Sunday HYC FAD and trench very quiet

Left Hillarys at 5:00 in perfect flat conditions and shot out to the HYC FAD which by the way is about 1km SW of the navionics mark. Just as we got there the  bloody wind started but it was OK for my 18.5 footer. Usually there are dollies jumping around the FAD and we get heaps of them but sunday nothing. Those bloody birds must have been doing breath - hold training over the last year because last year im sure they couldnt dive as deep as they were on sunday to take your mulie. Little bastards are even more ballsy too they come right up to the boat even after youve belted them on the head with your rod tip.  After about 5 drifts of nothing I put a heap of pollard out and my brother casted into the trail and bang he was on. It grabbed the mulie and went straight down deep and hard and took out a shitload of line from  his 3 kg outfit. After about 10 mins up came a nice yellowtail kingfish not a monster it was 72cm it was on his bucket list to catch and Ive never seen one before so that was great. We were pumped after that kept doing drifts but nothing happened after. I noticed the swell had started picking up but the wave distances were still safe. We put out the big pushers and started south over the trench. About an hour into it the swells changed they were closer together and getting steep faces on them I had to keep turning west into them as they were too steep to take on sideways. Was starting to get a little concerned so decided to do a quick radio signal check to VJ6LQ - bloody radio had died on the way out at some point. Every now and then an extra steep swell would appear and the wind would whip the top off so we thought Hmm time to go home. Pretty disappointed because its the only time this summer weve been able to get out there anyway fingers crossed for some better weather over the next month. Water temp was 21 -22 degrees dont recall even seeing 23 degrees, no birds, bust ups and only the occasional flying fish.   


opsrey's picture

Posts: 1200

Date Joined: 05/10/07

Thanks.

Tue, 2014-03-04 18:27

 Thanks for the report. At least you dialed in a Kingfish. I think everyone has a solution to the mutton brids stealing bait, bastard birds.