Went out with Stu on Wednesday morning for a half day charter with Finlay and my Sister in Law from the UK. First and foremost I must say that Stu is a top bloke
yes he is a good fisherman but he is also genuine and patient with the inexperienced angler and kids (he does have 6 of his own though
) which makes for a really nice atmosphere on board.
So we headed off for a bit of bay and reef fishing out of Pirates Bay and South along the coast. In no time at all Stu had us over a nice school and the first fish were landed Jackass Morwong and of course Gurnard. Things got quiet so Stu moved us along, it was at this stage that Finlay turned a rather interesting shade of green
badluck
So the call was made to head back inside Pirates Bay and troll for some Salmon. These were easily the biggest Salmon I have seen and the fight was just brilliant. We had one on for a good 10 minutes and could see the size of it, but it spat the hook (at one stage Stu turned to me and said cheekily ''Kingfish'') it didnt matter we were all having a ball reaching for the $15 combos everytime they buckled and the line was stripped off. Just goes to show you dont need to $200 combos to catch big fish.
After an hour of this Finlay had returned to normal colour and the call was made to head a bit further out to try for a few Squid and some more Morwong. Again Stu put us on the spot and nice feed of Calamari was soon in the fish bin, this was followed a short time later by a few more Morwong.
All too soon our time was up and we headed back in, Stu cleaned the Morwong and Squid and we bagged up a few Salmon to use as bait in future and a heap of squid bits also for the bait freezer.
We had a wonderful platter that night of lightly crumbed and shallow fried Morwong and Squid, and even had enough left for the BBQ the following night
It was a great day , Finlay is still talking about the Salmon and the Sister in Law reckons it's one of the best things she has done on her many trips to Australia. Very high praise indeed.
Thanks very much Stu and will be going out again in the future.
Photo below is of Stu giving Finlay some advice while fighting a very large Salmon
Justin
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