Yakabout - Plantation Point, Vincentia

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Plantation Point, Vincentia

Sunday, 11 May 2008

Mission Accomplished... sort of

I executed my plans for Plantation Point to near perfection. Not only were my plans carried out to the letter, the reaction from the fish was pretty much what I hoped for, except, sadly, the size of them. I didn't have any luck trolling a deep-diver hardbody lure with one rod and a soft plastic on the other as I slowly made my way towards the reef off the tip of Plantation Point. Nor was I able to raise any interest by casting around a squid jig a few times. I paid close attention to the sounder and I explored the sub-terrain of the area, looking for drop offs and fish arches. The sheer volume of fish arches I saw was promising, so I persisted for a while until I found an ideal spot to drop anchor. Lots of structure underneath, plenty of arches. Perfect.

One of the many species of cod... I presume

With the anchor line set I then started throwing out small nibble-sized chunks of chicken flesh, which I'd pre-cut marinated in some tuna oil the night before. I used slightly larger, more filling sized pieces to cast amongst the berley trail with a light pea-sized sinker running down to a rather large hook. From that point on it was a 2-hour clockwork affair of rinsing and repeating the process. Bites came pretty much immediately, the frequency of which always became strongest a minute or so after deploying berley, with more and more fish picked up on the sounder as well. A good deal of the interest shown by pickers, however, so a lot of it was lost to leatherjackets and other small-mouthed fish. I think the hook was too big for most fish to swallow. The first of my hook ups came within the first 10 minutes and was one of two species I couldn't acurately identify and thus, put back.

Pike: the carp of the sea

My next fish was a relatively large pike, which I also returned. I considered moving position when I caught this guy because I truly dislike catching these fish. As such I always try to encourage them to spit the hook before I have to do something about it for them. They smell so bad that touching one pretty much ensures smelling like one, and flapping around in an environet they lose a lot of scales so it's not easy to return them to the water without stinking things up.

Mauori wrasse, AKA 'butchers prick'

The next fish (that I couldn't quite ID at the time) was the colourful thing pictured below, which looked tasty enough, but I returned it anyway. Since catching it I've learned that it is a Mouri wrasse, and probably better used for bait than for a feed.

By now there were fish arches all over the sounder LCD and the sun had bleached the sky pink. With under an hour of twilight left I was getting desperate for my intended quarry to show up.

pinky, squire, juevenile snapper, take your pick

It only took another ten minutes to boat 2 of the very same fish I was targeting - sort of. Both of them snapper, or less accurately, pinky, or squire (depending on whether you're from south or north respectively) and being undersize were quickly returned. It was promising to finally get on to pinkies despite their lack of size, so I persisted with large chunks of chicken until the sun went down. I only had a few of these left, however, and they'd been stripped by pickers before daylight had completely faded. I took that as a sign to pull anchor and head on back.

Dinner... there you are!

With a steady tailwind it didn't take long to come in to shore, although my return was interrupted after hooking up onto this tailor on the way back in. It fell for a squigdy slick-rig in my favourite red/white combo. This guy was easily legal in size (around the 40cm mark) and was kept for the table, crumbed and fried, sprinkled with lemon juice.

Despite the high volume of smallish fish encountered, some of the fish arches I noted were rather large and there's no reason why another night wouldn't produce the sized of I am looking for. The sheer volume of fish in the area is a very promising sign indeed and one that has inspired me to investigate the area more thoroughly. Perhaps next time I'll downsize the hook slightly. I'll definitely use chicken as a bait again, as this clearly worked pretty well. Next time I might incorporate some bait-mate to make life a little harder for pickers.

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