protection from predators. There 
is also a lot of food found up inner 
harbours, shellfish, crabs and bait fish. 
It also means with such conditions 
why you need plenty of scent, so 
is best to use oily and juicy fresh 
baits to help bring the fish to you.
On the very first bait cast by 
Graeme, his Lanza rod bent over, 
and the fish took line and seemed 
well hooked as he settled into the 
fight, but the fish unfortunately 
dropped off the line.  Winding in to 
inspect the 40lb leader and it was 
cleanly bitten off near the hook.
It was a good fish and probably a 
large snapper, although we tried 
here for another 25 minutes at this 
first spot and only caught a very 
large eel, so we decided to head 
down the harbour to a spot we knew 
well that had always fished well.
With the tide dropping fast, it pays 
to move spots if you don’t find the 
fish relatively quickly as they are on 
the move with the receding water.
HUNGRY FISH
In about twenty minutes’ drive and 
arriving at midday we reached the 
spot, deployed the Recon again 
and dropped down the mullet baits 
on the running rigs.  As this was 
a deeper hole (15m+) we didn’t 
use the berley bag as the current 
was really ripping out with low 
tide a couple of hours away.
"…when I got a good run on 
the Daiwa Free Swimmer 
and as I struck to set 
the hook, the Lanza rod 
doubled over hard and the 
fish tore line from the reel!"
The writer’s mullet bait is hit by a big 
fish that takes a lot of line and then 
swims up current past the boat!
 /FISHINGINGODZONE  13

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