Its Not A Competition, Right?

Myself and young Ben have had a fairly bad run of late, even during days when we have had textbook conditions, the fishing has hardly set the world alight.

We have both remained pretty determined to keep on slogging it out however and today we headed up to the North Peninsula for some Rock-fishing.

Our mark looked promising on arrival; a slight westerly breeze blew as the tide rose. Water clarity was near to perfect and Launce were smashing baitfish in the margins, everything looked a bit better than what we have become accustomed to this year.

We had our day pretty much planned; we decided to fish the natural harbour area with light game gear until the ebb and then move to access the deeper water on the ebb.
Ben has just started out lrf'ing and it has been quite refreshing hearing someone so excited about it, especially given some past comments from him on the subject. :)
Ben was actually first into the fish, catching a couple of greedy Launce, but refused to have his picture taken with one.

I was fishing for Wrasse using a Texas rigged HTO Mini Stick in Ayu, which are my "to go" light Wrasse bait these days. Although I was getting bites pretty instantaneously, a Wrasse would not be my first fish, in fact it was a Launce.

Apologies for the quality of the picture, for some reason I find these fish difficult to photograph, which is a shame because they are a nice looking fish.
I found this capture really strange though, I never thought their jaws would be strong enough to expose a weedless hook let alone pull it through the lure!

It wasn't long before I did get some Wrasse though, one of them even managing to reef me before I got it out, I would have sworn it to be bigger!

As I was fishing for the Wrasse, I spotted a Scorpion fish on a ledge just by me and called Ben over. Ben took a peek and with true lrf stealth, he stalked the fish and offered his white HTO Mini Stick. It was proper kool watching the wee Scorpion dart off the ledge to intercept and engulf Ben's lure, his first Sea Scorpion on lure too!

Shortly after this I also managed a first for me; I cast out my Ayu Mini Stick towards a pot buoy and let the lure fall through the column, when I got hit! I knew it wasn't a Wrasse and thought it to be a Pollock, yet to my surprise after a pretty good scrap I actually landed a Codling, my first ever on lure.

I was and am pretty pleased about that one!

Another Wrasse followed before the bites went off the boil a bit;

 With the bites starting to decrease I scaled down to fishing a 1.5g #10  Jighead and a Berkley Gulp Angleworm. Bites again were pretty instant and I caught a succession of Corkwing Wrasse and Blennies;

The fish that bites back!

Ben also followed suit!

After having our fill with the seriously small stuff, we moved off to try our luck with some HRF tactics in deeper water.
Ben was having trouble with the Ballan Wrasse today and hadn't caught one. Even with the move he struggled to turn his bites into hookups, I really felt for him as I bagged up.

Fair play to Ben though he persevered and switching back to lrf tactics eventually managed to catch a couple of Ballan Wrasse.

Well with that we decided to call it a day; well almost! "Time for one last cast?" I asked Ben, "Yeah OK" Ben replied.

I did give Ben a bit of grief over getting such a battering, but hey, its not a competition right?

Well all in all, a pretty enjoyable days fishing, nothing big, nothing epic, just enjoyable!

Tight lines.

Gear I used;

Rods;
Breaden GTRF85 PE Special Houri Island
HTO Rockfish Revolution 7'10" 7-28g

Reels;
'12 Daiwa Luvias 2506H
Shimano Complex CI4+ F6 2500HGS

Lines;
YGK Jigman X4 0.5PE
Duel X-Wire 0.8PE
Seaguar Ace Fluorocarbon leader
Varivas Fluorocarbon Leader

Lures;
HTO Mini Sticks
Berkley Gulp Angleworm
HTO 3.8" Pro-Worm
HTO 3.8" Real Stick
Nories Ladyfish

Terminal Tackle;
Texas cone weights 2g-14g
Gamakatsu G-Lock hook #2 (more like a 4)
Decoy Rockfish Hook #1/0