Target Species - Greyband Cod

Since returning from Pohnpei Jan 2013 the fishing trips have changed from three a week to once in a blue moon. Great mate Ryan Thipthorp gave me a call and said the weather was looking good for Saturday and no filming at the moment, he said do I want to head out for a fish. Without even thinking 'Chasing what?' I'd already said yes.

In the end the decision was to target Greyband Cod as I’ve never caught one and Ryan was keen to maybe film a future episode. So after a leisurely launch time we started fishing about 1130 after finding a descent school of fish on the Furuno sounder. Although we were targeting GBs specifically it didn't seem as easy as catching Bass Grouper, Harpuka or Trellava etc as the GBs school up with pinkies and yellow-eye red snapper so plenty of bye-catch.

It didn't take too long though and Ryan was into it. Ryan hooked up and was onto a smaller fish and he decided to leave it down in the hope that the hooked fish would attract something bigger. In less than a minute, Bang, and it was one for young and old. At a guess maybe 20 minutes later Ryan had a 25kg plus (weighed) Greyband and a well legal pink snapper in the boat as a doubler header.

Cracka start indeed. We took that drift again and it was my turn. I hooked up pretty soon after being on the bottom. After a fighting a fish all the way up (250m+) we were thinking 'shark' as the deepwater fish tend to give up the last fifty to hundred metres. As luck would have it I had a solid Bass Groper on the line, an angry bass indeed. Not that I was disappointed (maybe a little) with a Bass I had gone out to catch my first Greyband. So even though I was puffed we went around and ran than drift again. Once again it took no time at all to hook up. This time the fight was a tough one at the start but eased off about a hundred metres from the bottom. A little while later my first Greyband was onboard, you little beauty. How good does targeting a species and getting them make you feel at then end ... Awesome.

Thanks Ryan, fantastic day indeed and your knowledge out there in the super deep is amazing and your sounder interpretation in what's ” happening “ is mind blowing. You certainly know you stuff and thanks for ticking off another species in the bucket list.

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The best reason for doing what's right today is tomorrow.

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Posts: 2946

Date Joined: 03/03/10

saw one yesterday

Sun, 2014-03-02 21:18

I saw one yesterday at the mangles bay fishing comp weigh in that looked a bit bigger than that one its eye balls looked like they weighed 2kg each ( my wife being Thai was hoping the owner would donate the eyes to her to eat)

dkonig82's picture

Posts: 2091

Date Joined: 06/07/10

smashed it!

Sun, 2014-03-02 22:37

smashed it!

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When asked by a non-fisherman 'how many fishing rods do you really need?' the correct answer is either:

n+1 (where n is the number of fishing rods you currently own); or

n-1 (where n is the number of fishing rods which would cause your significant other to dump you. 

Willy's picture

Posts: 219

Date Joined: 10/04/08

Well done Soupy, good size,

Mon, 2014-03-03 06:37

Well done Soupy, good size, but long way to go

Willy

soupster51's picture

Posts: 2723

Date Joined: 29/11/06

Cheers

Mon, 2014-03-03 07:42

 A long way for sure, but well worth it. We came in at 35kts+, about 45mins or so.

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The best reason for doing what's right today is tomorrow.

Frank F's picture

Posts: 481

Date Joined: 17/03/09

 Nice report soupy, looked

Mon, 2014-03-03 13:26

 Nice report soupy, looked like you had an awesome day. Recond pay off again Ryan,well done

Flying dutchman's picture

Posts: 125

Date Joined: 15/07/13

 Well done mate, good fish

Sat, 2014-03-08 19:18

 Well done mate, good fish there. Conditions look near perfect. 

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Living to fish/ working to fish/ die fishing 

Faulkner Family's picture

Posts: 17835

Date Joined: 11/03/08

well done boys. some nice

Tue, 2014-03-11 15:36

well done boys. some nice eating there for sure. would love a feed of that right now. been way tooooooo long .

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RUSS and SANDY. A family that fishes together stays together