Hitting the surf - In Australia

It was good to once again put the skills learnt on the casting field to good affect with a session down at Torquay on Friday evening. Targeting Gummies with baits of fresh squid, Baracoutta and whitebait the plan was to get down early and try for the Salmon and then convert that to bait for the Gummies and potentially a Jewfish.

Conditions that greeted us were less than ideal for the Victorian coastline with a reasonable strong South westerly pushing against a falling tide. This made for a rough shore break and gutter that were closing out to the sea.
For the session we had a range of outfits between Lee , Graham and myself. Lee was utilising the Century TTLD and my Tip Tornado Lite, Graham likewise was using his TTLD and older Daiwa, I was using my Tip Tornado Match and Super match with both rods having their reducers in to extend the overall length to 14+ feet. This combined with my Tripod made it easy to have the line held higher to get out of the shore break but still have the ability to remove it for casting with the reels in the low position.

Rigs used were the standard pulley rig and 6 oz grip lead sinkers, these sinkers have been an absolute blessing with their ability to hold bottom even with a considerable side drift.
Reels for the occasion were my ever reliable Penn 525Mag and the Daiwa SL30SH, both reels were running Ultima line with the 525Mag having the Super steel and the other the new Distance line in 0.35mm which is also my preferred line for all of my tournament reels.

Things didn’t start smoothly with the first three casts landing right in the reef area with the resultant snap off. The re-rigging was a speedy process as I always have my rigs pre made and ready in the rig wallet.

At the change of the tide and start of the flood we were rewarded with a couple of small snapper taking the baits from out wide at the back of the break. Lee also took a smaller Pinky and a little rock cod but nothing else graced us with their prescence.










These were then followed by a standard ray that put the TT match through a good workout , estimated weight on it being between 15 to 20 kg .







Post getting the ray to shore and removing the hooks we made sure it was released with it being a little worse for wear but very happy to be heading back out to sea.






As much as we would have liked to stay a wedding engagement on my side ment that we had to forgo the full benefits of the incoming tide and call it quits around 2.30 am as the wedding was scheduled for 11.00 am and there was still the drive home and the cleaning of the gear to take care of.

All in all a great way to spend a evening with mates

Fine Ray lads I was starting top forget what a decent fish looks like, its a while since a decent shore caught fish was on here Id say that was some scrap on the TT match

The fight with the match was quite good and the ray made a number of reasonable runs. I loved the way the rod handled it and am looking forward to getting a few more big fish in the coming weeks.

well done lads, lovely ray!

JPS please stop posting here when your out casting the sun is splitting the sky and when your fishing your getting huge raymonds I HATE THE IRISH WEATHER

Some crackin fish you lads caught there

love it lads thats some nice fishing lads well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well done JPS and co great fishing,i,d say the snappers give some scrap ,The centurys can certainly bully the big fish ,cant wait for our summer to hurry up ,and then i can start to get some proper sport fishing in Bring on the smoothies and Bass

One of the better reports i have read in some time, very interesting and good detail in it, decent fish too, fair play lads.