Headed out to fish the MAAC monthly comp yesterday in what were very nice conditions indeed.  Given I had to fish the last one solo it was nice to have a mate from over east, the young one and the expert repairer on board.  We took the big boat so there was room for everyone.

We started in close and didn’t have a lot of trouble getting a mixed bag of small species, although I must say the fish were very picky, particularly the gar.  I did manage a couple of big gar amongst the herring, single skippy and a couple of mackerel species.  We then tried to find some sand whiting and spent far too much time chasing and not finding.  Headed out to known ground to try for demersal and other deeper water species for what was a very unspectacular few hours.  We did get quite a number of undesirables, including a massive Sargent Baker, but the bite was dead for us.  Changed it up a few times but for the same result.  I haven’t seen it that quite for a while and the “no run no fun” mantra was ringing.

About 1pm we decided to make our way slowly back to the marina trying a few spots and techniques on the way.  Stopped at our 5th sand whiting location and when I changed up my bait to squid tentacles we finally got one to the boat.  In the next little while we landed a dozen with some good specimens in the mix.  The sea breeze had come up so it was time to troll the reefs for some tailor as experience suggests they will generally start to feed when conditions “rough up”.    

When we trolled past a lump we have got a few off in the past my lure got smashed big time.  This thing was peeling line off the light combo and when it jumped about 50m from the boat we could see it was a quality fish.  I had to show a fair bit of “care” with the fight as this was one I didn’t want to lose.  Nice work from the skipper with the boat and after about 10 minutes we had it to the side.  A few net attempts were required as the fish obviously didn’t like it but we finally got him.  Off we go again and when we went back past the same spot the drag started screaming again.  This one took more line than the first and was another quality fish.  Again, a careful fight giving the fish its head and we gently got him to the boat.  2 big tailor in short time but we had to head to the ramp to make it back for the weigh in.  Generally, it was a very slow day but we ended up with a fair bag.

A lot of Members also reported that it was slow for them, but as usual lots of quality fish were still weighed in.  As most would know, my target species is Pink Snapper but I rarely get them during the day in nearshore waters.  I really like to see good pinkies and Dave turned up with an absolute horse – don’t think I have ever seen one “in the flesh” this big.  It was an awesome capture and weighed in at 10.43kg on the certified scales.  Dave commented on it being a short model at 92cm but it was thick, hence the weight.  Dave and Matt had a great day out with lots of species, including Matt’s 15.9kg Dhu and were worthy winners on the day.  Not sure that pink will be close to being beaten for the yearly prize.

I had a pretty good day at the presentation picking up the biggest tailor (1.77kg), biggest garfish (0.201kg) and biggest sand whiting (0.176kg) but the highlight by far for me was seeing Dave’s monster pink.