Having read all the reports of macks caught in metro waters recently I decided it was time to get in on the action. Friday RDO, wife at work, kids at school and a willing deckie free on a Friday - the stars were well and truly lining up!  Packed the boat, picked up the deckie and by 8 we were on the water, mission metro macks was on! Headed straight to the back of 3 mile reef, put the lures and teaser out and started our trawl.

Trawled north for a while with no success, no sign of any bait schools or larger fish on the sounder, not a good sign. Decided to turn around and head south, again following the 20m contour. After a while we found what we were looking for - the sounder lit up with big bait balls and larger echos below them. Problem was the bait schools were deep and the predators even deeper. We trawled over them a number of times but no takers.

Started to have doubts about what was actually down there so decided to drift over the area and drop a jig, 100g Shout Stay in blue was the jig of choice. First tried a slow 'demersal' retrieve - nothing, then tried the crazy Sambo retrieve - nothing, then dropped it to bottom and cranked it back up as fast as I could. Quarter of the way up bang, I'm on! 2 seconds later I lost it - the leader came back minus the jig, sliced straight through. That's all the confirmation I needed - put the jigs away and send the lures back out along with a teaser.

Second pass one of our lines went off! I took up the fight while the deckie brought in the 2nd line and teaser. After a couple of good runs I got the fish close enought to get our first look at it -  a nice mack! A few minutes later I got it boat side and the deckie did a sterling job with the gaff. My first metro mack was in the boat!

Trawled the area for the next hour or so for nought, decided to move on a little further south but the bait schools disappeared and the weed didn't. Headed back to where we got the first mack and on first pass back one of the rods goes off again! This time it's the deckie's turn. A couple of good runs later we have the fish boat side and I do the honors with the gaff. High fives again as the deckie's first ever mack hits the deck!

Did a couple more passes but only picked up weed so satisifed with our efforts we called it a day.

The weed was really bad, but persistance paid off. Both fish fell to Halco Laser Pro 160 in chrome pink. We tried Laser Pro 190's in redhead, kingbrown and yellowfin but had no takers.

If anyone catches a mack with a Shout Stay still stuck between it's dentures I'd like it back please! :-)

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