Berley, circle hooks and a pre dawn start bring on the pinky snapper

I spent the New Year down at Port Fairy fishing with my mate Roger. We were fishing "the bay", a large area from Port Fairy to Warnambool that faces the ocean but is protected from outer bomie's breaking up the swell. I was pretty worried about our 12.5  tinnie as it went up-up-up and down-down-down over the swell but the wind wasn't strong enough for the waves to swamp us.

The bay consisted of broken reef with sand patches in 4-5 meters of water so we found a bit of sand next to a patch of reef and set anchor. Roger said we should anchor over sea grass which is where the whiting live but it was difficult to distinguish sea grass from kelp beds. This made me wonder whether a really good sounder could help us determine the bottom composition more easily. I guess $800 will tell me.

Using frozen salted pilchards and prawns as bait all we caught were a few undersized salmon, trevally and a pinky or two. It was a little uninspiring as none of the fish were legal size. This was the peak of the holiday season and there was a flotilla of other craft on the water - jet skis, speed boats, big fat tourist boats and I think their racket was scaring the fish. We changed spots a few times and noticed that if it wasn't for our berley, we wouldn't have caught even undersize fish.

The next day I thought we should change our approach. We awoke at 3:45 am and got to the ramp at 4:30 am ready for a first light launch. Fishing pre dawn is the biggest advantage you can put in your favour but clearly, hardly anyone does it. The boat traffic on this morning was nil compared to the boat ramp queues of the previous day.

We set off in complete darkness and as soon as we were out in the bay we struggled to differentiate the reef from the sand as it was too dark to see a thing. Eventually there was a slither of light and we could spot patches of darkness and light and set anchor in a patch of sand next to what looked like reef.

Down went the berley cage - slow dissolving tuna pellets with an aniseed mix and a blob of tuna oil. Every 10 minutes or so I lifted the cage and jiggled it around violently so the dissolving pellets would make there way into the water. It is critical to do this or the berely will just sit in the bucket and not get to the fish. I was fishing Owner 6 cirle-ish hooks with the smallest sinker I could use to get me to the bottom. Within 15 minutes the action went ballistic with pinky after pinky going nuts for our salted pilchards. The action was really intense until dawn where it quietened down. The net result was the best 3 fish kept for dinner and over 20 released. This reminded me of a few trout fishing experiences on lakes where the action from first light until sun up is full on but as soon as the sun hits the water things die off.

I had the drag set super light and let the fish hook themselves on my number 6 Owner circle hooks. You don't have to strike with circles and that allows you to fish with two rods when the action is furious. Roger had to time his strikes and could only fish with one rod. I have never used these types of hooks before and will stick to them when I can from now on. Unfortuantely, the biggest fish cut the line as I only had my trouty 6 pound line - a big mistake. I should have been using a 10kg leader.

This trip taught me a few valuable lessons:

• Get off your arse and fish from first light to dawn, it's when the fish bite best.
• Use a berley bucket to attract fish, they make a big difference. Jiggle it up and down every 10 minutes.
• Circle hooks are *gold*
• Use a 20 pound leader to stop big fish cutting through 6 pound line.
• We should have caught the plentiful squid in the bay to use as a fresh bait but never got around to it. Perhaps the bigger fish would have been more tempted by a quality fresh bait.
• Perhaps we should buy a fish finder with a GPS so we can locate precise sand areas adjacent to reef the day before and fish during the night on a known spot.