The fishing was slow.
It was a Tuesday night and my mate and I were buoyed by three previously successful trips—rig still poking around Blenheim well into winter. But, this particular night, things were not looking flash. The fishing was slow… red cod, carpet shark and a spiny dog!
Then a long quiet period with no bites.
Then my rod started twitching; the bait was attracting bites. I was using a small paddle crab on a 30lb fluorocarbon trace so it should have been tempting. Bang—fish on.
“Red cod,” my mate yelled as I sprinted toward the bending rod. I wound the slack out, bent the rod tip down and felt some light tugging so went for a big strike. The hook set, I started reeling it in. It did feel a red cod; just a wee bit of dead weight.
However, once I dragged it near the shore, my rod suddenly bent right over and line started PEELING OUT—running HARD.
“Can you hear that?” I yelled to my mate who was 20 metres away. The reel was screaming. I didn’t think he would have heard it over the waves but, much to my surprise, he yelled back saying, “YEAH!”.
After a few minutes of fighting, it was clear this was no red cod—just a good rig. That makes it four successful trips in a row—better than a hat trick!
