Articles
Brooms Head winter recon
- Category: Brooms Head
- Published on Saturday, 11 June 2011 16:19
- Written by Josh
With a weekend full of bad weather news looming I took Friday off to take advantage of greener pastures and as advertised, launching conditions at Brooms Head could not have been better. Seas were at 1mt when I took to the water and only grew gradually throughout the day, which I spent the better part of out there. I wouldn't have spent so long on the water (it was surprisingly cold) if not for the potential dangled like a carrot whenever I started contemplating coming in; it was just one of those days. Employing a variety of strategies throughout the day I encountered a number of hook ups, most of them boated, but the most impressive ones lost. It really was all about the ones that got away.
The first major hook up came right when I least wanted it, trolling while passing over one of the bommies in the area. Sure... it was 1 mt seas for the most part, but here it was 3, and some of them were breaking. I'd wandered into this range once before and lived to tell the tale. Not so treacherous today, but still not inviting. So it was somewhat risky for me to engage the fish here but thats what I tried to do, albeit briefly. I was rubbed off on reef in no time. One more X-Rap bites the dust!
As the wind died down in the middle of the day I located myself over a reliable mark and replaced trolling lures with casting and jigging lures, simultaneously working a small Williamson Banjo eye bucktail jig on one rod, a Storm thunderblade on another as well as a Silstar Stickbait soft plastic. Something sizable took a real liking to that bucktail jig and started pulling with all it's might. Soon after it managed to spit the lure, very likely my own fault (allowing the line to go slack for a moment while reaching out to turn on a camera). So then I tied on a larger one and lowered it down. It came back up minutes later with a modest red rock cod on the end, swiftly released. Another of these was later caught on another, smaller bucktail jig.
A pillie coloured thunderblade accounted for 2 squire snapper, one while trolling slowly, the other while retrieving erratically. But it was the stickbait that attracted the biggest hook up later in the day. Drawn to the area by bird activity it quickly became apparent that something interesting was going on underneath the surface and it appeared to be taking place over a wide area... several football fields at least. Birds were following the heaviest surface activity and some dolphin activity became apparent as well. This prompted me to bring in my trolling lure, figuring stray lines, trebles and dolphins might not be a good mix. I sat back and tried to figure out where the dolphins were focusing and look for alternatives. Naturally, I found my answer in the birds, which I pursued with stickbait poised to cast.
It was the perfectly timed cast that landed that soft plastic right into the middle of an erupting boil up that resulted in a hook up and whatever fell for it took off at an alarming pace. Although the moment was caught on video its difficult to say what I'd hooked and almost immediately lost, though based on the speed and power I observed, I wouldn't be surprised if a dolphin had in fact grabbed it. I've never heard of a dolphin taking a lure before (assuming they're too smart for them) but perhaps not so in this case. I really don't know and I really hope I'm wrong but I wouldn't rule it out. I did put some considerable distance between myself and dolphin activity I did see, but because they move so fast and spend so much time under water it's hard to know. Either way, I'm glad it was just a single hook plastic.
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