Leeroy's first onka mulloway

[jimbojames 285]

Leeroy and i headed out for another onka sesh last night . Leeroy has spent a good many hours on the onka with me but with little success , so for christmas i got him a baitrunner reel to help with his chances . Keen as mustard we were on the river by 5 to catch some bait fish and then get stuck into some serious fishing . Not to long after we were sitting there i had a run . Strike but no hook up spew . Then Leeroy's reel has a run , bang . He's onto it . Line peelimg off i release the anchor an paddle him around to regain some line . With a nice little fight we land the mulloway an it goes a solid 68 cm . NICE Leeroy's first . Back to the anchor . Not more than 20 minutes later , Leeroy's reel has another run with the line peeling off at speed bang he strikes . The rod bent double and the drag screaming this fish was not slowing down . I release the anchor and paddle after it but its still not slowing down . Holy S%@# yells Leeroy as more line screams off his reel . The fish slows down and Leeroy gets some line back and then the line traces past us and then the drag screams again . Now by this time its 2 or 3 minutes in and i'm doing all the paddling and getting tired . Turn the canoe around and off in the other direction . Any way this goes on for 7 minutes before we see any colour . BIG FISH . Leeroy did awesome to get the fish to the canoe . I tried to land the fish but it didn't fit in the landing net properly and with another go at getting it in the line snapped and it was gone . spew spew spew . With an estimate of a metre plus is was a big let down not to get it in the canoe to make it official . By this time it was dark (hence the lack off video) so finding the anchor was a bit difficult . We were sitting there contemplating the what if's when Leeroys reel does another screamer . He's onto another one . We didnt worry about the anchor this time as he was confidant he could bring it in . That mully went 59 cm . Another excellent onka mully sesh . Leeroy 2 me 0 and Leeroy wont be coming again . Ha . Just kidding .

[MickSA 2]

Excellent session, What rig? Bait etc....

[Rickster 0]

Good onya Leeroy nice way to break in a new reel.Don't forget jimbo you bought the competition and because of that Leeroy is now on the board,i'm sure he won't stop thanking you :woohoo:p.s. nice pic's too.

[jimbojames 285]

Gday MickSA . We were both using 12lb line with 20lb trace . Running sinker with gang hooks . The bait was what ever we could catch and thats the hard part . We spent 3.5 to 4 hrs last night chasing live bait to only get 4 descent bait fish each a mix of ST mullet and trumpeters . If we had more fish we would of been out longer .

[MickSA 2]

Thanks for the reply, how do you find squid for bait? Used that before? I guess it would be alright if you couldnt find livies. Good effort.

[krustykrab 0]

nice session jimbo!......well done

[domdriller 1]

nice fish but just hope they went back in as the legal length is 75cm and I only mention that as I here all the time of smaller ones taken with the old saying O I thought it was 46cm wich is coorong only and those live baits have to be of legal size as well (not the shitties)shame about the lost one unlucky

[jimbojames 285]

Gday domdriller . all fish went back that night . if you suss out 80CM MULLY 4LB LINE video i try and treat all fish with the utmost of respect an care . i don't personally eat fish so all fish i catch go back in the water . i also have one of those big stickers that gives me legal sizes on the canoe so i know about the size limits . When i catch bait fish i usually have to catch a good 20 or 30 fish to sift through to get the 3 or 4 legal bait fish and that is whats most painful . sometimes i can be out there for 4 to 5 hrs catching stacks of fish but nothing legal and end up going home not even attempting to catch a mully . also i prefer shitties coz of the no limit but they are harder to keep a live . cheers krustykrab . i haven't used squid before MickSA . cheers Rickster . leeroy asked me the next mornin and keeps asking to go now . i think he has caught some mully fever ?

[domdriller 1]

Nice 1 jimbo thats the problem we have getting the live baits.We quite often go down sullys boat ramp at night and dab a whole lot of tommies as there is no legal length on them and they stay alive a long while and are quite livley. We have used fresh squid often with quite a lot of success but still dosent beat a good live bait.Best mully so far in the onka is 12.6lb but have only landed 11 legal ones in 30 odd years of fishing for them.Most fish are in the 60 to 70cm range.Have had the odd bigger one on only for them to spit the bait at the side of the boat as setting the hooks is difficult as we only use 6lb line.Nice mully pics.