# Long Reef 9th June - Kingies & an unusual catch



## Marty75 (Oct 23, 2007)

Hi guys,

Launched at Long Reef just after 6am yesterday after meeting up with Gary & Dave in the car park. They headed out before me and just as I was launching PaulB and another kayaker in their Revo's were getting set up.

It had been roughly 8 months since my last soiree at Longy (see http://www.akff.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=57449) and a fortunate window of opportunity had presented itself the day before so I grabbed it as not I'm sure when the next one will come along. It was a beautiful dawn and conditions were great for a fish. Minimal swell and wind and the water was still quite warm. A quick radio check with Gary confirmed not much action on the snapper so I made my way towards the wall and along the way we met up to fish one of Gary's marks. Armed with my new light weight Soron spinning outfit I was casting out a Squidgy SP on it and had a juicy squid tentacle rigged up on a jig head on the larger Daiwa 3500/Viper outfit.

I was lucky to get a great hit on the Squidgy early on into the session and this proved to be my only keeper king among another half a dozen or so undersize rats later in the session. The Soron STX40 reel with 12lb braid and 20lb leader did a great job as well as the matching 4-6kg Soron spin rod in subduing the kingie and during the fight my other trailing rod hooked up to another fish which thankfully fought cleaner than the king. Silly me managed to lose my ruler overboard as I wanted to measure the subdued king as well as reach for the other rod in the rod holder  I recently bought a waterproof action cam and this was it's first outing suction-cupped to the Revo's hatch. As soon as I work out how to edit the clip I'll upload it to YouTube. I have attached a couple of screen grabs from the cam below.





































I decided the king was at least 70cm so dispatched him while I finally grabbed the other rod not knowing what was on the end of it. When I bought it up I wasn't sure what the fish was but recall seeing it in a few of the Qld fishing reports, later confirmed as a Spangled Emperor. Not sure how common these guys are this far south???

With high tide around 08:30 the fish went off the bite but there was plenty of fish activity showing on everyone's sounders, the fish just didn't want to play ball when we were directly over them, whether it was plastics, squid or small jigs. Overall I ended up with a couple of barely legal snapps which I let go and some unwelcome pike, one of which I was tempted to pin through the nose attached to my Gozilla outfit which remained unused for the day but the stench of the pike put me off. The others got stuck into some bonito and a mowie among the rats but not sure what else was caught out there.










It was a great day out and hopefully will get out there again sometime soon.

Marty


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## Guest (Jun 10, 2013)

Nice cafch! I believe they were a reasonably regular catch as far south as Broughton Is back in the 60's but are fairly rare now. Always a welcome addition to our bag up here.


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## johnny (Aug 12, 2007)

eye corumba..well done...i thought only i lost rulers n pliers etc n knives at longy...i got brainwashed by you n eric n got soronified..will check the rods


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## Wrassemagnet (Oct 17, 2007)

Nice one Marty, can't wait for the video and that's the first sweetlip I've ever seen from Sydney.


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## avayak (May 23, 2007)

Your camera took some great shots Marty. Glad you managed a feed.
From other reports it appears everyone was doing it hard, you picked up the fish of the day.


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

Great report Marty. I haven't caught a spangled emperor in Sydney (got a few on DHI). How was it on the plate?


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## Marty75 (Oct 23, 2007)

sbd said:


> How was it on the plate?


I recall when I filleted it that it had firm white flesh but I rushed preparing the fish for Monday's dinner and had served up some of the fish to my little rug rats (3.5 &1.5) and by the time I got the rest of the kingfish of myself and the missus on the table the boys had polished off the spangled :?  So all good there but missed my chance to try it...

But one small revelation was cooking up the kingfish 'wings' I think they're called. Usually discarded when I fillet my fish but this time decided to fry them up after snipping off the fins and they were great - nice & juicy! Will remember that next time for larger fish.


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