P6 - FISH & BOAT, April 2019 Fishing Girls on the Macks By Josh Behrendorff Leaving the boat ramp, I steered the boat towards Magnetic Island. While the boys in blue let on that It’s not too often that I get a visit from the water po the macks were on the chew inshore, they didn’t spe- lice, mainly because of their limited resources up cifically say where. I was planning to troll lures around here in the north, so I always feel a little privileged the headlands searching for bait or birds which will when their inflatable rib pulls up alongside my boat hopefully have predators close by. Arriving at Mag- to do their mandatory checks. On my latest triennial netic Island, we set out a spread of lures and begun catch up, we got through all our niceties and manda- trolling the headlands searching. Above the water tory checks before one of the sergeants queried me why there wasn’t much doing, the skies were grey, and the I was fishing in the creek when the inshore grounds heavy rain clouds were threatening, the birds were are holding really good late season mackerel. HE leftscarce, and there were no signs of boiling baitfish, me speechless, since when do the boys in blue give out jumping mackerel or tuna. We stuck to our game plan, hot fishing tips? Regardless, the following morning Iconfident that the bite will likely happen around the was back on the water with my daughter Amelia and tide turn, although I was keen to be in the same vicin- Bob and his daughter Hannah who hasn’t had many ity of the baitfish before the dinner bell rang…. chances to land any fish, at least until this point. We finally located the fish, sitting a lot closer to the One of the big secrets to having successful fishing in-headland than expected, sitting in 5-8m of water, only shore for mackerel is to fish light and with a couple hundred meters off the headlands. As we finesse. Without using the light leaders and first found the bait, it was spread out and hugging the light rods with smooth light drags we find that we bottom, although the closer we got to the turn of the The fish may have been too big for Amelia to hold; however, either don’t get the strike or if we do, we just pull the tide, the tighter the bait balls appeared and the higher she was one very proud angler to catch the fish herself. hooks. All the 2-4kg rods we were using had 15lb up in the water column they moved. We knew it was braid with 20lb fluorocarbon leaders. only a matter of time before one of the rods buckled over; however, the girls were getting more and more restless the longer we motored. Finally, the port side rod tip bounced before loading up, followed by the sound of Bob’s Saragosa drag. Bob quickly handed the rod over to Hannah as we cleared the other lines. With Hannah being reasonably inexperienced on a fishing rod, I left the boat in gear to ensure that ten- sion was maintained throughout the fight. With Bob coaching her on good technique, it wasn’t long before Hannah wrestled the meter long grey mackerel to the side of the boat ready for a gaff shot. The excitement on Hannah’s face as I slung her fish into the esky was priceless, if this was the only fish we got all day, we still would’ve gone home happy. But, where there is one mackerel, there is always more. The next rod to go off was the lightest set up we had out, my little favourite soft plastic 2-4kg rod with a little 3000 Stradic and the way that this fish took off, we knew we were a little under gunned. My daughter Amelia was quick to take the strike while we scram- bled to clear the other lines; however, this fish was smoking us, and the spool was hot to touch as the line screamed off. My little girl held on tight, locked her knees under the gunwales in the corner of the tran- som and patiently waited for this blistering first run to slow. The problem was the fish wasn’t slowing, and she was running out of line fast, so I warned Amelia that she is going to have to wind fast while I began reversing up on the fish. She began putting some line back on the spool, enough that I was confident she had turned the fish towards the boat and I wasn’t wrong, this fish started swimming straight back to the boat to the point that we thought we may have lost it. I knocked the boat back into gear to see the rod gently load back up. Poor Amelia was looking tired, her little arms have never had to wind so fast in her life, her face was beginning to glow and sweat beads begun to form. As the fish neared the boat it took on a whole different fighting strategy, it decided to use the boat as structure. Time and time again the fish ran straight under the boat, I was supporting Amelia as the fish lunged under the boat before trying to surface on the opposing side of the boat, threatening to cut the line on the hull or motor. Continued next page OCEAN CRAFT Extreme Reef Fisher CARTOPPA CRUISER CABIN Choice of 2.6m, 2.9m, 3.3m, 3.8m, 4.3m, 4.6m, 5.2m, 6m, 6.7m, 7.2m and 7.6m Inflatable style all aluminum plate alloy,lightweight, airtight Smooth and soft riding Utra Deep Vee Hull QUADRUPLEand watertight. WARRANTY: 1. Value Trade-in 2. Overtake any boat 3. Five-year warranty 4. Safest boat on the water PH: 07 5499 6937 | Email: sales@oceancraft.com.au Ph: 0416 293 686 www.oceancraft.com.au 19BIRTHDAY$HOWSPECIALTH