Even though the weather was going to be pretty ordinary, Nick and I decided to chance our luck. Up at 04h00 and on the water by 05h15 we made our way across a very sloppy FFB with the brisk easterly at our backs. Our target was our regular spot south of Rotto. When we arrived at the bommie we sounded a number of fish on the Raymarine, but with the waves crashing over the nose of the Cruise Craft we decided that it would not be a good call to hang around. We ventured a further couple of kilometres in a north westerly direction in an effort to hide behind Rotto and explore new water. We eventually found a promising lump in 30m with somewhat better conditions about 5km west of Rotto and dropped the anchor.

After anchoring and setting the burley trail we sat and waited and waited. We had a ripper of a current pushing from south to north which eventually forced us to put a 1oz weight on the normally unweighted trace that we prefer to use. Once we did this we were in the zone and it did not take long to land the first Pinkie for the day. Half an hour later it was an upgrade and soon after that I landed my PB Pinkie - 91cm! Nick managed a further Pinkie and ended his effort on a Bronzie. I had one more run which took me straight into the reef below before we decided to call it a day as the southerly and the rising swell was already starting to make fishing rather challenging.

At 12:00 we started pulling anchor only to find it solidly fixed to the bottom. After 20 minutes of relentless effort I was ready to cut the rope when Nick recommended one last manoeuvre which managed to free the anchor. It took us no less than 90 minutes to get back to Woodman Point as we crossed the white caps at a slow but safe speed.

Even though it was a long way out for a relatively short session, it was still worth the effort.

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