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OFFSHORE ANGLING => Offshore Fishing Reports => Topic started by: John F on December 16, 2019, 11:15:45 AM
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Fishing has been pretty dismal (actually, non existent) in these parts for the last few months.... even the commercials/spearos have been struggling so, the rest of us weekend warriors don't even launch.
Discussions revolve around who/what to blame with the Chinese trawlers taking all the blame for lack of fish!
Anyway, we have been watching the social media platforms like hawks for fishing reports and finally good catches from Bilene first and then, from here, were reported. So all we needed was a window in the weather.
The forecast for Saturday (14 Dec 2019), gave us a 6-7 h window of fishing that would just barely be enough. We would have to be very cautious not to be trapped in the NE that could/would come in just after mid day!
Anyway, boat was prepared on Friday and we had peterblace join us aboard MAXIMVS, after a while!
With the sunrise at just before 05:00, the plan was to leave the dock at 04:30 and head straight to the fishing grounds up north. Spend as much time there as possible and get out at 12:00-13:00 or as soon as the weather turned. It is about 25 nm from the club so it’s still a good 1.5 h ride. The 2.5 m / 11 s swell (that eventually changed to 2.2 m / 10 s on Friday) was a matter of concern. Anyway, we were prepared (psychologically) for a bumpy and slow ride. The most important thing in my mind (and I’m sure on everybody else’s) was: WE WILL NOT HAVE CHICKEN FOR SUPPER ON X-MAS!!!!
Off we went at 04:30. The Land Cruiser made the launching a breeze and the sea was pretty decent even as we went past Xefina Is. Those 2.2 m were not there! What a joy. Some showers here and there and overcast skies, but overall the ride to the grounds and throughout the day, the weather and sea conditions were AWESOME!
Half way there, we spotted a new buoy that has been put to guide the ships and I decided to make a closer pass and see if any bait was around. We managed to get lot’s of bait in about 25 min (shrimp and Indian scads). Fantastic! Apart from the livies we had a bunch of frozen baits that included halfbeaks, stripbaits, mackies and sardines.
Crossing Baixo Domete and Cutfield, those 2.2 m monster showed their faces, but it was nothing really dangerous… we got to the grounds and decided to start trolling with rappies and save the baits for later. Usually the rats are quite abundant in the area early morning and they will eat anything really…. So those precious baits were saved for later.
We got to the grounds and not long after lines went in we had the first couta on board… rat, but hey that’s what we wanted. We got about 3-4 rats and 3 bonnies (awesome 1 kg baits that we saved for later use)…. Moved a bit deeper and got one more couta slightly bigger…. Then, at 09:30 the bite was off…. We put a couple of live baits (srimp scads) in balloons and did a bit of bottom fishing. Some decent spangled emperors and rockcods came out but, quite interesting, nothing touched our livies…
At about noon, we decided to got back to the area a bit shallower and check what was happening… this was a bit further south so we were practically initiating our retreat.
Got there and saw birds working some bait at the surface and YFT (decent size!) splashing the surface. No takers on our rapies, so decided to put 2 livies out of spinning outfits. With motors only in gear trying to get close to the action, this was happening in quite a wide area. In the mean time we kept eyes on the sounder and did bottom fishing. We had the most exciting 2.5 h of fishing: rigging livies, chasing/ gaffing/cleaning fish (no fish goes to the ice without going through the hands of the gutting man!), re-doing traces…. wow! Awesome!
We had some huge spangled emperor take our live Indian scads!!!! We lost quite a few fish (a few couta, a HUGE YFT just seconds before gaffing, and a jumpy queenfish). Managed to run out of Indian scads and eventually at 15:30 we decided to call it a day as the NE started to blow.
In the end we had 8 couta (the largest was 10 kg) a YFT and some quality bottoms!
The area was pretty active... we saw 4 loggerhead turtles, dolphins, tuna and birds…. Ongoing action... Overall a beautiful day out!
And best of all…. We will have fresh fish for x-mas eve!!!!!
Trip stats
Date: 14 Dec 19
Location: Northern grounds
Time at sea: 12:45
Water temp: 23.5 - 24.7o C
Distance covered: 83.8 nm
Fuel: 101.5 L
Consuption: 1.21 L/nm
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More pics.
4 kg spangled emperor that took a live Indian scad.
Check where the YFT was hooked.... gave my bruder some sweat on the spinning gear :hehe:
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The gutting man in action;
Catch of the day;
Rainbow.
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Nice report! Well done with your catches. The weather has been pretty depressing this side the last few days. Time has been spent fixing rods, servicing reels, sharpening knives and buying (too much) spare tackle
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Thanks for the report bud, glad you can avoid chicken for Christmas dinner... Man I have some serious fishing withdrawals at the moment. It doesn't help that I spend my evenings watching fishing porn on YouTube I guess. But right now, I'd give a non-essential organ to be ot at sea with an angry fish on the end of my line.
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(clap) Great report Marcos and I'm glad you guys got some good fish. :sreel:
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aewome day at sea...I wish all days were like this
thanks for letting me hook up with you guys
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aewome day at sea...I wish all days were like this
thanks for letting me hook up with you guys
Against all odds the day turned out great.... every now and then we these moments to up lift morale :crzy
Thanks for the pics!
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Great catches.
Thank you for the report
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Well done Marcos, what a nice busy day on the water (clap)
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Great catches Marcos!