28 July 2009

The weather is really holding off at the moment. We have had gloriously calm seas but the viz inshore has not been spectacular. Lots of divers rock-hopping but at the moment little coming my way of crayfish or Jewfish. The deepsea boys are getting into some seriously good fish. This just screams adventure and I am busily organizing a group of intrepid divers to go out and get some Marlin and Tuna.

The principle is to get an idea of where the bait balls are. In this case from 70m and deeper. Birds tend to give the baits' position away. If a bait-ball is found, one need only slide in amongst them and be patient. If the bait is not co-operating, drag some lures behind the boat (Rapalas, Halcos and Tuna feathers). When a strike is obtained start a burley trail. Ideally you want to use a drogue and mermaid line to slow the drift down and provide your divers with a point to comfortably rest. This is big gun territory. Break-away rigs with several floats are the order of the day. To encourage competition between fish on the burley trail, do not overfeed the fish. Ideally drop in a piece of burley and only follow it up when you lose sight of that piece. This will encourage the fish in close to the boat, hopefully ignoring the divers. A piece of information that I picked up was not to track the fish through the water but aim at a piece of burley, shooting when a fish comes into view. Perhaps by tomorrow I will have something to report on this. My telephone is going to be red-hot with all the calls made today!

For the sake of completeness I have included the article in the Advocate from Saturday:

25 July 2009

The Ocean is a fickle mistress. Tumultuous and unpredictable at the very least, she showed her calm and placid demeanour over the last weekend. The club competition went ahead, unexpectedly, I might add. The viz on the near-shore reefs was poor but out wide, it improved dramatically. We started at Northwest, then moving to The Wash. Although both of these venues appeared fishy, nothing worthwhile was encountered. The situation changed around The Big Island though. The viz went to 20m+ and it made a pleasant change lying on the surface watching the fish below. A charter boat at the pinnacles had created an extensive burley trail which attracted a cloud of fish. Without too much effort several Kingfish found there way into our esky.

We moved on to a patch of reef west of Hitler’s. Again several kingfish were found and we added 2 small Samsonfish to our tally. Last move was to a drift known as Bluebar Alley. I should have been paying closer attention because Kurt took an excellent fish on this drift. Unfortunately I would never be able to find the spot again. The Parrotfish was not a Bluebar. Some guest divers from Sydney confirmed that it was not a Bluebar and photos were taken to get it identified. My money is on an Ember Parrotfish and this is likely to be a new NSW state record. At the weigh-in, several Kingfish and Samsonfish came to the scales. The Parrotfish was most certainly the highlight of the weigh-in but there were Pearl perch and Mangrove jack in the mix too.

The weather is quite spectacular at the moment. Bright sunny days and the nights have lost that icy winter chill. The diving has been inspiring and it has motivated me to get fit in preparation for the new diving season.