Saturday 25th March

 A quickly arranged plan during the week with MickC was put into action today. The plan was, if the conditions permit then we would explore some ground I have been prospecting in 50m as early as possible. Forecast was for dropping SE winds through the morning so we hit Hillarys at first light and steamed West. We pulled up at a likely spot and tried a bit of a drift to start as we could see some fish on the sounder. This resulted in an undersize baldy. The current was really ripping and it was hard to keep contact with the bottom with even 8oz sinkers at anchor.

We then decided to anchor up and see how we went. I managed to pull in a PB sambo in amongst a few sambos we were able to tangle with first up. There would have been 4 or 5 of these between us come over the side to be released. I was pretty stoked to give the sambo a workover on a rod I had been leaving at home as it didn't seem to fit in. It is an Ugly Stick GX2 overhead and marked as a 10kg rod. My other rods are Pioneer Tuna Terrors and have used them for over a year as my all rounders. The Pioneer rods are quite stiff and I have felt like they maybe weren't sensitive enough for bottom bouncing. The Ugly Stick has a really nice action and is bit softer in the tip so it worked out really well. It's not an expensive rod but worked really well for me.

After a few other fish including more sambos, an undersize pink and another undersize baldy, Mick managed to catch a small tuna as he was winding in his floater. When we cut this for bait it was almost too succulent to put on the hook. Mick put a large slab on his floater and I put a small piece in my selection for the bottom rig. It wasn't long and with an inceribly soft bite I set the hooks into something that felt big. Didn't seem to be another Sambo, it made some early runs but after about 10mins on the fight and two trips around the boat up popped a large Dhufish like a submarine doing an emergency blow. Mick was quick with the gaff and we boated this 18.3kg model that was 1.04m long. Happy is an understatement! Weight was done on commercial scales. It well and truly didn't fit into the esky that's for sure. The GX2 strikes again and the Dhu took the bait on a tiny Size 2 Mustad long shank circle beak hook. You can sure catch big fish on small hooks!

 

I hooked up to something else after this and the rig broke at the dropper twist so I think it was damaged by the big Dhu. I changed to a new rig with bigger hooks and after another good Sambo, I hooked up to something that didn't stop as soon as the hooks were set. When I say it didn't stop I mean it spooled me of the leader, braid and backing to the tune of about 250m. The line popped before we could react and get the anchor in and go after the fish. Always the tale of the one that got away!

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Ashen's picture

Posts: 1042

Date Joined: 22/03/13

Great report!

Sat, 2017-03-25 19:29

 Thanks for the report, Michael. Enjoyed the read and congrats on the dhu!

 

Either Mick's photography skills are great or you haven't seem to age one bit the last time I saw you (about 2 years ago!). Lol

 

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A fish in the hand is worth 10 in the water!

z00m's picture

Posts: 1086

Date Joined: 10/05/14

Photoshop

Sun, 2017-03-26 09:04

I like to put my old face on all the photos so I look good! ha ha. 

rob90's picture

Posts: 1522

Date Joined: 06/02/13

 Great report and top fish.

Sat, 2017-03-25 19:46

 Great report and top fish. Well done, seems all that prospecting paid off.

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 Hi my name is rob............. and I'm a........... fishaholic

Posts: 23

Date Joined: 01/01/70

nice fish and a good report

Sat, 2017-03-25 20:03

 wonder what spooled you ???

z00m's picture

Posts: 1086

Date Joined: 10/05/14

Don't tease me

Sat, 2017-03-25 20:16

 I'll be wondering what it was for quite a while! I've had sharks on before and they snip you off pretty easily. The same drag setting and a bit tighter had no effect on whatever was heading west. It was in the 'not coming back' category that's for sure.

ricey's picture

Posts: 731

Date Joined: 24/12/09

crazy!

Sun, 2017-03-26 07:24

 we were fishing there yesterday arvo and I snagged some line and felt a fish on ....

 

I tied it to my spare rod main line and then it exploded!

 

90 mins later boated a 350kg blue marlin with a dropper loop in its mouth.

 

sorry no pics but was a world record.

 

 

ha ha ha lol...you will never know but the stories can fet better and better... what a great dhui!

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Wise man says - first take the plank out of your own eye before trying to take the speck out of somebody else's.

z00m's picture

Posts: 1086

Date Joined: 10/05/14

 Nice one ricey!  

Sun, 2017-03-26 08:17

 Nice one ricey!  

Posts: 790

Date Joined: 25/05/12

 Good hillaries dhu mate 

Sun, 2017-03-26 08:27

 Good hillaries dhu mate 

straith's picture

Posts: 378

Date Joined: 25/11/13

 Wow what a day! Well done!

Sun, 2017-03-26 09:18

 Wow what a day! 

Well done!

z00m's picture

Posts: 1086

Date Joined: 10/05/14

Thanks for the replies

Mon, 2017-03-27 07:57

It felt good to get my first real size Dhu. Been trying for over 3 years!