Hey all,

had a nice successful fish today at hillarys marina north wall! i was there all day until around 7pm.

Fishing started at around lunch time. not much happening for a couple of hours until 3pm when we were hooking into some nice decent Buff Bream around the 1kg mark. I tried something a member said to me, to use the head. well i chopped the body in half using the head bit on a snell. i cast out with a fresh buff head on the rig. while i was putting more fish frames and tails into the burley pot my big rod started SCREAMING off!!!! I grabbed it and slowly tightend the drag. it was a ray! the ray was being estimated at around 40-50kg and i needed help from my other 2 mates a couple of times sharing the rod around for about 40mins when a STUPID YACHT DECIDED TO COME RIGHT NEXT TO THE PLATFORM                   (50-60m away) TO SAY HELLO AND WAVE WHILE RIDING STRAIGHT OVER MY LINE AND SNAPPING IT!!!!!!!!

oh well i thought there goes my fancy flash rig with a fair size stingy on the end  so off i went tying another rig while my mate says get my rod ready i want a stingray!!!! soo while i was tying my rig i was tying his as well. i used a bit off the buffy tail and put it on a snell. we tried to cast out and by then the wind picked up making our casts near impossible :D we got about 15m away from the platform. now that i gave the last bit of buff bait to my mate i had to wait for another piece and there came my mate with another buffy around 1.5kg.  it was pretty fair size and his first buffy ever as well! well off went his head and onto the new rig. cast out and nothing until around 5pm. when my mates rod got a big tug on it!!! i picked up the Kmart Special with a JW spin reel for $34 and slowly tightend the drag, until it dropped.

i was just so shocked that i was about 40m out and they were about 15m so i reeled in and cast about 20m. within 30mins i was on another ray! also estimated at around 40-50kg! this time it snapped shortly after for some weird reason?

now i had given up on my O/H rod and after losing 2 rigs i ran out of sinkers. so while i was packing up the O/H and everything else i noticed a tug on my mates rod. but nothing. after packing up every thing i went to get my mates adrenalin pumping by pulling line off the reel making the drag scream.. so there i was ZZZZzzzz and he was so pumped until i cracked up laughing! then i tightend the drag and started reeling in to pack up when the rig started moving... then the drag started peeling! OH MY GOD another ray! so there was my again battling another ray at 6:30 on sunset watching the big rain clouds coming over. and about 20mins later it started bucketing down! after 30mins of the ray taking line of my JW cheapy ;) i started getting line back quickly in 5mins i had it so close to the rocks!!! but then it took another run pinging me on the rock wall!

and that was it for that night!

Cheers,

Eric