Samson Fish On Tap for Reelaction Charters

SAMSON FISH ON TAP FOR REELACTION CHARTERS

Samson Fish have become one of the most sought after fish from Marion Bay in recent years alongside Southern Bluefin Tuna. With fish of over 30kg available, Marion Bay SA has become a Samson Fish hot spot within an easy commute from Adelaide.

Good Afternoon All,,

It was Friday afternoon  travelling along Port Wakefield road heading to Marion Bay to do some work on Raptor in readiness for the upcoming season. The weather the last couple of days had been superb, and Saturday was looking to be a real cracker, in fact, to good to miss out on spending the day on the water. Work would have to be done on Sunday.

I called two good mates, Paul and Rhys from the Adelaide Gamefishing Club, and put it to them if they would like to come over and spend the day on the water with me on Saturday, not sure as to whats around as its been a couple of months since being out, but hey, a feed of snapper and nanny’s is better than working. Give us half an hour they said and we’ll get back to you. I heard back within 5 minutes, We’re in they replied all excited!!

Friday night was spent getting everything sorted with the hope that a few Samson’s may be still hanging around. With a few beers under the belt we called it a night.

Saturday morning we were at the town hall waiting to get in to place our vote, whilst looking at the flat ocean, what a tease, open the bloody doors!!

By 8.15am we were on the water heading out to our first destination. The tide change was due about 9.30am so we hurried along as the Sambos bite best on the change of tide. The ocean was flat apart from a modest swell of about 3-4 meters and barely no wind at all, it was perfect. A few miles before our spot Paul started the defrost with some pillies as our aim was to be ready as soon as we arrived and to start drifting with big pillie and squid baits.

Once we had arrived, I sounded around the rock looking for any signs of fish. I had a good show on the sounder and I said to Paul, they look like Sambos mate! With that Paul and Rhys had grins from ear to ear and couldn’t wait any longer to get a bait in the water. I motored up wind and tide, not that there was much of that, and started our drift back towards the fish I had marked.

The first bait to the bottom was nailed! With a huge first run, and many big head shakes, there was no mistaking what we had hooked. Paul and Reese couldn’t believe it, we had only just got here. After playing the fish out on the Saltiga outfit with PE40 braid for about 10 minutes, we had a nice Sambo of 60lb in the old scale alongside the boat for Paul to net, he was a beauty, and the boys didn’t want to waste any more time in getting their baits to the bottom. A few piccys were taken and I positioned the boat for drift two.

Next was Pauls turn, landing a nice fish of 23kg. Then  another fish on that went 25kg. Poor Rhys was looking at us wondering if we were going to let him have a crack at a fish. The next fish slammed Rhys’s bait giving a good fight on 50lb braid, Rhys was on the board. Paul and I scored a double hookup on good fish that went 23kg, then Rhys hooked up again on his jig! his first Sambo on jig went 22kg, well done Rhys. Paul was next to get slammed, after another battle he boated his best fish of the day at just shy of 60 pounds.

We remembered that there were no recorded Samson Fish with the GFAA on 15kg line class in SA, so in went the 15kg outfit. Geez we can tell you after fishing braid all morning, mono was certainly a bit to get used to, especially in 100 meters of water! After 10 minutes we were on! The fish certainly played different on the mono as compared to the braid, but was still very much under control. After 15 minutes I had a fish of 22.5kg on the floor, a pending state record for 15kg line class.

All up between the three of us, we hooked 12 fish for the session in total, boated 8 of these in which 5 of those were tagged and released, all swimming away  fit and healthy. We were all feeling it, backs arms etc, so as the bite slowed as the tide picked up we all decided to go and get a feed of Snapper and Nanny’s for the remainder of the day.

The Sambos should be around in these numbers for at least the next 6 weeks or so hopefully. Its now the start of September so I would predict to the end of October. I will be putting in an extra couple of Sambo trips coming up so keep an eye out if your keen to tangle with one of these giant fish.

see ya on the water soon,

cheers