Friday again proved to be a perfect day to have off as the wind was forcast at 12 knots SE easing by lunchtime to 5-8 knot easterlies so I again headed off to chase some metro dhuies with a mate along for company and as payback (forward) for house sitting for me in a couple of weeks time.

We again went and explored new territory again finding hard coral / limestone bottom in less than 50 metres showing clear evidence of caves - first drift resulted in a specimen black bum and several very large sargeant bakers which clearly indicated we are in the right sort of territory - well so we thought - the next few drifts resulted in umpteen cuttlefish takes, several hookups and even one lighting up next to the boat whilst trying to grap the legs of a mutton bird.  Now that's something you don't see every day a brick brick red cuttlie almost grabbing the bird - pity would loved to have seen the outcome. And with the plague of cuttlies were a plague of sand flathead which despite their small size managed to hook themselves on just about any bait offered.

One really solid hook up had us calling it for a big dhuie but the speed and running ability had us calling for a sambo - wrong - a one and a half metre bronzie hit the surface after a spirited fight and, with the cuttlie plague just getting worse as conditions improved it looked like the dhuie hunt would draw a blank.

We made the call to head back to around 37metres to a spot we had marked in the way out as having a large aggregation of fish - checking it out they were still there so with little drift we positioned the boat over the colour and waited - one rod quickly took off and we called it for a dhuie only to reveal a pesky banjo shark - urrgghh what a disappointment - only to have the second of my rod's indicate some light attention - tightning up the fish went ballistic with strong runs and a never say die attitude of a typical sambo ( we were having one of them days in calling the wrong fish ) it even went and gave one final run when it saw the boat - had to be a sambo - wrong again - my run of metro dhuies continued as this one came aboard - around 8kgs but very satisfying all the same.   So  the house sitter finished up with fresh fish as well - a very satisfying end to a great day on the water