Big Fish on the Kinder Surprise Combo
by Lee Brake on 22 Jul 2013
That's a top effort on 5lb. Sam with his cobia on the Kinder Surprise combo. - Big Fish on the Kinder Surprise Combo Lee Brake
The week Lee Brake headed out around the Cumberland Islands with Reefari Fishing Charters in search of Spanish mackerel. The mackerel were as rare as an honest politician, but there was still plenty of action to be found, especially on ultra light gear!
With the weather coming down after a prolonged period of gusty conditions I waited all of about two seconds before accepting an offer to head out around the local islands off Mackay in search of Spanish mackerel. Greg Reynolds, skipper of Reefari Charters vessel Raptor II was taking the weekend off and planned a mates trip with some serious trolling and jigging in mind. Along for the ride were Sam McCowan, Jason Horton and myself.
We got off to a fairly reasonable start and after heading to a well known local mackerel haunt, Bailey Island, we found fish stacked up on a pressure point. On a sounder mackerel will usually show as pronounced bars or arches stacked up in mid-water and that was exactly what we were seeing. Getting them to the boat was another matter though. Our spread for the weekend consisted of a deep diver (either a 30+ Xrap or Sebile LL Koolie Minnow), a mid depth diver (a Halco Laser Pro or Reidy's Big Boss), a wog-rigged gar or pike, and a chin-guard-rigged ribbon fish. At Bailey we took hits on almost every lure before Greg finally landed one about 9kg on the Laser Pro. From there we tried jigging a few knife jigs to no avail before heading further afield.
From there things got tough. We failed to find any more shows of mackerel and bait schools were a notable no-show. We trolled pressure points and drop-offs around both Penrith Island and Snare Peak before finally giving up and heading for deeper water. It was time to get 'jiggy with it'!
Luckily for us, Greg has hundreds of GPS marks in the Shipping Channel area. These marks are small rocks, reefs and rubble patches that are often referred to as isolates. An isolate is a small, isolated area of structure along the ocean floor that is used by species such as fingermark, reds, nannygai, trout, cod, mangrove jack and various sweetlip as a stop-off point on their journey from adolescence to adulthood. Many of these fish start their life as small fry carried inshore by currents etc and then once they reach a certain size, they start a journey that will take them far offshore to spawning grounds around reefs and oceanic currents. On this journey though, fish use these isolates for shelter and food. This makes them ideal targets for switched on anglers.
Our first drops were less than successful with small sweetlip and parrot fish our only catches, however, as the tide started to run in the fish did come on the bite with some legal nannygai, parrots and cod finding the esky. These fish fell to baits fished on twin hook paternoster rigs, so we decided to try some jigging to see if we could tempt a better class of predator. It worked!
We dropped down a mix of metal slugs and soft plastics and were met with a trio of bent rods and squealing drags. Unfortunately though, the first fish to surface turned out to be tea leaf trevally, not tasty reefies. Sam, however, was still battling his fish. Rather than make us optimistic, mind you, this just made us give him some serious ribbing. You see, he was using a 1000 size Shimano reel, 12lb rod and 5lb braid. We called this little rig the 'Kinder Surprise Combo'. Assuming it was a trevally, we just gave him cheek and teased him that 'Christmas was coming'. Then we saw colour on the surface. It wasn't a trev'!
Instead, it was a lovely cobia that lifted morale considerably and, while it was a struggle to get to the gaff, it proved that it is possible to land big fish on light gear, even in 50m of water! From there the jigging continued as we moved from mark to mark looking for signs of fish life. Finally, on mark number six we found a ball of fish stacked up beside the edge of a solid rocky show on the sounder. Three jigs went down: my Gulp Nemesis, Sam's 5' Lumo Got Stryper Pintail and Greg even dropped the 5lb combo down with a Halco Twisty metal slice. We all hooked up almost instantly. It was sweet, beautiful mayhem!
I was first up and when we saw the fish a groan went out as we realised it was a trevally. It wasn't looking good for Greg and Sam. But then Sam let out a triumphant yell of 'It's a fingery!'. It was a nice 60cm-plus fingermark and a top catch. All eyes were then on the 5lb stick which Greg had handed over to Jason so he could do some filming. This little rod was bent to the water line, but Jason was doing a top job of making back some line. Finally, the moment of truth came and... fingermark! Another 60cm-plus specimen.
From there the bite on jigs tapered off and we turned to baits on light combos to put a few more fish in the esky before it was time to head home. A few trout and a nice red to yours truly topped things off nicely and the trip home was in glassed out conditions. It hadn't been the greatest weekend for quantity, but a few quality captures, some awesome weather and a plenty of cold beers with good mates had made for a top outing!
Fish hard and stay safe.
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