Howzit Guys,
I took the guys from work on a bay charter on Friday, these guys have probably fished at most 3 or 4 times in their lives and never from a boat. The boat was 21ft Baronet.
Due to a last minute cancellation and Jace calling me at the same time I asked him to fill in, and he kindly agreed. So Jace and I the only 2 on the boat who know a little about fishing, not counting my 2 kids who I took along as well.
we launched a little after 19h40 and headed straight for dumper where we anchored. I sorted the guys traces out and showed them how to put the cracker onto the hook and also warned them not leave the rod down without opening the drag, then I took my place in front of the boat with my 2 kids.
One of my guys Logan, was the first one away with a hookup the rod was bent double and the drag was locked tight and b4 any help or advice could be rendered the line parted, from my experience in the boat I'd say it was a nice size stumpie.
After this things were pretty quite with only a couple of blacktails and breams coming out, until my 8 yr old had a bite and a hookup and then the reel started a slow and steady scream and I knew that there was a real danger of my son losing the fish although he is quite an acomplished angler for his age, because just b4 hooking this fish I had noticed a knot on the 12 pound line that he was using but I was too lazy change the trace, at the same time Jace had a hookup and his fish took off snapping his line b4 he could even touch his drag leaving him wondering what happened. After fighting the fish for a while and finding himself unable to cope, my son handed me the 6 ft rod and I started to slowly nurse the fish to the boat all the while cursing myself for leaving the knot and not changing the trace.
Every time that I gained line the fish would run and I'd be back to where I started, after about a 20 mins tussle we got our first brief glimpse the fish in the ambient light from the wharf and it looked huge,and my brain screamed 'mussel cracker no, brusher, not sure' but in the water it looked to be easily about 8 to 10 kg I instinctivly loosend my drag a little more and the fish took off again reclaiming most of my hard fought line. I'd say it took me another 10 mins before I eventually gained the upperhand and boated the fish. A rubberlip of 5 kg on the mark.
Sorry for the quality of the pic - camera phone
I took the guys from work on a bay charter on Friday, these guys have probably fished at most 3 or 4 times in their lives and never from a boat. The boat was 21ft Baronet.
Due to a last minute cancellation and Jace calling me at the same time I asked him to fill in, and he kindly agreed. So Jace and I the only 2 on the boat who know a little about fishing, not counting my 2 kids who I took along as well.
we launched a little after 19h40 and headed straight for dumper where we anchored. I sorted the guys traces out and showed them how to put the cracker onto the hook and also warned them not leave the rod down without opening the drag, then I took my place in front of the boat with my 2 kids.
One of my guys Logan, was the first one away with a hookup the rod was bent double and the drag was locked tight and b4 any help or advice could be rendered the line parted, from my experience in the boat I'd say it was a nice size stumpie.
After this things were pretty quite with only a couple of blacktails and breams coming out, until my 8 yr old had a bite and a hookup and then the reel started a slow and steady scream and I knew that there was a real danger of my son losing the fish although he is quite an acomplished angler for his age, because just b4 hooking this fish I had noticed a knot on the 12 pound line that he was using but I was too lazy change the trace, at the same time Jace had a hookup and his fish took off snapping his line b4 he could even touch his drag leaving him wondering what happened. After fighting the fish for a while and finding himself unable to cope, my son handed me the 6 ft rod and I started to slowly nurse the fish to the boat all the while cursing myself for leaving the knot and not changing the trace.
Every time that I gained line the fish would run and I'd be back to where I started, after about a 20 mins tussle we got our first brief glimpse the fish in the ambient light from the wharf and it looked huge,and my brain screamed 'mussel cracker no, brusher, not sure' but in the water it looked to be easily about 8 to 10 kg I instinctivly loosend my drag a little more and the fish took off again reclaiming most of my hard fought line. I'd say it took me another 10 mins before I eventually gained the upperhand and boated the fish. A rubberlip of 5 kg on the mark.
Sorry for the quality of the pic - camera phone

I decided we try somewhere different, we headed back to centre bank.. there were 4 of us onboard. We pinned about 4 cracker each on our running traces, sent them to the bottom and then drifted..About 10min into the drift all for rods were bent right over
.. we each picked up grunters between the 4-5kg mark.:hungr It was the most fun i ever had in the harbour...All in all our boat went home with 6 fish.