Fishing Report August #2 Full Moon, Friend or Foe?

So what is it about the full moon that drives fishermen crazy? Locally it seems that EVERYONE wants to fish on the full moon especially at night, bottom fishing. So what about  those of us who chase top water game? What then?
Well if yesterday's effort was anything to go by, topwater fishing on the full moon is hard work.  We set off mid morning due to unfavorable tides and started fishing about an hour and a half before low tide. As it turns out, this was the best fishing of the day.

Naoko with a great Green Job Fish. A superb catch on topwater!

There were several strikes from Emperor but no good hook ups until Naoko squealed as out of a school of competing Emperor a good sized GJF snatched her lure and took off. On 20lb line the fish put up a great fight but was eventually landed. First fish of the day and the best fish of the day!
Soon afterwards the rain came which put a damper on things for a couple of hours. Once the rain had cleared up we got back to fishing but with little luck. I personally fished 75% of my time with topwater lures and got skunked. Using the usually reliable Yo Zuri Hydro Popper, I caught zero fish. The other 25% of the time I fished several 4 inch soft plastics with better but not wonderful results. I landed around 20 fish of which about half were under 40cm and therefore released. The catch for the day included Green Job Fish, 2 types of Emperor, 4 types of Grouper (Black Grouper, Coral Trout and Coral Cod), Blue Finned Trevally and the always pesky Needle Fish (Long Tom/Datsu). As I fished the soft plastics, I switched back to poppers regularly and towards the end of the day, couldn't get a bite on the poppers to save my life. The fish weren't even following the lure but when I switch back to the plastics I would get bites straight away.
It got me to thinking, do the fish not attack on topwater so eagerly at the full moon? Or was it just coincidence that they were biting on plastics and not on poppers? Anecdotally I would say that when the fish are biting, poppers outfish plastics when it comes to size and quality of fish. Yesterday, the opposite was true. Was it the moon cycle or was there something else at play? What do you think? Let me know...

Are these the world's worst hooks?

I have a confession to make. Before last weekend's fishing trip I insisted that everyone upgrade their treble hooks to some 3X strong hooks that I had bought from Mustad. Previously I had had no problem with these hooks and they seemed to hit at a price:performance ratio that I was happy with.
As my regular readers would know I prefer to use Owner ST-66 trebles on all my lures but it can be an expensive exercise when at any time a large Red Bass/Barracuda/Shark is pretty likely to take a shine to your lure and barring a miracle you will never see the lure or your expensive hooks again. So the Mustad 1/0s seemed like just the ticket. WRONG!

One of the 7 or 8 hooks that failed in one session. The rust came in the week after fishing, it was brand new when it broke.

MUSTAD? I thought it meant quality

So with a boat full of fisherman using these hooks, we went on to lose 7 or 8 fish to broken hooks! Not all were big fish, some were but THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR TACKLE FAILURE! Some of the hooks broke without the guests even realizing that they had had a fish on! To say I was pissed off is a major understatement not to mention the embarrassment of having put these hooks on everyone's lures to start with! Oh well MUSTAD, all I can say is these hooks SUCK and I wont be buying or recommending any of your products ever again! Or at least till something changes.

Fishing Report August

Despite the complete shit weather that has been hounding the islands for the last two months, your intrepid blogger hit the high seas last weekend in an attempt to find something to eat other than frozen chicken - blaah.

Well the weather was crap, big southwesterly winds and a northerly swell made for an uncomfortable ride out to the fishing spot, add to that the heavy overcast skies and constant showers and you get the picture.

On the positive side we had 4 enthusiastic fishermen ready to do battle!

Unfortunately the fishing was really hard work. We tried our best for about 5 hours and yielded a very humble catch of about 60 pounds of fish.

Young Ben with a solid Long Nosed Emperor, not sure what the "tough" face was about though!

All in all it was a difficult day but we enjoyed a decent catch of Blue Finned Trevally, Long Nosed Emperor, White Snapper, Grouper and Green Job Fish. Looking forward to some good weather and really getting into the fish! Till next time...