A tale of fish and lessons learnt from one of the Saltfix crew, Luke.
After fishing the last few days in prestine conditions and getting no results, I decided a late to night fish was the go. After installing flood lights and a bildge pump to the tinnie, i felt confident. It was going to be onshore 15knts which was a bit worrying as we punched out to a new spot and anchored up in the miserable conditions. After a few hours of nothing we decided to move to our old spot before it got dark. It got dark and windy as and the floodlights weren’t as good as i thought they’d be! Mistake thinking the lights would save me and thinking the onshore night fish was a good idea in a 3.7m tinnie. The sounder lit up at one point and AJ hauled in a small pinky. Must’ve been a shoul of small obes or shy big ones, nonetheless 10mins they where gone. Not feeling confident my rod took off at last and the fish was heavy and fought well. I was thinking it was a snapper, but it fought different. A 71cm Dhuie came aboard, bloody stoked!!! With conditions getting scary, we pulled anchor and basically drove home blind in hectic conditions. It felt like deadliest catch, could only see a few metres infront of us. We were getting soaked and if it wasn’t for my new high powered hand held torch and GPS on a waterproof IPad, we would’ve been in a really bad situation as we limped back the 2 miles which felt like 5. With the harbour insight and safety, we did it, stupid! No fish is worth that sort of risk and it’s actually quite crazy to think what a small tinnie can handle if needed! Fish went 7kg! Wings and ribs cooked as well !! Will not be night fishing in anything over 5-10knots from now on!! Lesson Learnt 😆
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