A Knot in the Backing

So I set the boat up in pouring rain. Hooked up the car in pouring rain. Readers of this slot may remember the trailer wobble on the way home from the last harbour trip. I had been meaning to move the front post and slide the boat forward. I did that in the rain as well.

Towed it to the ramp. The boat and trailer behaved well. The only boats there were coming in. Rigged the electric motor and the rest of it, one rod set up, the 10 wt with a sinking tip and a piper. Put the boat in. And the rain stopped. By the time I had it tied off the pontoon mine was the only boat on the water, with Rangitoto sitting under the cloud behind it.

It's not sunny yet. But calm, no rain, and a nice sky. Sea state 8 on the swell map, which for the harbour is about as good as it gets. So I set off.

I started hitting the spots I look at for fish and quite quickly I was into a large one. I didn't have the drag set right. It took me into the structure and cut the line. Gone.

I moved on. Fished another spot, then a few more. Nothing. Then a car carrier came up the harbour with a tug and I had to get out of the way.

By then I had the HT 8 set up with a popper. I took it to a spot I know can work and got a follow. A couple more casts. Nothing. So I swapped back to the 10 wt and the piper, cast, and fish on.

I thought it was a smaller fish. It was behaving. I took the boat away from the structure. It was quieter for a while, and then it started on a bigger run, then a bigger one, and the runs kept getting bigger until once again I couldn't control it. There was a knot in my backing. The line jammed on it and that was that.

I never saw either fish.

Lessons, and they were all mine. The drag gets set before the first cast from now on. The knot in the backing went in at the end of last season, on the last big fish that ran, and I never took it out. The backing gets checked on the lawn before the season, not on the water in November. Two hooked, none landed. Nought from two.

My casting is good and it has me in solid contact for the take. After that these fish break me off somewhere deep. Setting the rods up for bigger fish is turning out to be harder than casting to them.. Boat management is a thing now as well. With the main motor I could have chased the second fish if I had thought of it in time. I thought I had it under control and then it took off and didn't stop. Paul gave me some thoughts and I have to agree it is difficult when the runs are fast.

Still. A smooth harbour on an evening when nobody else bothered to go out, and two fierce fish in a short window. I'm starting to think the small ones aren't in the harbour yet. Only the big ones, and not many of them.

The bench

Between work and the rain I have been getting gear ready for this year's harbour season. Tying pipers, and making up leaders. Pipers are the long thin baitfish with the beak. Mine are olive over white, a red part for the gills, an orange nose for the beak, eyes and a bit of flash. Six on the bench, one of them in chartreuse. The leaders are Qwek's twisted leader, the one Paul put up on YouTube a couple of years back. Twisted 40 lb mono, one knot in the whole thing, very little memory and it turns over a big fly nicely. Mine run about 11 feet with a 40 lb trace on the end, and I have made some up in 60 as well. Bagged and labelled in marker pen so I can change them in the boat without thinking.

One of the pipers got eaten on Saturday, so the fly is fine. The rest of the system got a look. The backing came off this week and went back on much heavier, on the three hundred yard reel, and this time without a knot in it.

Tight lines to you all.

Link for Paul's Qwek leader: https://youtu.be/QSuSGM4gd8A