Thursday 7 December 2017

Making up for lost time

I haven’t done much fishing lately. And it is all because of this thing:



222 pages of my own personal hell. It took me 4 years, but two and a bit weeks ago I finally handed it in. My mates had planned a big celebration for me that night, but I was itching to have a flick first. Priorities right? With limited options, I decided to hit the docks. And it didn’t take long before I had a touch:



A little breambo. Life was good! I fished here unsuccessfully for another hour or so but my fishing cravings weren’t yet satisfied, so I decided to have a crack at the ‘nong. The first bridge I stopped at was dead – all I managed was a starfish:



The second wasn’t much better, yielding only this tiny salmon:



But at the third bridge I struck gold:



A ripper bream, you beauty!



With my fishing itch scratched (for now), it was time to meet my mates. I can’t remember much after that...

That metro flick was a nice little entree, but I needed a proper fish. The next week I was tied up with fieldwork, but when I finally got a spare night I decided to head to one of the Westernport beaches and have a crack at a gummy. I whacked on a salmon fillet:



And before I even had time to throw out a second bait, the rod was bouncing:



A little gumbo – right species, wrong size:



The bites were coming thick and fast, but it was definitely quantity over quality:






I filleted one of the couta and not long after I chucked it out it sizzled off, but I was quickly bitten off. And about 20 minutes later the same thing happened. Then again an hour later. Furstrating! It seemed some big sharks had moved in (or one greedy shark), and they had scared off all the other fish. The sharks won this round, and we left with our tail between our legs. But we would be back…

A few days later I had another night free in between fieldwork so we decided to head back for revenge. I upgraded my tackle from 60lb leader and 6.0 hooks, to 120lb and 9.0’s. I considered wire, but I never get a bloody bite when I use it. We headed down a little earlier this time around and flicked some lures around to see if we could snag some fresh bait. The toads were ravenous:



And the crabs kept getting in the way:



There were worm tracks everywhere – part of the reason I like fishing this beach:



But eventually we managed a couple of just legal salmon (perfect!):



So with the sun dropping, we got the heavy gear ready and chucked out one of our freshly caught salmon. We didn’t have to wait long before it was sizzling off, and after a spectacular fight I dragged this guy up onto the shore:



Not a shark, but a bit of fun. Over the next few hours we caught a slew of undesirables:






With the one exception being this nice flatty:



The big toothies were conspicuously absent, so we passed some time messing around with the camera – this was my attempt at a long-exposure fish (fail):



And before we knew it we were down to the last fresh salmon. My mate graciously let me take it:



And boy did he regret it. Something absolutely smashed it, and after a really solid fight that had us both calling it as a nice gummy, up popped this guy:



He went 78cm and was fat – I’ll take that over a shark any day!



My beach cravings were satisfied, but I was still hanging to have a flick in an estuary. And a few days later, the perfect opportunity popped up. I was asked to do some fieldwork near Mt Gambier so I gave my mate from Adelaide a ring and asked if he wanted to meet in Nelson and camp for a couple of days. A few days later we pulled into a quiet little campsite on the river:



By the time we’d set up camp it was getting dark, so we just chilled out and enjoyed a beaut sunset with our mates:




We got up at a leisurely hour the next morning and after brekky:



We had a flick in the river. My mate scored first:



Only a little fella, bit his first EP. I dropped a nice fish on surface when my rod got stuck in a tree (idiot), but after that it went quiet. We decided to head to the mouth of the estuary and have a flick on the flats:



We fished a little channel between two sand flats and first cast my double clutch had barely hit the water when it was snaffled:



A nice little breambo:



It was super shallow here and I was getting caught on weed every cast, so I swapped to a colt minnow and landed this little fella:



The colt minnow kept getting weeded too (we were fishing in only 1-2 feet of water) so I changed to a bent minnow. It turned out to be an inspired choice. First cast I landed a nice EP:



Which I followed up with a nice bream:



I then dropped two fish in two casts, but managed to keep the hooks in a couple more:





Unfortunately I lost what would have easily been the two best fish of the sesh – they both exploded on my surface lure and sizzled off - only to pull the hooks. My money is on big Ep’s. Luna was very disappointed:



The hot bite didn’t last long, so when it all went quiet we decided to head in for lunch. After a feed we decided to mix it up a bit and throw some slugs off the beach. The sky was looking ominous, and as the storm rolled in:



So did the fish:



The fishing was hot. Most of the fish were very small:




With a few bigger ones mixed in:




But we weren’t complaining. Either was Lando:



When it started pissing down rain we reluctantly left the fish biting. The radio was going nuts with extreme weather and flood warnings, so even though we had planned to stay another night, we packed up camp and got the hell out of there. I think we made a good choice:



And that brings me up to date. The wild weather over the weekend ruined any other potential trips, but this weekend is looking fine. You beauty!

I’ll leave you with a couple of snaps of a mumma and baby tawny frogmouth I found at my folk’s place – cheers!


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