Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorW
Best Jewie I ever caught was at the Kalbarri river mouth during stormy weather I was the only soul either stupid or brave enough to be out on a dark wet windy night fishing but it paid off !!!
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Been there done that .... Nobby's Wall / Shark Hole / under the tower , 4m seas , blowing !!! , bucketing down , thunder and lightning all around , had a dozen yaccas that I took 3 hours to catch and the storm came up suddenly from behind me (I was facing north), I refused to leave as the shark hole had been full of mullet while I was trying to catch livebaits, so I sheltered under the tower - probably a bad idea - highest point for 2 km !!! and stuck it out for 3 hours in foul weather - 2 jew (35 lb and 60 lb) which I had to land myself - thank goodness for my shoulder harness and the anchor point (made from a bent bit of welding rod attached by under and over bindings about 12" above the alvey's winchmount and or a 14' long rangoon cane gaff). Too windy to set the rod at a angle so I layed it down on the concrete and sat next to it on my milkcrate seat).
Was pretty scarey
.... but paid off .....
Was sand blasted walking back to the Nobby's Wall car park (could park just before the steep bit of road that goes up to Nobby Lighthouse then).
Been plenty of times I've been fished Nobby's or Stocko Walls , or the Pilot Station, or the Lions Park by myself all night chasing those big bronze coloured beasties , much more fun when using livebait than dead baits (ie a slab of mullet, a whole squid) , as the bait gets "excited" when there is something big and hungry hanging about , dead baits are generally clobbered with no warning - but the temptation pick up the rod and set that hook has to be resisted - lost many a good fish by being too keen to set the hook.
PS my best ever jewy was a 86lb I caught one night (again on Nobbys , but this time at a spot called The Flat Rock, fished all night and never got so much as a tickle until about 3am , and I think the bait had long since died , hadn't kicked for near 30mins, and suddenly the Alvey was spinning so fast it was a burr and the ratchet screaming - what a wonderful sound !!! - so I gently palmed the back of the spool but resisted picking up the rod until the run slowed to almost a stop - I thought at the time I had actually dropped the fish , then threw the antireverse in , and sharply lifted the tip of the rod , big mistake as the fish was still hooked and it didn't like that .... caught me off balance and damn near pulled me off the rock ledge I was sitting on before I planted my feet and could lean back and give it some stick.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I got the fish up near the rocks , it was longer than me , and it looked as nackered as I was , never ever shine a torch in big fish's eyes , I did and near lost it as a result.... had to gaff it myself (stuck the rod butt in crack between two rocks , backed off the drag a tad and went for just behind the gills - hard to miss the widest part of the fish) and then once I got it out of the water (a 6 ft lift to the rock I standing on, hard enough when you are already buggered) then faced a 30ft climb back up to the top of the wall , took my hat off, stuck my hand in it and shoved my "protected" hand around the throat and lifted and dragged ... near killed me .... heart was pounding, legs and arms couldn't stop shaking .... only place big enough to keep it on ice til I could weight it and clean it and butcher it was the bathtub which it was longer than.
