My last fishing trip on MAXIMVS was in July. With a full schedule of field trips, meetings, reports, etc., I was craving for a proper fishing trip for a while. Going nuttier on a daily basis, according to the missus: "I was in need of a full psychiatric evaluation". That pretty much summed it!!!!
Saturday 16 Dec 17, seemed like a good opportunity to break through the dementia. Club Naval was having its in-house friendly, and it looked like this unsettled weather would just give us a narrow window. Weather sites gave a light NW in the morning and a stiff NE in the afternoon. I hate fishing with northerlies... choppy, cold water and just not productive. But hell, I was desperate....
Called my team and made a plan. My brother Jr. was nos available so it was up to me and Jorge. Wanted to take my son Matheo with, but he had his yellow-belt Tae Kwon Do graduation ceremony (he got it!!!!).
The horn would sound at 05h00 so we planned to be at the club at 04h00. At 05h00 we were rolling to a stunning sunrise.
Water temp was a little more than 23o C and the sea was very good considering the outgoing tide with a NNW breeze, clouded skies but we were amped!!!!
Went straight to the northern couta grounds and the plan was: “catch couta whatever it takes” and then try a little deeper or do some bottoms depending on the weather. With a stiff NE (+15 knots), predicted to come in at about 14h00 we had to be really focused and not waste time.
Started trolling with rappies and speedpros and not long we had our first reel screaming. Didn’t take more than 5 sec and gone! I knew what we were up against… rat couta just nibbling… anyway we carried on and eventually caught 4 rats and a barracuda of about 5 kg… lost quite a few in between… by 9ish things went quiet… decided to go a bit deeper... The sea became rougher and going deep and further north was uncomfortable.
It was about 10 o'clock and we were at the 20-30m drop: a double strike
: 4 rods and 2 anglers on a sea that was pretty much a full blown riot! The short rappie had a barracuda of about 5 kg that was hauled in pretty quickly.... the shotgun on the t-top took some line and I was preying for a nice
It gave a nice tussle but no match for the Okuma Makaira 30 II SEA on a 30/50 Tiagra rod... bit of a chaos clearing lines and steering the boat but eventually I saw the fish... long and dark and initially I thought it was a
.... quite fat and no zebra bands.... "wait it's a
... a chunky one too"!!!! Put the gaff in and boy was the fish mad.... almost pull me out of the boat!!!!
Yes!!!!! Hi fives all around.... my initial take was this was a 20 kg fish! Meaning we got the 1st place of the in-house friendly (largest gamefish wins)....
We kept at it and tried to go a little deeper looking for a dorrie or YFT.... nothing. Had some schoolie dorries jump about 100 m from the boat but no takes on my surface konas with stripbaits...
By 2 pm the wind was really pumping so it was time to pack, change fuel cans and head home. Arrived at 15:45 and the couta weighted in at 18.24 kg, effectively stamping our 1st place and a prize of 100 L of fuel plus plenty of bragging!!!!
We did 87 nm on 96 L of fuel (1.10 L/nm)... not bad considering the sea conditions.
Overall, a great comeback after 4 months.... plenty of sore bones (some I didn't even know existed!!!).... but hey it felt goooood!!!!
