Went for a bit of a night fish on Friday night, at a regular spot on the Five.

The trip was not off to a good start, when half way to Woodies I realised that the bait was still sitting in the freezer. Thankfully I managed to get some squid at a servo on the way down there, so at least we had something.

Anchored up fairly shallow and started to burley with some pollard, using a plastic on my bream rod, to try and snag some herring for bait. Ended up getting lucky there and pulled up around 16 to 20 herring in about 40 minutes. These all went into the bait esky, and I thought our fortunes had changed for the better.

Once it got dark my mate was running squid, and I was running whole herring. My mate became known as the ray master throughout the night, as he couldnt get away from them, pulling around 4 or 5 to the boat.

My first proper run was an absolute beast. Got some good head shakes so knew it had to be a good shark. As is always the case, it took the lighter of the 2 rigs I had out, but this was still an 8000 Stradic with 50lb braid so i thought I was in with a shot. About 4 minutes in, and with my spool largely depleted, it went slack. I presume that his tail touched my braid and that the 1m of wire and 2m of 80lb mono that I was using for leader might not have been enough.

Switched spools on the Stradic and lobbed another herring out there, and less than 15 minutes passed before the EXACT same thing happened. Was seriously annoyed about this as the same rig I was using on that setup has accounted for many sharks, but there must have just been 1 or 2 big boys out there that kept taking me to school.

Quite late in the night I hooked up to what I could immediately tell was a monster ray. After a solid 90 minute struggle and with me still having a stack of line out in the water and making no progress, I decided I had had enough, so grabbed the spool - pointed the rod at him and pulled. I got lucky, as one of the wire snelled 6/0 gamakatsu that I was running pulled straight before the line gave way (a good testament to Till's Daiwa braid and my PR knots haha).

Every one of the herring I caught ended up getting slammed over the night, some came back chopped in half, others mysteriously disappeared off my hooks after a small 'bzzzzt'. But end result was I caught f*ck all except for one annoying port jackson.

First night trip I have done on my boat without bringing a sized demersal on board. Also the first I have done this year without a shark being landed (PJs dont count!).

No pics, as didnt want to document a failure

Dan