Festival disruption causes fishing chaos !

It's Festival time over here on the Island at the moment and thanks to the disruption it causes, my eldest son had the day off school today....so naturally he and his mate wanted to go fishing!
I said o.k I would taxi them to where they wanted to go, and decided to throw my gear in the car as well, just in case...as you do !
Things started off slow and the first half of the session leading up to high tide was a wash out with very little evidence of any fish present. A few nibbles from tiny Wrasse and Gobies all of which resulted in zero hook ups. I suspected that all this could change on the ebb and as I had to leave and go and pick up my younger son who still had school today I left my eldest and his mate to carry on. I returned about an hour or so later and found that my prediction had been correct and the fish had switched on during my absence. My eldest reported two Bass and a Pollock and lots more fish present, this being bolstered by a large flock of gulls working nearby too.
I parked the car up, retrieved my gear from the boot and re joined the boys on the Pontoon.

The water was full of pin fry which the Bass and other fish were merrily gorging themselves on, The trouble was, despite having my best selection of LRF lures with me, It was hard going matching the hatch due to the miniscule size of baitfish that the predators were preoccupied with ! In the end a 5 gram metal was as near as I could get and I managed to hook a little schoolie in short order but it was still hard going despite large numbers of fish present, the problem being the overwhelming amount of free food available.

In the end though we managed a few Bass, some Pollock and a Mackerel between us and my youngest son did me proud by being photographer for the session ! 

 

Action as a Schoolie takes the Metal !



 

The Mackerel were happy with Plastic !

 

Number one Son bags a Pollock

Still slow

A couple of recent LRF sessions have yielded a few fish, though it's still been hard work for the time of year. The fish just don't seem to have established themselves in any numbers yet as in previous years at this time.
Anyway the first session saw me take my kids to a little pontoon the other night that is generally a great little venue for LRF. We managed a few Pollock between us during a dusk period in the tide, though the window and feeding spell was very small and there didn't seem to be any real numbers of fish like there can be here.

The second session was the same story really, visited another normally fun little LRF venue which is the entrance to a harbour mouth where large groups of schoolies gather at the right stage of tide and we have had some hectic fishing here at times on the ultralight gear. Last night however it was again hard work. There were obviously some fish present as the first bite came just on the dot of the flow picking up but this proved to be a false indicator and the bites were few and far between though both myself and my mate did manage pound plus fish each which was nice. Didn't get a picture of those one's though as the light was fading by then and I didn't want to spook any more potential fish with the flash as we were wading waist deep in the water and it had been hard enough work as it was ! So here's a pic of the first fish, only a half pounder but fun nevertheless...

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First strike to the needles !

Summer arrived this weekend finally, and with it the sport has just switched on pretty much overnight. Better two months late than never I guess ! 
Anyway taking advantage of the improved conditions my mate and I headed to what is commonly regarded as one of the best venues on the island in search of some fishy action. I have never fished here before, why not I can't imagine because it is simply a stunning venue with boulders the size of lorries in places and underwater topography so rough and extreme every nook and cranny must house a fish of some kind ! My mate had previously spent a little time here and regaled me with stories of lost monsters and unseen tackle smashing beasts ! For the first time in quite a long while I was actually excited about going fishing. Climbing over rocks and boulders after a long cliff path hike we found a lofty perch from which to cast. My mate was first in with a small schoolie and followed it with a second slightly bigger one. Not having brought any of the Dexter wedges my pal was catching on I decided to try one of the Superstrike Needlefish lures I got from the states recently. First cast and I was into a fish and first strike to the needles ! Sadly I lost the lure to the tackle eating ground a short while later and being the only one in a suitable daytime colour I was more than a little annoyed ! The Bass seemed to vanish after that so we plodded around trying to find some more fish while the rough ground ate up even our most weedless presentations. My mate managed a good sized Mackerel and I managed to finally extract a reasonable Wrasse before we called time on our session. No monsters but a few bites and a few fish during what we generally consider to be poor daytime conditions for Bass fishing, hot, bright and fairly calm. If I hadn't kept losing tackle and having to re rig every five minutes, I'm sure there would have been a few more Wrasse on the cards.
 We much prefer the cover of darkness for Bass, and we shall definitely be exploring the after dark potential of this mark soon as I am sure it will throw up a good stamp of Pollock once the light goes as well. At least things have kicked off properly now and we don't need to spend all our time wondering if the fish might really be there at all and concentrate our efforts on actually catching them !