Our camp was set up right next to the long drop toilet, just in case Kym came down with any food poisoning. It's happened before at Hillocks.
It was quite windy on the first day, but at camp it was perfect conditions, so beers were cracked, and the seats certainly weren't getting any less comfortable. That was until some guys walked past us, and they'd been fishing down at Salmon beach. They made mention of a big school of sambos cruising up and down the beach, and it was enough to get us assembling the surf rods.
We made it down to the beach and found the school right down the far end. Quite a walk, damnit. Even worse was the fact they were too far out to cast to in the strong head winds. However, they soon moved within casting distance of Pete's Rocks (where he once copped a large wave sending him crashing into the drink).
Kym and I dodged big swells, and had a ball hooking up big salmon on almost every cast. It was difficult getting them to stay on the hooks though as they often spat the hooks when trying to get them up the rocks. We were dodging waves, catching fish, and trying to wave to the girls still sitting 50 metres down the beach chitchatting to get over here and join in.
Eventually I lost my lure and had to walk back to the girls who had our tackle bags nearby, but by time we all got back to join Kym again on the rocks, the salmon had moved on.
The following day we fished off Treasure Cove rocks for little result, but did have a bit of excitement when something massive took a big chunk of salmon on my surf rod and headed for the horizon. I wasn't close to the rod and had to do a mad scramble to get there - by that time I had a bout 200 metres of line out of sea, and as soon as I put pressure on the rod, the line snapped. I spent 5 minutes winding it in, and then we called it a day on that session.
The next day was slightly more successful, again at Treasure Cove. There was another big school of Salmon hanging around, but generally weren't interested in our lures. We still managed to hook the odd one on light tackle though, which was great fun. A lonely squid joined them in the bait bucket.
It was deemed hot enough for a swim after that, so we headed off to a fairly crowded rock pool. Luckily enough, the other people were just about to head off when we arrived.
Kym and I decided on a sunset fish at Salmon Beach. We had fresh squid and salmon for bait, so rigged up some heavy duty traces.
Just on sunset, I had a huge bite on my rod, but before I could even pick it up, the line when slack. I wound it in to find that the hook on my cheap surf popper had bent out backwards, accompanied by some toothy marks on the popper itself. Snapper maybe?
Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera down, as we had an awesome sunset. The entire sky was lit up bright red. It was Kym's turn to have some fun though, and over the course of the next few hours, he had three scorching runs, but each one resulted in no fish. One was a big run that just pulled hooks, then another even bigger run that took him beyond the reef and snapped him off. Then a final run which had a decent fight before finally busting off. The trace was very torn up, evident of a shark having taken his line. We finished up with absolutely nothing, but it was still one of the most enjoyable night fishing sessions I've had.
The next morning we headed back to Adelaide - no Gashes winner here due to the lack of numbers.
