NSW Footballers

Its always exiting to have a solid plan of attack when heading out for a fish. Well the plan was solid, however as that little bugger Murphy keeps showing his horrible little head we all know that things don’t always go to plan. Arrived at the reef early and began to troll for Spaniards. Hopes were high a s a pro mackerel boat was there already so signs seemed ominous. After about 1 and a half to 2 hours of trolling changing rigs and mumbling a few choice words it was decided that we seemed to flogging the proverbial dead horse. The great thing about this time of year is that there is always a back up plan. Anchor up for a bit of bottom bashing and try for a nice feed of Coral Trout. As it turns out old mate Murphy must of found someone else to pick on for a while as we managed to land a few nice trout including the 3 pictured above. Given the result in the last State of Origin series they must of been NSW Footballer Trout on holiday to let me catch them. QLD Footballers would be far too fast and clever for that. Anyway one measured 55cm and the other 57cm. The big fella went 75cm and 7kg. All of these trout are actually blue spot trout and grow at a much quicker rate than the normal Coral Trout although their life span is about the same. For this reason they reproduce at a larger size and this is the reason that the minimum limit is 50cm and maximum is 80cm. They are fairly easy to tell apart from the common Coral Trout as the pectoral fins are dark where as the normal Coral Trout (38cm limit) are transparent.