Tyneisha’s First Bar-ee
I met young Tyneisha Fergusson
at Quobba Station where she was
camping and fishing with her parents
Mike and Caz Perry. Tyneisha had
never caught a Spanish mackerel from
the rocks and really wanted to land
a decent fish before heading back to
Perth.
I teamed up with Tyneisha and her
parents and spent the morning gas
ballooning off Cockatoo Point. This
is one of my go to ledges and I always
fish it when the wind is blowing from
a north-easterly direction. There are
numerous patches of reef that run
along Cockatoo Point and with a nor-
east wind you can skip your bait over
these large sections of reef.
I prefer to gas balloon over reef
systems as they tend to hold a lot
more fish and will produce consistent
results.
When you are skipping your bait over
sand bottom ledges you are relying
on catching passing fish, which can
be a lot more hit and miss.
Although the wind direction was
perfect for gas ballooning, the wind
strength was too light to get the skip
bait really cranking. To initiate a strike
on a day like this I told Tyneisha to
work her bait by continually winding
it in and free spooling it back into the
strike zone. Tyneisha got the hang
of this really quickly and cranked
her skip bait in and out making huge
splashes which looked exactly like a
distressed baitfish.
The water was a little green, which
shut down the bite, but this keen
angler wasn’t about to tap out easily
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