Headed out early yesterday with Hookt and my usual deckie, John after a 7 week lay off.

We were on our spot for about 7.00 only to find heaps of fish on the sounder but not a lot feeding. We moved around to a few other marks but still found the fishing much the same. Opposed to leaving what we know is a good area, we just waited for the fish to come on the bite. At about 10.00am we saw what we thought was a shark slowly swimming towards the boat, turned out to be an estimated 15-20 kg mackerel as it slowly cruised under the boat. Without much hesitation we decided to drag a couple of Laser Pros behind the boat in the hope of picking up a metro mackie. No sooner had we started to troll we spotted another one, things are looking up!! Ten minutes into trolling and my lure gets taken, expecting a seering run, but nothing, it never happened, turned out to be a bloody striped tuna that fought like a wet sock.

We quickly dispatched the tuna but not before it made the inside of the boat look like a murder scene, we cleaned up and decided to try the bottom fish again. Using the tuna for bait we managed quite a few fish in a very short feeding period. We managed 2 dhuies, 2 pinkies, 5 baldies a queen snapper and a few other lost opportunities.

All in all, it was a great day out and I couldn't help but think that a bit of time vested in trolling for mackies would probably pay dividends.

Steve.