Sunday morning and at 06:30 I was already on the water making my way across a moonlit Cockburn Sound. Unfortunately Gail was coming down with a cold and it was too short notice to round up any keen fishos - so solo it was.  By the time I got to the channel between Garden and Carnac Islands it was light enough to call for more grunt from the Yammie and to hasten the journey.

 

On my way to one of my favourite bommies near Rotto, I stopped to mark a couple of promising spots as they made their appearance known on the Raymarine. On arrival at "the spot" the anchor was set and the burley deployed.  After a fishless two hours the light spinning gear announced the presence of a keen customer and I went on to hook into a meter long Sambo which provided me with one of the best fights to date.  The fish was landed, measured, photographed and released.  A little later I was hooked into another fish of note which proceeded in testing my tackle on the unforgiving reef below. Needless to say this fish was not landed, measured, photographed and released.

 

It was time for the "giant tamer" to be put into action. The Shimano 24kg T-Curve with the Shimano Tekota 500 loaded with 50lb braid is yet to meet it's match.  I hooked one of the Herring from Friday night onto a trace which consisted of two 4/0 Gamakatsus attached to a 60lb fluorocarbon trace and flicked it about 30m behind the boat.  The spool was left to free line as the bait was allowed to drift slowly into the view of a hungry predator.  As I was turning away from the rod I noticed from the corner of my eye that the spool was turning a little faster that it should be for a slowly sinking bait.  By the time I grabbed the rod the fish dropped the bait as if it was anticipating my next move.  Reload and repeat and another Herring bait was carefully placed into the zone where the previous enquiry was experienced.  Within second of hitting the water the free spooling reel took off at a rate that threatened an overwind.  This time I slowly applied the drag and set the hook into an angry and hasty fish as it proceeded to strip line even on a tight drag.  It took a good 30 seconds before I was able to reach over and switch the GoPro onto record and even then the fish was still taking line.  Was it time to upgrade and shop for a new "giant tamer" as this one seemed to have met it's match. The fish had me stumbling from one side of the boat to another and around the motor and burley cage before it eventually ran out of steam.  As the fish slowly made its way up from the dark depths below the number plate confirmed my speculation - a Sambo of note!  After sliding the now exhausted fish into the net I had to place the rod in a holder as the fish was too heavy to lift with one hand.

 

The "lie detector" indicated a decent length of 1.21m, my second largest Sambo to date and also the largest from the boat.  My largest Sambo is a 1.3m specimen caught from the beach at Preston on a live Herring. 

 

This fish was snapped and released to provide another keen angler with a fight on another day.  Who ever said  that catching Sambos cannot be exhilarating!