Hi crew a quick report on my latest trip out...

Somehow I managed to score killer weather for my r.d.o. (Wed 18th May) after sorting out a deckie and a 2nd boat (aka Fish Whispers) plans were set for a troll early on and then to head out wide in search of a few demersals on plakkies..

On our way out to troll for Spanyards I spotted this mass of bait moving on the surface, there was patches of bait like this everywhere...

With all the bait activity around I knew it wouldn't take long to hook up and sure enough this healthy 16kg Spanyola decided to play ball half hour into the troll...

After trolling for another hour and my deckie dropping/losing 3 more Spanish in a row we decided to throw a few plastics at a couple of reefy lumps in 12 - 16m within the hour we had caught 5 Dhu's (no photos) between 45 - 65cm all released. 

At the same time my mate Jay (aka Fish Whispers) who was following in his boat had managed to put his deckie onto a 14kg Dhu (sorry no pics) in 13m which is a great fish for the shallow stuff... 

The decision was then made to head out 20 mile to fish some coral grounds I have in 45m...  

First drift over the coral lump and "THUMP" my big Squidgy shad was been whoofed by a monster just of the bottom and on PE 3 I had a battle on my hands with massive head shakes and powerful runs, a doggered attitude and lots of weight had me guessing what this fish could be...

After a good 3 or 4 minute slug fest and me trying to keep the unknown beast away from the bottom I had the fish coming up or so I thought... 5 minutes later we could just see colour but not for long as the beast spotted the boat and powered back to the bottom some 40m below..

Finally I had the fish beat and could see what it was "Shark" was the deckies call but then it surfaced and i could see it was no shark I was pumped it's a monster COBIA.... after the usual Cobia antics boatside my deckie lip gaffed the Cobe and landed me my trophy fish...

The cobia pulled the scales down to 20kg a new PB for me I was stoked....

Another Pic - Unforunately the Cobia was lookin worse for wear after capture so we decided to keep the Cobe for a feed..

After catching a few smaller Dhu's and a lone 47cm Breaksea Cod I decided to "Sound for Ground" and found some more coral on the HDS and jigged up this solid 60cm Coral Trout and a few smaller Pinkys... 

In total we caught 8 x Pink Snapper 45 - 60cm (all released), 7 x Dhus 45 - 65cm (all released), 1x Breaksea (kept), 1 x Coral Trout (kept), 1 x Spanish Mack (kept), 1 x Cobia (kept).

So all in all another succesfull day on the water using plastics great conditions and a PB that will be hard to top anytime soon...

I hope you enjoyed the read cheers all..

Lloyd  

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