Friday On Neo

[Paul D]

Took Sam out for a trip from Christchurch to teach him how to catch the mullet ( having had Gordon teach me ).

 

Wind was blowing strong westerly so decided to leave Manatee to venture out and "test the water" whilst we fished the harbour for a couple of hours.

 

Caught a mullet and Sam got his first mullet on spinner although the fish weren't exactloy jumping on the hook.

 

Tried drifting further up the harbour to check out what species could be had ( practising for Sunday ) and had a small bass/mullet which fell off before it reached the boat.

 

Called up Manatee and the report was "not too bad although some swell over the ledge". So headed out - up to the ledge the water was almost flat calm but going over the ledge the swell was well impressive, so we plodded over to the "xrayish" mark that I had fished so well with Paul J last week and dropped anchor.

Manatee came over and anchored close by and fishing commenced......

 

Mackeral were jumping on the hook so no need for a live bait tank, we were sitting on a huge live bait tank

Feathered up a joey and attached him to a big hook on a long trace ( nice expensive fluorocarbon ) - less than one minute later the rod bent over and a 3 lb bass was onboard. I have never seen Sam put a live joey on so fast

Superb start, even Les and Paul J hadn't caught one yet.

 

Sam then hooked into a fish so I was thinking "who needs to go to the bridge eh ! ". However, that was the last bass we had onboard. For what seemed an eternity we sat and watched Paul J haul in fish after fish not 10 yards from us. Even a move for us right by where he was catching didn't help.

 

Still, could have been worst - the weather meant fishing wasn't too pleasant and given we spent 80% of our time trying for fish on live joeys I am sure we sould have got more if we had bottom fished at the same time. ( Sam lost a good ray right near the surface as it wore through his 40 lb trace ).

 

Finished the day with a tope on the last drop and had a last bash in the harbour where we both caught a few more mullet before returning to Wick.

 

PS: The sun fish was spotted on Manatee after moving to the "xrayish" mark but that too decided to avoid swimming anywhere near Neo