I woke at 3am on Monday morning in a tent, listening to the surf. I was having trouble sleeping, due to the combined effects of beer, rum and red wine. I'd been busted off just on dusk the night before, so I was keen to give it another go, only this time make sure my line was in good condition. By 3:30 it had been decided and I leapt out of bed and made it down to the beach by about 4am. I was hit by a strong seabreeze. I still had some live yabbies and a bit of fish frame, so I threw them out for a while. Soon a cloud bank rolled in, blacking out the moon. Then it started raining. After that it improved a bit, but still no fish. About an hour after first light I caught a large baitfish and sent it back out on my tailor setup - 15 pound mono on a surf rod, but with a wire trace and single hook.
Not long after that my reel started spinning, just as it had the previous night, only this time it did not break. In about a minute all my line was spooled (nearly 300m I think), despite me increasing the drag beyond the sensible limit. I could see the metal underneath the last few strands of line on my reel, so I clamped down all the way on the drag so it would not budge, then leant back with the rod bent over and waited for the line to snap. It didn't. It took me up and down the beach a few times. Eventually it came in close and I saw what looked like a small shark fin come out of the water, then what looked like the tail of a tuna or a big golden trevally. I finally got it into the surf and realised it was a big spanish. It was so tired it started rolling over in the wash, with all the trace wrapping around it up to the mono. The wash went back out and it unwrapped enough for me to feel I could grab it. I remembered cutting my hand the last time I grabbed a smaller mackerel by the tail with a bare hand (and lost the fish), so I went for the gills this time, which didn't work. It wrapped and unwrapped again, then I grabbed the tail and it didn't kick once, so I dragged it up the beach by the tail (a bit easier than the gills, FYI). I didn't get my reel wet once in the process. It took me about a minute to fetch the knife and it still wasn't moving, but when I cut the neck it exploded in blood.
It weighed in at bloody heavy, and 1.3m long. The only thing we had to clean it on was a surf ski.
It was foul hooked just behind the pectoral fin. The hook was only held in by two little strips of skin, about half a centimetre wide each.
Check out the damage to the trace - all the plastic coating gone and one of the wire strands bitten through. The tip of the hook has been broken off and the hook clip is bent.
No ciguatera symptoms yet (fingers crossed).
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how the mackerel lost its tail (Read 6757 times)
