Mid-week Fingermark Session

Last night Dad and I shot out to West Point after work for a mid-week fingermark session. I wouldn't normally head out with work the next day. But with 2 months of not being able to get out because of the wind I was keen to take advantage of our current good weather. We left the ramp at about 4pm and immediately headed to West Point. We spent over an hour trying to collect live bait from various marks, but only managed 8 or so yakka. Most of which were quite large. We would have had one more, but Dad accidentally unhooked it and threw it back! I'm not sure what he was thinking!!

We then anchored up on a mark, set out the live baits and waited for the sun to set. Dad managed a few runs on the live bait, but I'm not convinced they were Fingermark. But my live bait swum around for ages. I think he eventually wore the hole in his back bigger and won his freedom!

As dark arrived we deployed the squid light and got ready. I have never really give this whole squid thing a good go, so I was keen to see how it went. Once it was fully dark we had a few hanging around the light. I netted them and quickly sent them back. But they just got picked to pieces by small fish. The sounder was alive with squid attracted by the light, but they did hand a little deep. Every now and then a big school would come close enough to scoop up. I was getting up to 10 in a single scoop! But the average size with about 2in long. So a little on the small side. The result being most getting picked to pieces by small fish.

We managed 3 BIG runs, each of which turned out to be big rays. But finally I pulled one lone Fingermark to the boat. With work for me today we had to pull up anchor and head in about 10.30. In bed by midnight I'm still very tired today :(