Precision X gave me a lot of grief running around the boat. Unfortunately called it pretty early for a ray, and it was, a decent sized eagle ray, which (thankfully) basically fell off the hook as we were trying to dehook it. With they were always that easy.

Next up were a couple of toothy little snook/long toms, have caught a few others of these out at the FFB, but these were quite a bit smaller.

After the tussle with the ray decided to put something heavier out for a shark as it was now really dark and the burley slick had been going for a couple of hours. Used a baloon and floated the herring around 40m back from the boat, and wasn't long till it took off. After a bit of a fight (not too much though as was a heavier rod), I saw a nice pinkie come to the surface. Thankfully, when it hit the bait, it pushed it up the shank of the hook on to the trace and just copped the point, so the bait was still in top nick.

Drifted it back again, and soon enough got another good run. Could tell this was a shark early on, but was still good fun in the reasonably shallow water. Ended up being (yet another) of those smallish bronzies. I think that makes 10 or 11 of those things since January, they seem to be in plague proportions!

By then the wind had died off a bit and the girlfriend had had enough (her first night trip) so seemed a good time to head back in, only fished a few hours but had had a good time - so motored back to see if my car had been busted into at Woodies - thankfully I had played the russian roulette of parking there, and got away unharmed *touch wood*.

All fish except for the sacrificial herring, were released.

Dan

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