The promise of fair conditions from Willyweather (pathological liar) prompted an early morning launch from Woodies with the west end of Rotto in mind. After a very lumpy one-hour trip and with a very grumpy wife we eventually made it to the calmer waters on the west side of Rotto.

We decided to do some drift fishing as the south easterly allowed us to remain in contact with a couple of reef structures for extended periods. Our plan was to start off in 12m and use the wind to push us to about 30m before moving closer to shore and repeating the same method on a different line. It was during our second drift that a humble mullie which was being towed behind the boat was gobbled up by a very hasty and hungry predator. As Gail sunk the hook, this sprinter peeled off about 100m of line within a couple of seconds and thoughts of loosing all the "not so cheap" YGK braid came to mind. My first call was tuna or shark as it remained high in the water column. Sambo, pinkie and YTK tend to look for opportunities to break you off in the bricks below and therefore they were scratched from the mental list of possible culprits. After the initial heart wrenching run, Gail turned the fish and it came in relatively easily until next to the boat, where it spent the last of it's energy trying to escape being captured by the Nikon. When the fish came within view I initially called it a shark, then a YTK and finally realised that it was a decent Spanish Mackerel. Trying to land it with the net proved impossible and I eventually grabbed it by the tail and brought it onto the boat.

Gail and I were both ecstatic and my hands were shaking like a school boy landing their first ever fish. I was also instantly forgiven for bringing her across the "treacherous seas". We quickly removed the hook which was fortunately pinned to the side of the mackie's mouth. As we were not fishing with wire trace Gail was very lucky to land this fish. We had two runs during our first drift with both traces bitten off and although initial thoughts were shark, it could well have been mackies. The fish was placed on the measuring tape and it proved a whopping 134cm. Now that may not seem large to the seasoned boat angler, but for somebody that has no mackie to their name - it is BIG. Incidentally - I have now officially put four anglers onto mackies without landing one myself. We took about 10 minutes trying to revive and release the fish, but unfortunately it's days were numbered. Our first mackie fillits turned out to be yummie!!

For the rest of the morning the only notable fish was a decent snapper which Gail landed before the sharks became too much of a menace.

Once again another fantastic day on our Metro waters!

YouTube video - https://youtu.be/ii0X5KSm2K8

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