I have for years been a boat "Bread and Butter" fisherman,and there's nothing wrong with that- but have for a long time looked at the Pic's on here of better quality fish,and thought "if only one day!"

 Then last year Fishwrecked Member- Dale due to a shoulder injury, was selling some of his good quality rods and reels. I only brought one rod and reel, but it was much better than anything I had for boat fishing. It was the start -Thanks Dale.

Next there was that thing in the boat called a Sounder- Lowrance HDS5, nothing too flash. I had some idea(or at least I thought I did) how to use it, but had never bothered with it much for finding/catching herring and tailor over the years.

Another Fishwrecked Member after asking for his help,spent a couple of hours on a Sunday morning showing me the basic workings of the Sounder, and set the Sounder up so I could have a better understanding of what I was looking at when I turned it on -lol.

I was making progress ,but had no idea where to start looking for these better quality fish, big ocean out there in front of the boat ramp.

Again,asking for some help and guidance from another Fishwrecked Member, he suggested that I "buddy up" with him and follow him out to the "the deep" where he would show me the drifting style of fishing in 40 plus deep water.

On the day, he called them shit conditions- but it gave me a lot more confidance in boat handling skills with ocean swells and also with getting over sea sickness in wallowing swells- hopefully that improves and less human burly over the side.

A couple of days later he sent me some very helpful Waypoints, which would at least give me somewhere to start from-  "it's big ocean out there". Took me over and hour to put the Waypoints into the Sounder, most likely only take 10 minutes for anyone else- but I got there.

Which brings me to yesterday- checked weather,wind,swell reports - Monday was looking ok, as I've decided I will only venture "out wide" on a good low swell days. 

Did all the usual safety stuff- Sea Rescue login, I now wear a lifejacket and headed out following the Sounder Waypoint -which is a first for me.  I'm pretty sure the conditions would be called shit- but again how would I know!  Bloody Northerly wind out there, very choppy but at least the swell was low.

Got to the first Waypoint about 30 minutes from boatramp, after bashing out thru short sloppy wind driven chop.  I didn't bother with the Sonar, as advised and just concentrated on staying as close as I could in the conditions, on the Waypoints.

Had to hold the boat in gear, to stay onto the Waypoint as the Northerly wind increased- this is going to be shit I thought.

Well second drop and something bit hard, and yep my first Dhufish was caught, couldn't believe it! (hope the pic works on here)

And I'm still smiling on Tuesday morning.

And how nice are they on the dinner plate!

So, thanks to those very helpful Fishwrecked Members- you have made my year.

Cheers.

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