Sunday 1st September 2013

Today was very similar to yesterday, sleep in followed by reading emails, reading the news and then doing a bit of work on my blog. Outside was a magnificent day, blue sky and zero wind so I decided to go fishing. Justin, John and Jeremy had gone to Auster for the day.

After brunch, I packed the orange Hag with a jiffy drill and all my fishing gear and headed out onto the sea ice. This time I chose a spot over near west arm close to the rocks which I hoped to be about fifteen meters deep. I drilled two holes and lowered my camera down one and started fishing in the other.

It was bitterly cold at minus twenty six but the sun was warm on my frozen face. I got lots of nibbles from tiny fish but no decent bites and I realised I was fishing on the edge of a steep cliff face which dropped down to about ninety meters so I decided to move to the shallow channel between east arm and Hump Island. 

Here I drilled another two holes and lowered down my camera. I started to fish with bate again but only got the usual little nibbles by small fish and lost my bait a lot. Although I did get a few decent bites now and then. Finally I managed to catch a small Antarctic cod and then I caught a good size nototheniid. I decided to change tactics and removed my hook and rigged up a live bait lure and every time I lowered it down I caught either one, two or three nototheniid at the same time. I had a bit of fun for a while catching thirty one fish in total before packing up and heading home.

Antarctic cod

Nototheniid - Pagothenia borchgrevinki