Headed out with a strong easterly behind us and it wasn't too long before a couple of black arse and an 80cm dhu were onboard.

The wind began to settle and I decided to make the most of it and push out to the 70s and search for new ground near where I had recently caught a 16kg dhu.

Heading west at 30 knots thru the 50's where it's usually quite barren in the corner of my eye I spotted a tiny bit of fluff on the furuno. Instantly did a u-turn and sounded up the area.

Nice small lump in 57m of water, no bigger than a car, perfect scenario for perhaps the holy grail that no one has been over or at least managed to spot it at speed.

No fish showing but I don't look for fish, I strongly believe in if you find the ground you will find the fish regardless of whether you can see fish on the sounder or not (unless the spots been flogged of course).

The wind was dropping and variable swinging around making a drift with the sea anchor not ideal and hard to get right. 

I made the call to hold the boat on top of the spot, with my left hand controlling the throttle and my Murasame rod with a saltiga LD40 in my right hand I dropped my bait down. Literally within 30 secs my bait gets hit by a Mack truck and my rod loads up nicely, none of the usual suck and spit and playing with the bait like I find dhuies like to do, this fish nailed the bait and then took off.

I could feel the big paddle tail surges with every run so I was confident I had a big dhu hooked up, took a bit to convince the fish to get off the bottom but once I did I backed the drag right off and let it run as much as it wanted to. It fought all the way up to about 15m from the surface, the water was green so I couldn't see any colour until it was about 5m from the surface, it looked big.

Classic big air bubble purge as it came up, it was a dhu, a big dhu, but was it the magic 20 kegga that I've been trying to catch for many years (previous best dhu was 17.5kg). The fish hit the surface and the first thing that stood out wasn't the length, yeah it was long and over 1m but what stood out was the size of the head, shoulders and girth of the fish.

I looked at my deckie and we both said at the same time that's gotta be 20 surely? Amongst some swear words. Of all days you forget the gopro.

It was a new personal best dhu for me, I had spent so much time on the south coast thinking that's where I would have the best chance of a 20 plus dhu but it turns out it was my own backyard that I would achieve the goal of a 20 plus dhu.

108cm long and weighed 23.35kg. Fish was weighed at the ramp with a small crowd of other fishermen watching including fisheries officers that inspected me, they didn't bother to measure it.

Photos don't do this dhu justice, first stop on the way home was a trip to see my dad, talk about a proud father/son moment.
 

Image Upload: