Ended up heading out yesterday afternoon. I was planning to go out in the am but fast currents and recent morning fog made me feel like it might not be worth the trip. I had the day off and my brother in law was hanging around so we decided to go out and enjoy the afternoon sun.
Here are the new rods all never used. An Ugly Stick Tiger, A 1 piece 9-10ft peetz and a Shimano Tallora that I got for christmas.
When we arrived the parking lot was full. I'm sure the lot hasn't been this full since August. Great example of why the spring fishery is important to the south island.
A good sign as we were leaving. These guys had a couple of chickens.
When we got out the fog was still hanging around out there. Arg do we really want to head into it? I could hear the coho ferry let out a blast. There was also this moving along. A couple examples of why I don't like being out in the fog GPS is great but I don't have radar.
At least this tug had his load in tight tugs always make me nervous sometimes it seems like their load is a kilometer behind them. (I know it doesn't look foggy the fog was out in the straight).
I headed to a spot I liked from last year. Maybe the fish were right where I left em...? The answer was no. Dogfish city! I thought the dogs didn't show up thick until the end of may - juneish. We were getting big dogs, little dogs, doubleheaders of dogs, dogs that looked pregnant... dogs dogs dogs! I even had one with a perfect oval healed scar on his throat. Looked like somebody sliced him with a knife last years trying to run it through. Guess what it didn't work the fish had healed and was fine. Got another one that had it's lower jaw sliced wide open. Couldn't believe it had that fish survived from last year with his mouth cut in half? It didn't look like a fresh slice. How was it still eating? Those things just don't die.
I didn't bring a ton of bait so we made the call to move. It's a gamble but we wasted a few hours on dogs and with a low bait supply our day was going to be over soon if we stayed.
The next spot I hadn't fished before but it looked like a spot that might hold a halibut. There were still dogfish there but not as many. We ended up saving any scraps of bait from the hooks that we could because we knew we were going to need to head in, fish jigs or re use some dogfish chewed bait. The current was speeding up and it was time to get the heck out of there or get a real bite. All we had down were two dogfish chewed chunks of meat I didn't have much confidence but then finally a real thump. Thump Thump Thump.
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This was no dog! Measured 42 inches (34.2 pounds on the chart). Hooked nicely in the lip would have been an easy release if one had wanted to release it. You can see in the first picture a new glow weight I got off of CCB. I used one coated glow weight and one bare lead ball. The glow side seemed to get more dogs and it got the hali but there were lots of variables so I'm not saying it helped but it certainlty didn't hurt!
Got lucky this time.