Went out for a troll for maccies with Chrisp  today at Rotto. No luck on the mac front, but we got a nice little SBT in surprisingly shallow water. Perfect size for some sashimi.

Whilst trolling, we  sounded some nice ground and decided  to have a bit of a jig. Tried a few spots, and despite heaps of fish on the sounder, very little action. I got an undersized dhu and baker on a real  jig, Chrisp used a pirate (cheater....haha) and got an undersized dhu as well and then a just legal 50.5 cm dhu that was in good  nick, so we released him.

Then we moved  and hit the jackpot............sounder lit up like a Christmas tree..............

Well, even with the full moon, poor tide and fish off the bite, this sort of flareup had to result in some sort of action. I got absolutely smoked on my new PE2 jig outfit, suspected sambo, although it felt very unusual and may have been something else.......will never know, as after about 5 minutes of struggle, it finally bricked me into the reef. 

Chrisp followed suit, being bricked on PE3 pretty comprehensively.

I changed up to my PE3 gear, sent down a pretty large Fisheman Andaman, and BANG, on straight away. Fought very well and was expecting a small sambo, but up popped a nice 74 cm dhu.

Sorry about the piccie, Chrisp took some nice ones on the boat with a proper camera, have not got em yet. Took this with a poxy iphone at home.

Dropped again, hit again on Andaman, but bricked after I thought I was almost getting the upper hand......Chrisp was hit at the same time but landed his after a great fight. Nice Sambo (Chrisp has photos) but it went MUCH harder than it's size suggested.....I suspect sambos go much harder outside of spawning aggregation, as they actually have some food in their stomachs....

Re-rigged, I dropped a fanky, Chrisp a FCL lobo, and smash, smash......after a few minutes of strong sambo action, we both got sharked pretty badly........................Matt, on another boat nearby, yelled out he had 2 sharks under his boat, so  we pulled stumps and had a troll, but no luck.

Stopped off at the Rotto pub for  a beer and then a swim at transits on the way home to cap off an interesting day.

Just about to prepare some tuna sashimi and dhu on the BBQ. Happy days.

Cheers

John

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