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 :)