The Night

“””So by now you guys know where my go to place is when i want to just chill, enjoy the view while the big rods are out doing their thing, yes Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, Sydney NSW. Another gorgeous afternoon in the Sydney Harbour as we start catching Yellowtail for bait before the sun goes down. Towards the afternoon as the tide was coming up, they were on fire, bites after bites and managed to collect around 30 Yakkas within an hour with 3 guys. So now time to throw them big ones in and hopefully hear that drag take off like no tomorrow.

And so it begins, 30min in and the train took off! Jumped out of my seat to grab the rod before it potentially flies in the water as my drag was a little tight. I held it in my hand and let it have few more seconds of it and then STRIKE! We were on like Donkey Kong. The weight of the fish, rod bending, reel drag screaming while tightening, i knew this was a big one and needed to think of a strategy on how to land this fish.

Quickly told the boys to reel in the other big rods as this fish was going left to right back and forth, while taking line and trying to run like the Bolt. So i decided to be aggressive and tighten the drag even more while forcing it to go one direction towards me. Finally saw some colour as the tourists around us were yelling “BIG FISH”, so my excitement was through the roof until one of the boys said its a big Kingfish. Tightened that drag even more as the fish started to get tired but still trying to reef me and snap my line. The reel was just hanging on with hearing the stretch of the mono line, the rod had no worries as it is a 15kg rod, i knew i had it in the bag.

One of the boys got the telescoping net and landed the fish but was so heavy and big that it bent and snapped the net pole in half and luckily enough caught the broken side with the fish in it. As he was lifting it up, it snapped in half again! Laughter after laughter we managed to land the fish and let me tell you guys, it was a beauty! I Was so over the moon and knew it was a special moment because it’s very rare to see a 95cm Kingfish being caught on Land in the Harbour.

Gear Setup & Bait

While live bait is the ideal bait for these monsters, the bait that did the damage was a butterflied Yakka with a strip of old frozen squid on the side on the Daiwa Sandstorm 12ft rod that’s paired with the Penn 950SW reel. As always setup is a simple one, 30lb main line, sliding sinker, 1.2m long Black Magic Fluorocarbon leader with 2x snail rig size 6 live bait hooks.”””

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion is that the 12kg / 95cm Kingfish almost got away, but with the correct leader, line and double hook, it managed to hang on while the Daiwa Sandstorm had no issues. The Penn 950SSW on the other hand having 8kg Drag Capacity, it was just hanging on. At times i felt the downside of being an old school solid reel but with the correct strategy and letting it run a little until tired, it was not bad. Anything bigger of a fish, i do recommend changing it up to a higher bearings reel with higher drag capacity.”””

Angler: Sarks