Hillocks Drive - March 2008

I like it when something unbeatable is caught on day 1 of a trip. The pressure to catch the big fish is taken off, and its more about relaxing. Not many better spots for relaxing than camping at Hillocks!

So, on this trip we had Sani, Matt T, Will, Dana, and a few gashes new comers in Cheese, Dan W, and Monica. And me!

It was an easter long weekend trip to Hillocks, which is always busy, but Will, Dana, and Cheese told us they were heading up on Thursday night in order to get a good camping spot, which are usually at a premium on long weekends. We got there to find them in not exactly the best campsite - they'd only arrived earlier in the morning themselves due to running late the night before.

We went over to the top of the cliff at Salmon Beach and spotted the early arrivers down in our usual fishing spot. We headed down and Will told us of a few big hook ups that had left him with no hooks. Something decent was lurking out there, but not too many salmon were about.

Actually... I should go back a bit here. Matt, Sani, and I were in the Surf and had left early - but we were driving slowly whilst Dan and Mon caught up to us as they didn't know where to go. We pulled over at Minlaton, and got out and Dan announced that he forgot his fishing rods. HAHHAHA! Nothing like going fishing and forgetting your fishing rods. Luckily, we were at a servo which stocked a nice selection of fishing gear, and $70 later, Dan was equiped with a surf rod and reel spooled with 20lb line. Nice.

So, back on the beach, and we cast out some pillies and sit down to play the waiting game. Not much is happening, until.. this series of events....

Firstly, Dan takes a shit right on the beach...



Then, he hooks onto a fish



I'm quickly on the scene.. wheres the gaff when you need it!? (burnt to ashes, stored in a trophy of course)



Ok, all the action wasn't quite captured on camera here, but credit to Sani for getting most of it (just missed the most important bit! this..) The fish was pulled into the shallows, where we could see if was a shark. I ran down to the shallows to grab the trace and pull it up the beach, but as soon as I pulled on the swivel, the knot gave way and the shark was free. This was a decent shark - there was no way I was letting it go that easily. I scooped my arms under the shark and just kinda lifted it and launched it towards the beach. Dan soon realised what was going on and ran down to assist, and before long we were both getting wet and wrestling with a shark.. sounds stupid, but it was all fine!

Shortly after, that magnificent bronzie was dragged up the beach.



Then Dan announced himself as the gashes winner... (still Day 1 mind you, but fair enough). $70 well spent.



After struggling to carry the shark back down towards our gear - it had taken Dan on a 100 metre walk down the beach to land it) we had him out of his suffering shortly, and then onto the scales.



Seems we missed the scales in the photo, but from memory it came in at around 12kgs. And it tasted fantastic.

So, dinner caught for all that would last the weekend. Gashes all but wrapped up with new winner Dan due for an engraving. What to do next... Why, a random wrestle on the beach for no apparant reason of course.



And then, here we have a Photo of Sani and Mon, for no other reason than Sani likes this photo...



The next day we headed to the beach again and talk begun of what it would take to win the Gashes from here. Discussions were had of how big a snapper would need to be for it to beat the shark, and I think we settled upon 5-6kgs. Dan genuinely became worried that this might happen. Hahaha. The likelihood was not very likely at all. But its good to have these talks just incase! Just for reference, a legal mully would instantly win. Unless another bigger mully was caught. Wouldn't you feel robbed then. Getting side tracked...

We caught a few small salmon on day 2, and used some salmon flesh to put on to the small hooks and went for mullet. The mullet were ON. Every cast just about pulled in a good sized mullet, if not a double header. Every time I got a bit bored, I'd just chuck out the small rod and catch and release mullet for awhile. At the end of the day I decided to keep a lot for bait next time we headed down to the coorong. I think we ended up with 24 fish to take home. I gave the 6 biggest ones to dad (who said they were great cooked up fresh) and froze up another 18 (which turned out to be a shitty bait - mullet doesnt freeze well at all)

Back at camp, cooking lunch, someone came up with the idea to play cricket with the rod holder tubes. Best idea ever. Three tubes for stumps, one tube for a bat, and a cricket pitch made of rocks, dirt and holes so the ball bounced every which way... good fun - soon to become a hillocks tradition.

Then we turned the tubes into giant smokes.. laughter ensued



We went down to the rocks which don't see a lot of love from us these days - but I still like it because its a good place to sit down and have a few beers whilst waiting for a fish to bite. Stopped just short of the rocks to have a quick fish and ended up doing some acrobatics off the sand dunes instead.


Sani and Mon getting some air time

Here is most of us sitting back on the rocks



Left to Right: Dan, Mon, Matt, Medo (look closer), Will, Me, Cheese.

I think Sani asked us all to wave for that photo.. some of us listened anyway :)

We decided to leave early on Sunday morning, to avoid all the easter traffic. Dan took out the Gashes honours, in a first trip win. Nice effort.

As always, click pictures for bigger versions, and links to more.

Coorong - November 2008

Five guys, 150+ beers, separate sleeping quarters for all, and one hilux surf. This was always going to be a tight squeeze.

We (that’s Matt, Kym, Dan M, and I) arrived at Harrys house around 9am, with the car already crammed full, and we still need to fit Harry in as well as his gear, BBQ and gas bottle included. Fit it in we did, with Harry making a last second dash inside to grab 12 cold beers. At 9:30am. "Who wants one?". Arrrgh.

The car struggled up the hill but slowly made it and we were on our way. A few hours later, and we're at the beginning of 42 mile crossing and airing down the tyres. We went on the beach for a few kms, up to about camp site 13 or there abouts, maybe a bit further. It didn't have a number on the post. The beach track was fairly easy going up until that point and no drama's were had. The track veered up behind the dunes at this point, but with a good gutter in front of us, we decided here was the spot to set up camp.

I finally got access to the fridge and cracked a beer open, sat in my chair, and laughed at Kym and Dan struggle with setting up their tents.

After cooking up some BBQ for lunch, the fishing begun!

I managed to pull a Mulloway, probably around 50 cm's before everyone had even managed to get their rods out to the beach. Not legal size, but good signs for the rest of the weekend. He dropped off the hook by himself, so I let it swim away on the next wave that came in and missed the photo here. Kym soon after hooked one for himself, damn small, but his first mulloway of any size. Now he joins the hunt for a keeper.

We didn’t have any room to bring firewood with us, but some nice campers had left two great big gum tree logs at our campsite. With darkness approaching, we quickly rounded up some small bits of driftwood to get a fire going and harry found more wood left over at a nearby unused campsite. As darkness set, we had a nice little fire raging right on the beach. A big wall of sand in front of it to keep the wind off it, and more importantly, not scare off the mulloway.

Then, Harry made a move he probably now regrets - bringing out the Stones. Before long he was performing some kind of fire dance ritual and making a huge stamp on the "drunkest of trip" award (which I just made up right then, and Harry did win).

Although our lines were out in the water well into the night, I don't think there was much attention being paid to them. They were probably just rolling around getting tangled up. We didn't catch anything at night anyway.

I woke up early followed shortly after by Matt. Harry was up but looking very green, and after a quick dash to the bushes for a technicolour yawn, he was back in the tent and off to sleep. Dan joined me and Matt on the beach shortly after, his hooks still holding an old squid bait from the previous night. He casted it straight in. We laughed and joked about how the only thing he's going to catch with that bait was a stingray. At this point, an important conversation took place. Matt asked me if a stingray would be leading the gashes (ahead of my own 3 undersize mulloways). I thought that if it was big enough then it would be. Matt said for sure it would. Five minutes later, and Dan's rod bends over and line starts peeling off. No shakes of the rod though.. A stingray for sure. I ran back to the car to grab the gaff, and by time I got back, a large ray was in the shallows. Matt landed the gaff into its wing and dragged him up the beach. New gashes leader.

We were working out how to drag it back in to the water when Dan suggests we cook it up. I'm guessing these things usually get thrown back because they aren't much good for eating, but I have heard of them being eaten before. I go to Kyms tent to ask if he knows anything about cooking sting ray… some kind of mumbled no was returned. He sounded worse than Harry (who was also still sleeping).

Dan set about carving up this sting ray into portions suitable for frying up on the BBQ. Hours later, one knife lost to sea, and another broken, he had some big chunks of meat ready for BBQ'ing. I wouldn't say they looked the most appetising.

Lunch time rolls around and the BBQ is fired up for some delicous sting ray cooking. Everyone (besides Harry - sleeping) has a sample and the decision to cook burgers is made. Stingray discarded to the dunes for some feral cats to no doubt enjoy.

Later in the afternoon, we noticed a guy 100 metres up the beach seemingly hooked on to something massive. He was fighting it for a good 10-15 minutes, man with a gaff by his side. He must've got tired arms, because they swapped roles at one point. Then 50 metres further, another guy was onto something massive.

We had the binoculars out having a squizz at what was going down, then the first guy just stopped, and walked back to his car - his line must have snapped. The other guy was still going hard though, and had his gaff man nearby, as well as a camera filming proceedings. I could see through the binoculars a large fish get into the shallows and splash around - the gaff man made his move but appeared to miss the fish.. Then seconds later, the rod has returned to its straight position and another fish has been lost! The fisherman must have been spewing at the gaff guy! Well that was entertaining for 30 minutes.

Harry did finally rise from the land of the dead and stumbled out to the beach around 4pm, looking suprisingly fresh, but I guess 16 hours sleep will do that. Credit to him, he cracked a new beer instantly. I doubt he would have been so fast on the stones though.

Another beach fire was on the cards, but with only minimal amounts of dead wood on the beach, it was never going to last long. That drift wood burns suprisingly long for how small it is though. Another night fishing session failure, and we headed back to camp to cook some late night snags.. And then at 10:41pm, Saturday November 15th, tragedy struck.. The fridge had one beer left in it. We decided Harry deserved it, and after that.. We had nothing to do, so hit our respective beds.

I rose around 6:45am and after relieving myself in the dunes, started fishing for the final morning, hoping to land something worthy of getting the gashes lead back. At 7:20am, I got some bites and hooked onto a fish.. Pulled in a mulloway approx 47cm, bringing my weekend tally to 4 mulloway.. Not deemed enough to beat the 12.5kg sting ray. I photo'd it just in case no one believed me :)

Everyone else eventually got up, but no more fish were caught. We packed everything in to the car, seemingly taking up even more room than on the way. Check out rear of the car hanging so low, and this is before 3 guys got into the back.

So, the final tally was:

Dan: 12.5kg Sting Ray

Ryan: 4 undersize mullies

Kym: 3 undersize mullies

People who go by the name Matt: Didily Squat.

The Gashes has a new name on it. The hunt for the silver ghost continues.

Coorong - June 2007

Another June long weekend trip down to the Coorong. Its tradition now.

On this trip, Dan Murphy, Matt, Ondie and myself were along for the ride, with Will off attending some girlfriend duties.

The first day was great weather - couldn't ask for any better in the middle of winter. We set up the tents and hit the beach. Matt's first cast resulted in his 500 year old rod snapping right in half.. devastation for Matt, humour for the rest of us :)



I got on the board early with possibly a gashes winning fish. An Elephant Shark. Never seen one before and as no one was sure how to prepare them to eat, he went back in the water. Found out later that they are really good eating, doh!



Not the best photo unfortunately, but a photo none the less!

Matt was now set up with the huge alvey on Andre's ugly stick.. it didnt look like the best match up, but it did the trick.



Within a minute, Dan was on to his first fish and brought in a fat salmon. His first, ever.



This was turning in to a very fine day of fishing indeed. I landed this Salmon, almost too big to fit in the frame of the camera! ;)



Everyone was onto Salmon, and they were all fairly nicely sized. Heres one of Andre's catch so he doesn't feel left out:



Its pretty big, I guess. Its no elephant shark though.

The esky was well loaded by sunset, with many fish returned to the sea as well. We had dinner and a few to take home here



We retired to the campsite to start up the fire and cook a few fish. Many beers and AC/DC songs later, we hit the sack only to wake up feeling a bit sore the next morning. I'm not sure why...



I suspect the water in the back ground was tainted.

I walked out to the beach to see sea weed galore washing around in the surf. One cast in confirmed my thoughts as I reeled in a huge ball of weed instantly - so I returned to camp.

We spent pretty much the entire day sitting around camp waiting for the weed to go away, but it persisted all day long. So, a few more cans were drunk in the process. A storm rolled in which forced us to stick up the big tarp for some shelter too.

Matt decided that night was the night for huge night fishing efforts, weed and all. I joined him for one more cast and promptly snapped off my rig and returned to camp. As we sat around camp, every so often we'd hear Matt carrying on about something.. just to be sure he wasn't drowning or anything, we'd go out for a look. He had caught a small mulloway and was feeling rather justified about his decision to brave the freezing cold and rain to stand out there. I'd rather sit around the fire personally!



Loving it!

Dan had other ideas on how to enjoy the campfire



The next morning we had a fish until mid morning, but didn't catch anything. I was declared the gashes winner due to my amazing elephant shark and arguably the biggest salmon of the trip - from memory anyway. Well my name is there so we'll just assume thats true.

Hillocks Drive - October 2008

Our first 4 dayer down to Hillocks Drive - I can't believe we haven't done this before! With a public holiday on Monday, A few of us scored the Friday off work and headed over to old favourite, Hillocks.

The weather was pretty ordinary on the way, with big patches of rain constantly falling on the drive over. Even as we pulled in to the farm driveway, rain still continued to fall. But as luck would have it, it soon cleared up just in time for us to get out the car and begin setting up the tents!

Spotted Matt standing on top of his troopy working on something, which made finding our camp site quite easy.. pulled in and set to work on putting up the new tent... an extended touring tent I purchased from Rays Online. I love this thing, so easy to put up and pull down and a bag big enough to actually put it back in when you're done. The only time consuming part is pegging in the guy ropes if you're that way inclined (I put most of them in - a good effort for me).

With more rain clouds on the horizon, we put the BIG TARP to make a very nice shelter. We've never had enough poles to do something like this, and everyone was very happy with the result.



After a quick bite to eat, we decided we best make a move for the beach. I was first to get a bait in the water, and as I walked back to grab my beer, the fish was already on! I pulled in a smallish salmon which I kept for dinner (just incase it was a loner). A loner it was not, as Matt had soon hooked a nice double header, which Sarah wound in, and I was onto a good salmon myself.



I lost count of the amount of salmon caught here, but they were thick and fast. Matt managed a couple more double headers and Sani pulled in a double header on my surf rod whilst I was getting a lure ready on the light tackle.



My first cast with a 40 gram gold plated Halco twisty resulted in a hook up, and a great little battle on the light line. I actually brought the wrong reel down to the beach, so had to fish even lighter than I intended, but I'm glad I did, as it was great fun. $20 7 foot rod from Anaconda and $15 reel from Amart - what a setup :)



After some fun catching Salmon on the light tackle, I went back to my bait rod to land a few bigger fish. Only the smaller specimens were going for my small lure. Meanwhile, Kymbo switched over to a lure him self and got on the board with a couple of medium fish. His first catch off a lure too, so he was happy.




Some one noticed a spectator up on the cliff, and it was Will and Dana.. sure enough they'd seen some fish caught and Will was motoring his way down that cliff side. He went straight for the lure and instantly started hooking into the fish. Will and Matt must have been in a good patch of water as they were right next to each other and nailing a lot of fish there. We kept enough fish for dinner and threw all the rest back to grow bigger.



The action slowed down on the other side of high tide, with just the odd fish here and there coming through - certainly wouldnt be complained about any other day. As the sun started setting, we decided to make our way back to camp and set up the fire. Harry and his mate Dan were due to arrive some time after dark.

A feast of fish, spuds, and enormous steaks was cooked over the fire. Will had brought his fish smoker along, and a few fresh fillets went in there as well. Harry and Dan rocked up and set up their assortment of camping accesories about the place. Dan possibly has every luxury camping item available - and the car to carry it all in too! The fluro light was rather impressive though.. and whats with this torch!?



Saturday saw everyone have a morning and afternoon session at the beach, but other than another 3 salmon to Matt only (they were loving his line for some reason - must've mistaken it for Will's) no one else got anything. Actually, I lie. Harry and Dan went over to the rocks at the eastern end of Salmon Beach and caught some rock cod!

Matt thought the gashes were pretty close as this point, having a small lead over me - but I reckon he was well in front after his extra 3 on Saturday.

Sunday morning, I was woken up by the sound of Will's car going fishing before sunrise. I felt quite awake.. but couldn't bring myself to actually get up. He came home after we'd finished breakfast and had managed to catch half a dozen salmon - which I think would have had him getting pretty close to Matt on the Gashes leader board.

Matt and Sarah decided to give the beach a go, whilst the rest of us went searching for a nice rocky ledge to fish off in hope of a few different species. We settled upon Gartrells rocks on the eastern end of the Hillocks property. The steep cliff descent here makes you feel good about the chances of catching fish. Hard to get to = more fish caught. Thats my theory anyway.



A few rock cod and sweep were landed, but nothing sizeable was on offer. Still, a great spot to relax as the rocks are reasonably high off the water so you don't have to worry about waves hitting you. We figured it was getting close to 1 oclock and wanted to get back to camp to have a feed before trying the afternoon tide on the beach once more. Will & Dana were packed up and heading home now - ruling Will out of any chance of taking out the Gashes.

We caught up with Matt down on the beach in time for high tide, but it was another quiet affair, with just the odd fish here and there caught. I think Matt, Harry and Kym all managed to land a fish. I didn't have much luck at all after Friday's massive session, so Matt took out another Gashes win, probably in a pretty close result over Will. I think the double headers got him over the line :)

Hillocks Drive - May 2007

I took a week off work in May 2007, and as it was my birthday, thought what better way to spend a birthday than fishing and camping. A trip was soon organised an a fairly big group of us headed down to Hillocks Drive.

Greeted by relatively calm water, we headed down to one of our usual spots off the rocks at the end of Salmon beach. The fishing off the rocks was one of the better sessions we’ve ever had down there, with double headers of tommies, mullet and sweep all being landed. Most of the sweep were a bit small and thrown back, but the tommies were kept for a later cook up.

I think Sani might have had a small claim to Gashes leader at one point here, but her hopes were dashed as the decision was made to head down to the beach to try and get into the some larger Salmon.

Before too long, a few salmon were being landed on the beach, with yours truly shooting to the top of the leaderboard. Nothing huge, but still decent sized fish that would go well on the BBQ.



Andre cannot wait to cook.



A nice mixed bag of fish caught from the rocks and beach on day 1.
We made the trek back to camp and got the fire going, and the usual camp fire drunken banter of how to solve the worlds problems etc begun.

I was feeling good about having the most fish going in to day 2, but Will wasn’t to be out done.

He landed around 8 salmon on day 2, to put him self out into the lead. Everyone else struggling to get a bite.

A big feast was cooked on the fire that night…



Will had to leave early on the last morning, which gave the rest of us a chance to catch some fish and take out the prize. Unfortunately, the fish weren’t coming to the party and appeared to have gone home them selves.

A good trip in terms of fish caught. I think we caught more fish than going to far west coast a few months earlier – and travelled about 1800kms less too!

New Tent

I've finally upgraded from the old 3 man dome tent, with this Safari II Extra touring tent from Ray's Outdoors.

For $200, this was an absolute bargain. I love the single pole design - so easy to put up and pack away again. Cant wait to give it some use at Hillocks in October. Standing up in a tent is quite the luxury :) This version has an extended back section for more bedding room too (I didn't think the square versions had enough room on either side of the centre pole for a double mattress)

Coorong - January 2007

After Novembers trip, Andre had the bug - straight down to Sportfishing Scene to spend $300 on a new surf combo. Penn 950ssm matched with a Wilson 8144. Nice work!

The beach north of 42 mile crossing was all well and good, apart from perhaps 300 metres of extremely soft sand, and the Troopy loved it!



After numerous boggings, diggings, and pushes, we made it passed the problem spot and continued on our way.

We settled on a spot with some nice looking water out in front of the campsite, and set up the tents, of which I photo'd from above once again! I cant remember where exactly we camped, but it looks from this photo as though we headed up further north of tea tree crossing.



Take particular note of the worst efforts to put up a shelter ever. Buying the cheapest tarp possible is not always the best idea. As long as it didn't rain, it provided some nice shade...

And then we saw this rolling towards us:



The cheap tarp shelter failed instantly and we all scampered to get into the front canopy section of Will's tent. Not exactly the most water proof area, but certainly better than under the now flapping around wildly in the wind tarp.

I should mention the fishing now. The fishing was crap. The beach had seaweed galore all over the place meaning every cast resulting in bringing in a big heap of weed. Amongst it all, we all managed to pull in a few mini-mullies, and I guess Will must have got the most of them, cos his name is on the trophy!

The only photo I have of fish is of Andre's first ever catch, boy was he happy!



Back at camp, Andre exhausted from pulling in such an ENORMOUS fish, fell asleep in his chair. So, we covered him in rubbish, of course.



On the way back up the beach to leave on Sunday, we stopped at an enormous gutter.. should have fished here all weekend! No weed at all, and managed to pull in a few soapies in the short amount of time we were there. Ah well...