Who knows KG?
Personally I suspect that it might have something to do with the perennial "leave it to someone else" syndrome that exists within rec fishing in SA, in combination with the assertions of some groups (primarily SAFA and RFSA) that they will provide representation on behalf of everyone.
If that was the case at last night's meeting, and both groups were actually providing representation at an organisational level, it certainly wasn't obvious. I did not hear one member of the audience identify themselves as a member of either SAFA or RFSA during question time.
Probably many other reasons for low attendance as well, but that's how I see it. Groups who claim to represent need to actually do it.
So I’ve heard many stories of people finding rat kings within a couple of hours from metro in the last six months and never had any thought of chasing them due to not owning the correct gear. However, one close fisho friend of mine gave me some sound info a fortnight ago and gave me motivation to have a go at a landbased king. Not having ever seen one in the wild (plenty in aquaculture) and never having caught one, I went out chasing.
Day began at 5am, left home early and drove up to an area that had frequent sightings of rat sized kings. Armed with a few combos and a couple of not-so-fresh baits, I was hopeful. I began by sending out a freezer squid under a float and let it drift way out off where I was fishing. Whilst that was out the back, I began tossing a squidgy flickbait around on my 1-3kg Samaki Zing and my newly acquired Daiwa Caldia 2004 hoping to nab a few salmon or maybe a snook. After a long while and no hits on plastic, I swapped to a simple paternoster rig hoping to at least catch a fish. Managed to catch typical reef/rock fish such as sweep, zebrafish, wrasse and heaps of leatherjackets in the small size range. I kept periodically checking my whole squid throughout the day but it remained untouched. I swapped out the squid and put on half a garfish just to see how it went. After midday I swapped back to plastics and was rewarded with a solid hookup and strong run. The Caldia was singing loudly and I was losing heaps of line fast. The fish hadn’t jumped so I knew this was no salmon, the Kingies were finally here!! I fought this legal sized fish for five to ten minutes but without a crab net to lift and having completely the wrong gear it was hopeless. The king went for a short run and busted me off on the last pylon. I couldn’t entice another strike from anything until around 4pm when I began to bring in my last half a garfish bait under the float. As I retrieved the float, it began to bloop and pop the garfish across the surface. To my surprise two/three kings came from nowhere and smashed the gar on the surface and things came tight. Against strong drag from the Stradic 5000, it still managed to take line and felt like the harder I pulled, the harder it tried to run away. Eventually I got it close and was able to deadlift it on 40lb leader. Success!!!
My first ever kingie at 70cm. Great fight to it and to do it by myself was awesome. Now I just have to wait until late spring to hopefully go and find some more. Would love to land one on plastics as well, so that’s my first summer goal for next season.
Tonight I ran the numbers from 2 - 50, the number of posts in the comp thread not including my first post through a random number generator to select a winner of the comp.
Well first post selected was just a comment by Southie, second attempt, another comment post
Finally the third and what an absolutely cracker of a profile pic was selected!
Allroy holding his massive cod.
Allroy can you please send me a PM with your details so I can send out your prize pack.
Prize Pack includes:
Pre-tied longshank snelled hooks - size 10
All purpose float - large
Ezy Rigs - small
Halco snap swivels - size 10
Halco DVD - Exmouth Gulf Shallow Water Action
Halco Twisty - 10g Chrome
Daiwa Basara 83S Sinking Hardbody
Daiwa JerkSlider 88 SSR (not Jerk Shad Slider like I said in the video )
Penn Cap
Strike & Hook Beanie
Thank you to everyone who posted up a pic and updated their profile pic.
Also a big thank you to Fishing Wholesalers for sponsoring this months competition. Everyone please check out the Fishing Wholesalers website http://www.fishingwholesalers.com.au and like the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/FishingWholesalersAustralia
