We all headed off west early on a Saturday morning, heading through Port Augusta around 8am. Unusually, no one was overly hungry for breakfast, so we kept on the road, passing Will and Dana who were held up with one of many baby feeding sessions for their drive.
Upon arrival in Smoky, we had a meet and greet with Judy and Craig, and then unloaded the car at our beach front accommodation. The bay is a lot bigger than I expected. Soon enough, beers were cracked, and we settled in for the afternoon. We had all week, so fishing could wait.
The following day we found out that the big boat was yet to be launched, and we'd have to wait for a big midnight tide that evening to get it in. Luckily, Will had towed his tinny along too, as we were keen to get out on the water ASAP.
We'd all forgotten to pick up some bait along the way, so we headed to the General Store to grab a few bags of cockles. At $18 a kilo, we settled on just two bags. We'd need to make these count.
The water was quite choppy with a strong wind, so we headed out across the bay towards the island on the other side. It was somewhat more protected here, and made for comfortable fishing. We caught many trumpeters, some of which were kept for bait, but also a load of tommies, and the odd KGW hitting the deck here and there too.
In what could be a first time ever.. Will struggled to land many keepers, and by the end of the boating trip (caused by running out of cockles) we had 14 KGW in the esky, with Kym and I getting about half dozen each. Finally Will feels, if even just a little bit, what it is normally like fishing with him! Of course, that wouldn't last.
We trolled back into shore, and managed a good size snook along the way too.
Afterwards, Will took the girls for a spin on the sea biscuit out in front of the house, with many spectacular crashes in the rough water.
Apparently, Sunday is the main day for getting a meal at the local community club, so we strolled (you can stroll to every location in Smoky Bay) over there at 6pm and had some good country grub. I had the rump steak which was satisfyingly large!
Craig had to head back to the farm to round up some sheep for loading onto a truck the following morning. It is about a half hour drive, so Kym and I grabbed a roady and went with him to provide some 'help'. I'm not sure that we were in any sense useful, but the sheep got to their required location eventually.
The next task in this action packed day, was the launching of the big boat (the K-LEE) at midnight. This was quite a spectacle, with a few tractors, flashing orange lights, and many observers (us). She went in smoothly though, and that was it for the day.
Will and I were up early, and without much to do, we decided to see if we could pull some razor fish from the shallows to use as bait. A quick drive, and a decent walk out to the weed line, and we got onto a good patch. We had a bag limit in the esky, and back at the house within the hour. An awesome and free bait supply.
Whilst shelling them all, Will jumped backwards and let out some four letter word as an octopus squirmed it's way out of the shell. I would have done the same, but it was pretty funny. I thought this would be a good bait, but Sani decided to rescue it and put it back in the sea. Probably had a random mulloway come along and snaffle it soon after.
It was heating up, and the waters much calmer, so the sea biscuit came out once again, and plans were put in place to give the K-LEE a test run in the evening, to make sure all was well before any off shore trips were attempted.
Everyone piled onto the K-Lee just as the sun was setting, and we steamed out to a snapper patch out in the middle of the bay. The weather was awesome, but the big snapper didn't come to play. A few babies were caught, and I managed another snook, but that was it. We headed back in around 11pm.
Tuesday was a new moon, and I had pegged this day as a day to head a bit further west and do some beach fishing for mulloway. The weather had other ideas however, as I woke up to white caps everywhere across the bay, and the wind howling against the windows of the house. All fishing plans were cancelled.
Instead, we went for a drive out to Point Brown and surrounds, checking out the local scenery. Whilst at Acramans Creek, we couldn't resist chucking a few lures, but only came up with a few shitties instead. To make matters worse, the handle on Kym's daiwa reel came undone somewhere along the drive and fell off. We drove back slowly with eyes peeled on the edge of the dirt road, but it didn't materialise.
On Wednesday, it was still windy, but we were still determined to get out and have a fish. It was still too rough for any offshore activities, so we went out in the tinny, and tucked in close to the land as we tried for a few more whiting. We managed a couple in various patches, but couldn't get onto any consistently. Many more tommies went on ice.
Wednesday night was happy hour at the club, so another walk was had, despite the plentiful number of beers we had in the fridge at the house! It's good to mix it up though, right?
Thursday was the day. Forecast for calm conditions all day long! We all started sorting through our tuna lures and gear, putting reels on tuna rods, and just generally doing anything tuna related at all whilst we waited for everyone to ready themselves for the boating trip out to the offshore islands.
We were motoring out to sea, and then disaster struck. The engine made some horrible noises and blew a ton of smoke out, and we came to a halt, adrift at sea. Turns out it was a blown turbo, so we were able to move along at a very slow pace, albeit back towards shore, rather than out to sea. Craig's son Lee was also on board, and put us on top of the snapper patch on the way back. At least we'd still be able to try for some decent fish so it wasn't a total loss.
Plenty of shitties still caused problems, but Will got a solid bite on his rod before pulling in a nice little snapper, weighing in at 2.5kgs. Hopes were high we'd all get onto a few, but that was the only one.
My rod sitting in the holder on the back of the boat got a nice bite followed with a run, and I had a good battle on my hands. I worked it around to the side of the boat, and up towards the surface and spotted a good size gummy shark. It would have been my biggest gummy to date, only, it went on a run back into the depths, and my line went slack. I wound in to discover my hook gone entirely, but not bitten off. I usually tie my hook to a short bit of trace line, and then onto a barrel swivel which is attached to a dropper loop on the main trace. In this instance, I neglected the barrel swivel thinking it wouldn't be necessary from a boat (less twisting than surf fishing was my reasoning). Without the swivel, the knot must have been far weaker though.
I tied a new knot on, this time with swivel, and cast it back out. I didn't have to wait long, and it was on again! I made the comment to others that I hope this wasn't on the top hook, because that one remained swivelless. A few seconds later, my line went slack, and I found my entire top hook and line gone. Damn my laziness!!
After copping much shit from the other crew members (and deservedly so) I tied on a new top hook, in proper fashion, baited up again (fillets of snook were doing the damage) and cast out. Again, I was still holding my rod in hand when line starting peeling off quickly! This was too good to be true I thought, now confident in my newly tied hooks. Only... this fish lacked head shakes, and it was quickly becoming apparent I was onto a stingray. With my new Symetre 4500 and 20lb braid, I wasn't exactly sure how it would handle something like a sting ray, but it was doing a decent job of bringing it in towards the boat. That is, until it got close, and the sting ray spun around and shot straight to the surface, leaped a clear foot out of the water, and then shot off into the distance at 100 miles an hour. Extremely cool to witness! Except, now my mind was thinking "this power pro braid shit is not cheap" and I had quite a lot of it out to see. I wound up the drag hard, in hope it would break down at the trace, and even with the drag on full pressure, the stingray continued on his merry way. It did tire though, and after some time, I had it back at the boat, gaffed, and even got my hooks back before it was released and swam off happily once again.I'm not sure if it hung around, or perhaps some other big gummies or snapper were about, but Will and Kym both had solid hookups which snapped off after not much battle. Probably poorly tied hooks (I have to get one back).
Will was fishing with two rods, one resting up against the guard rail on the boat. It was only a whiting setup, but something big must have smashed into the bait, because the whole rod, reel, and everything went flying up and over the rail, and dove down into 7 metres of water. Not much chance of getting that one back. Still, Will put a positive spin on it "I can go fishing rod shopping now!".
He did catch a few nice flathead though, and Kym also caught a nice flathead, though a fair bit smaller. I forgot to photo Will's prior to it being filleted!
On the Friday, we decided to take a drive out to Davenport Creek. I had been there many years ago and was quite impressed with it, so wanted to show the others. Unlike last time, I managed to pick the correct tracks to get into the main part of the creek. It would be a great swimming spot, but it was too cold, even for Sani, who swims in basically any weather.
We chucked a line in for awhile, and Kym and Sally both caught a few small flathead. Sally hooked onto something significant, but it dived down under the ledge, and never came back out. Could have been a really solid flatty - spewing not to land it! Other than that, it was just a couple of tommies, and a lone mullet.
We decided back at the house that the following day, to be our last before heading home, would be an early start and out on the boat. Kym, Will, and I set alarms for pre-dawn.
Out on the boat ramp, before the sun had made any sign of coming up, we nearly got carried out to sea by the millions of mosquitos that had come out. On our last day, the wind had dropped off completely, and the mosquitos followed. We headed out across the bay just as it started getting light, and it was like glass out there! We went to the channel between mainland and island, and got not much. We went out around the oyster leases to some broken bottom, and got not much. We went across to some spot which may or may not have been where we'd previously got whiting, and got not much. So, eventually, we decided to just go sit on the edge of the deep channel and see what happens. A few tommies, and a few undersize whiting happened. And then, an entire family of stingrays happened!
Will caught two singrays, and myself and Kym one each in some arm breaking action. Was good to see all our gear holding up to these battles... unfortunately not getting testing on something we could put in the esky. Bait soon ran out again, and we headed back in, with just a few tommies in the esky. Not a great session by any means.
We got back and head out to Craig's farm, where he offered us a scenic flight in his very own light plane. It was made in the 60's and it was quite windy out there... but what the hell! Everyone went up (in two flights) and saw some pretty amazing sights from high in the sky.
Back in Smoky, we went on some community fund raising dinner, that involved walking around the town to various houses and eating what they'd set up for everyone. The main course was some massive meat pies which were pretty awesome. After eating mine, and some of Sani's I was so full that I could barely fit in another beer. I struggled on and got it down though.
Utterly exhausted from the early start, we hit he sack early, and the next morning headed home! Kym and I agreed that Will's snapper/flathead combo was the Gashes winning move, and he is now back on the winners list with the first of 2015.
