We aired down and hit the beach around 11am, and soon found a massive wash out which meant driving down near the water's edge. I held my breath and put the foot down and we got through unscathed. After that it was pretty easy driving, but no gutter formations got out interest enough to set up camp, so we plowed on past Tea Tree Crossing.
At around the 5km mark, we finally hit upon a nice patch of water, with a cut out in the dunes to get camp set up and we pulled in and quickly cracked open the first beer of the trip, at 5 minutes before noon. We gave a call to Will, who was heading up later that day and let him know where we were, and warned him of the beach conditions at 42 Mile.
After just a couple of casts, we found a bit of seaweed causing problems, and sat back to have a few more beers and cook up some lunch. The fishing didn't get any easier through the afternoon with a large swell breaking right on the shore, and masses of sea weed getting tangled up in our lines.
Will turned up soon after and since we hadn't unpacked much gear, we decided to move further up the beach in hope that the weed wouldn't be else where. We travelled a further 15 kms or so before settling on a new gutter.
Things looked good when on our first cast, both Kym D and myself were soon winding in a nice little Elephant Shark.
Not very long after, Will too had an Elephant Shark on the sand. It was getting late, and the sun was low in the sky, so hopes were up for a good session, but the weed was rolling back in again, making life difficult.
Despite being one of the warmest evenings I've experienced at Salt Creek, we got a fire cranking and settled in for a few night beers, and the keenest of us even cracked open the glow sticks. This keenness didn't last too long though as the weed continued to be a nuisance. Not before Kym A had landed his first ever Elephant Shark though!
The next day was weed, weed and more weed. I managed to get another Elephant, and a small, undersized mulloway, but they were the only fish landed for the whole day. The weather was still great though, so much sitting about sinking cans of beer was done (so, really, not a lot different to normal).
It was another fine night, but the seaweed made any attempt of a night fish not doable. We woke up early to some light rain, and still no improvement in the sea weed department - so I was handed rare Gashes victory.
