Thread: Flounder in the Firth

Last night the fish were on the move. For reasons way beyond our ken and known only to themselves.

This morning the water was like glass at high tide. The flounder fleet were out there before daylight as they have been for days now working over their nets.

At nine oclock just before high tide, I could count 6 kahawai work ups out there on the Firth. One of them was moving rapidly into the bay where I had left the flounder net set overnight. Kahawai workups are bad news as far as I am concerned when you are out floundering. So it was a race to get out there and get the net out of the water before they arrived.

When these fish start gilling themselves in big numbers in your net you havnt a lot of choice. You either haul the net over the side of the boat in great haste and have 20 kahawai making the biggest tangle you ever saw of your net...Or you pick up the net, binning it carefully and picking the fish out as you go. The trouble with the second method is, the net as you work your way along it picking out the fish, it is still catching furiously ahead of you and you are likely to end up with 50 or more fish to untangle and return to the sea by the time you get to the end of it.

The bottom dwellers (flounder) were obviously on the move last night as well as there were 25 of them in the net this morning.