Well Glenn and I decided that with the full moon and good weather forecast we would head out Friday afternoon for a night time popper session, then pop the incoming tide the following morning and then head out for a jig on the high.

Unfortunately the predicted 4-6kt winds friday afternoon felt more like 14-18 and it was quite choppy for the first half of the trip. We then found some protected water in the lee of some islands which made the remainder of trip like traveling on a millpond. We kicked back with a beer and some KFC cruising along at a comfortable 50kph.

I didn't finish work until 6pm so it was a late start but with DLS we arrived at our destination with a little bit of light left.

First things first and stright into the GT fishing. We tried one of our favourite spots but there was a huge swell pushing into the back of the island and it was extremely difficult to fish. With little interest we decided to find an anchorage in some protected water further back along the island.

We anchored up and started casting poppers from our anchorage. It wasn't really a spot we'd given much time in the past during the day but I'd seen some bait get smashed by something big so I was queitly confident.

First cast resulted in one of the most visual hits I've ever seen popper fishing before. It was absolutely awesome and could have only come from something with quite a bit of size to it. Unfortunately it didn't hookup.

What followed was one of the most dynamite sessions I've ever had, it was quite phenomenal really. We probably averaged a hit nearly every second cast with some casts resulting in 2, 3 and even 4 hits. The most bizzare thing about the whole situation - NOTHING hooked up.

The bite only slowed when we got to the top of the tide. Then we went to bed. Up bright and early the following day we got straight back into the GT fishing. The going was slow, there was still a reasonable swell pushing in which made the popping difficult. I think I had one half hearted hit and then we decided to cut our losses and head out for a jig.

It took a while to get out to our spot as the water was a bit lumpy. When we arrived we sounded around to find the schools. It's quite a large plateau and the bait schools move around. Where there's bait schools there's mackies, and they're just about always there.

We located a few schools and set up a drift that took us over all 3 schools. First drops and we were straight into it. Catching spaniards on jigs is awesome fun but you inevitably lose gear. It's a comprimise between using wire and sacrificing strikes or not using wire and losing gear. Unfortunately they wouldn't touch any of our offerings with wire.

Usually between the bite offs we manage a few fish (we've gone 6 from 6 in the past) but this time I think we lost close to the vicinity of 15 jigs between us. It was pretty demoralising. Not a single fish was landed and those that got close to the boat were lost to the sharks.

Glenn hooked up to one of the many Spaniards

We decided to head back to the island for another GT session before we lost any more gear. When we got back I got a lovely hit from a big silver GT that hooked up momentarily before pulling the hooks. Unfortunately that was to be the only interest we got.

Well we were pretty dissapointed at this stage, it had been a rather unusual trip and we hadn't even seen a single fish landed for our efforts. We decided to have a troll for some trout on our way home in the hope we could secure a consolation prize.

We ended up getting a nice little 45cm and 50cm fish for our efforts which was enough for a feed - happy days.

Glenns 50cm Trout

Junior Trout - Released

Jay