Good reports were coming from the area between 42 mile crossing and tea tree crossing, so we were on the look out for a good gutter in this region. On the way in, the water was very rough and churned up, making spotting any gutter very difficult. We eventually settled on a spot though, and backed the car in to one of the dune cut outs - number 32!
Baits were soon soaking in the water, and Kym and myself set about making a shelter, just in case the predicted showers came through. Turns out it wasn't needed as the weather was brilliant all weekend. Will had a salmon on the board early and Kym and I soon followed. We took a few for eating, a few for bait and the rest were returned.
I got a solid bite on my rod and struck hard to latch on to something decent. It's fight was short lived though and I soon had a 60cm+ mulloway on the beach. A good size, but not quite enough to land into the keeper range. Will landed a couple more salmon, as I pulled in a couple more undersized mulloway - another around the 65cm mark, and then a couple of smaller types - which I am showing here - struggling to lift its enormous weight!
Will got a solid bite on his line, and the drag peeled off quickly. There was definitely something solid on the end and we were thinking a mully or perhaps a gummy shark. As it came in to view Will called it for a legal mulloway, so I raced back to the car to get the brag mat. It came up devastatingly close to legal. 74 cm. So, back in to the surf it went. There was obviously quite a few small mulloway about though, so hopes were high that one would nudge over the 75cm mark. The wide angle lens makes it look huge.
As the sun was going down, we decided to get the fire going and prepare for a bit of night fishing. As is becoming a bit of normal practice for the Coorong, I caught a nice little elephant shark - which went straight into the Esky after a terrible attempt at filleting. Certainly a great first days fishing. The Gashes leader board would have been pretty close at that point. Will had the most Salmon, and a very near legal Mully. I had a mixed bag of around 4 Salmon, 4 undersized Mulloway, and the Elephant Shark. Kym was lagging behind with a couple of Salmon.
The next day we were a bit slow to rise, but Will had a line in the water earliest and was rewarded with a couple more Salmon. Seaweed begun to be a problem with masses of it floating in the waves. I took that as a sign to go back to sleep for awhile - only to wake up an hour later and most of the weed had already moved on. It was still a bit of a problem but not so bad that we couldn't fish.
I only managed one Salmon for the entire day whilst Will pulled in at least half a dozen more. Kym got a couple more too, which meant we had a few to take home, and a few more for bait. Fisheries paid a visit to camp in the middle of the day, arriving on quad bikes which looked like great fun. They asked if we had caught anything and Will replied "I threw back a 74cm Mulloway... which I'm now very glad I did". Apparently some fisherman further up the beach had landed a legal Mulloway that day too.
Night fishing was always going to be a chore with bits of weed floating around, but no one expected the scale of knot that we ended up with. Both of Will's lines, and my line some how got in to a 3 way tangle which we had no choice but to cut off and lose hundreds of metres of line. We gave up on that idea and retired to the fire and got stuck into some beers instead. A good choice.
The final morning was very quiet on the fishing front. Will pulled in a Salmon and another undersized Mulloway (making I believe 7 in total for the weekend). We cooked up a breakfast and were soon on our way home. Will grabbing another Gashes win.
