Blowy

 Another oldie from www.sexyloops.com

Went out for the first seabass trip of the autumn on Monday, earlier than I ever usually do it as I prefer to wait till the weather starts cooling off, maybe late October. It was nice to be out in flip-flops and a Tshirt rather than bundled up like a polar explorer.

Autumn is when you can fish big flies and target the larger suzuki sized fish. It's still possible to stay around the more sheltered marks and have a night of good numbers, but when the big bait is around and the pre spawn movements give the big girls an easy opportuntiy for some canabalism it's the best chance to get a 70cm+ fish on fly. So that was the plan on Monday night. I did have the lighter rod rigged up but the main plan of attack was seriously big flies on the 10. Unfortunately we were still getting quite a blow and a lot of swell from the typhoon that passed through on Friday. After poking about in some sheltered areas with nothing to show for it, we decided to head out and brave the weather at the marks out in the bay. It certainly didn't make for comfortable fishing and was probably on the edge of being too much to be out in.

Fishing the big flies for these fish is as bit of a mind game, the conscious decision to eliminate the smaller fish-say under 50cm from the equation means you're essentially turning a fishery that can turn up cricket scores on the right night into a one or 2 fish proposition. And that's on a good night! As it was I stuck it out with a 30cm beast fly and managed two eats and only hooked one of them which bounced off before making it to the boat. Either would have been considered serious specimen seabass, but it wasn't to be. It's still exciting when it happens though!

We'll be more effective when we get out on a calmer night.