Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
Convention Beach
Since there is a distinct lack of fishing lately, I'll upload random photos instead.
Convention Beach, April 2011
Convention Beach, April 2011
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Hillocks Drive - April 2013
In what I think is a Gashes first, we set off on our second trip in the same month. Just two weeks after a sea weeded out Coorong trip, and we were off to old favourite Hillocks, to see what the many rock ledges and beaches could throw up.
Will was an unfortunate late withdrawal, but we still had a decent group of people heading over. New Kym, Sally, Harry, Sani and I were all set to arrive on Anzac day, and Matt and Sarah followed on Friday night. With the best camp spot at Hillocks now blocked off, I thought we'd head the other way and camp above Treasure Cove. The benefit of this spot being we could head out for a rock fish in the mornings without having to get in the car and drive.
We arrived at out spot, with perfect weather shining above. We overlooked the cove, and saw our fishing spot getting drowned by waves. We called that a low tide fishing spot instead, and sat back for the first of many beers.
Overlooking the water, beer in hand, and sun shining above made it very, very hard to motivate to get up and go anywhere, but Kym and I eventually settled on going for a quick walk along the cliffs to suss out a potential spot to throw a line in. With a few likely locations in mind, we went to gather some gear, and the ladies, and soon made our way down to a nice rock ledge. We passed some other fisherman on the way who'd caught a few salmon trout, so things looked good.
It didn't take long at all for Kym to hook into a decent size tommy, and before long he had a handful of them in the bucket. I switched over to a float and hooked a couple more, but blunt hooks were causing many drop offs. Soon enough, we saw Harry strolling along the rocks, correctly guessing which way to walk in order to find us.
The tommies went off the bite a bit, so we decided to move back towards camp and fish another ledge. With not much light left before sunset, we cast out a few baits and sat back and waited.
Kym had a pilchard under a float and a decent sized salmon snaffled it. It put up a great fight on some light gear and was awesome to watch cruising back and forth along the rock wall. Kym managed to get it up on the rocks though and it was in the esky soon after, as we headed back to camp to get the fire going.
After a fairly large night around the camp fire it was slow going in the morning. I got up and woke Harry up (by his own request) and we stumbled down to the nearby rock ledge. The target was squid, tommies or snook, but with the action slow, we soon succumbed to sore heads and were laid back on the rocks. Kym, mistakenly thinking he was missing out on a big fishing session came down soon after, but on the incoming tide we didn't have much time - with a tommy landed each, we headed back up to camp.
It was a slow day for fishing, and soon enough we were back around the fire, and Matt and Sarah were pulling in to camp.
The next morning we headed to the rock ledges we'd tried on the first day, but no tommies were about - so we casted out some big baits hoping for a few more salmon of the variety Kym had hooked on day 1. No salmon came to the party... but floats were going under indicating some squid having a munch. Matt nearly managed to get one up just on hooks, so I put a jag under a float, and Kym and Sally both cast out squid jags for retrieves.
Sally and I both hooked on to squid, but both had the squid drop off without getting it up onto the rocks. Sally then repeated the act with a squirt of ink flying up, but no squid following.
It was a frantic little session which yielded absolutely nothing, and soon the squid disappeared again, and hunger pains set in - so back to camp for lunch was the decision.
The afternoon plan was to head down to our old favourite spot on Salmon Beach, which thanks to the owners blocking off the road, now involves a 600 metre walk before climbing down the goat track. Once at the top of the cliff, we saw some other people fishing in our usual spot, but we thought it was worth a walk down anyway to see how we went. All the guys cast out and sat back to await the action.
It took a while before my rod had a solid bite, and I hooked into something large. It made a big run sideways along the gutter before a massive wave crashed down on it and whatever it was, got free from my hooks.
Another beer cracked, and a new bait out in the water, we waited some more. Again, I hooked on and this time wound in a small salmon. I followed up with two more small salmon and Kym had a very worried look of "I just lost the Gashes" on his face - but my 3 salmon were probably only equal in weight to his one, and he had caught many more tommies. Perhaps one more salmon would do it, and I was the only one getting bites. We sat back to crack our last beer and realised that Harry had made a fatal error in calculations regarding beach beer supplies. Some one had to go without. Kym went to rebait, so I took that as him volunteering himself to not have one.
The sun set, and we called it a night on the beach fishing. Kym still held a slender lead, put perhaps a morning fish might change things. Unfortunately for me, the next morning I got up and saw some fisherman down on the rocks below camp, and then all round laziness from all elected that we'd pack up and head home. Kym takes home his first Gashes!
Will was an unfortunate late withdrawal, but we still had a decent group of people heading over. New Kym, Sally, Harry, Sani and I were all set to arrive on Anzac day, and Matt and Sarah followed on Friday night. With the best camp spot at Hillocks now blocked off, I thought we'd head the other way and camp above Treasure Cove. The benefit of this spot being we could head out for a rock fish in the mornings without having to get in the car and drive.
We arrived at out spot, with perfect weather shining above. We overlooked the cove, and saw our fishing spot getting drowned by waves. We called that a low tide fishing spot instead, and sat back for the first of many beers.
Overlooking the water, beer in hand, and sun shining above made it very, very hard to motivate to get up and go anywhere, but Kym and I eventually settled on going for a quick walk along the cliffs to suss out a potential spot to throw a line in. With a few likely locations in mind, we went to gather some gear, and the ladies, and soon made our way down to a nice rock ledge. We passed some other fisherman on the way who'd caught a few salmon trout, so things looked good.
It didn't take long at all for Kym to hook into a decent size tommy, and before long he had a handful of them in the bucket. I switched over to a float and hooked a couple more, but blunt hooks were causing many drop offs. Soon enough, we saw Harry strolling along the rocks, correctly guessing which way to walk in order to find us.
The tommies went off the bite a bit, so we decided to move back towards camp and fish another ledge. With not much light left before sunset, we cast out a few baits and sat back and waited.
Kym had a pilchard under a float and a decent sized salmon snaffled it. It put up a great fight on some light gear and was awesome to watch cruising back and forth along the rock wall. Kym managed to get it up on the rocks though and it was in the esky soon after, as we headed back to camp to get the fire going.
After a fairly large night around the camp fire it was slow going in the morning. I got up and woke Harry up (by his own request) and we stumbled down to the nearby rock ledge. The target was squid, tommies or snook, but with the action slow, we soon succumbed to sore heads and were laid back on the rocks. Kym, mistakenly thinking he was missing out on a big fishing session came down soon after, but on the incoming tide we didn't have much time - with a tommy landed each, we headed back up to camp.
It was a slow day for fishing, and soon enough we were back around the fire, and Matt and Sarah were pulling in to camp.
The next morning we headed to the rock ledges we'd tried on the first day, but no tommies were about - so we casted out some big baits hoping for a few more salmon of the variety Kym had hooked on day 1. No salmon came to the party... but floats were going under indicating some squid having a munch. Matt nearly managed to get one up just on hooks, so I put a jag under a float, and Kym and Sally both cast out squid jags for retrieves.
Sally and I both hooked on to squid, but both had the squid drop off without getting it up onto the rocks. Sally then repeated the act with a squirt of ink flying up, but no squid following.
It was a frantic little session which yielded absolutely nothing, and soon the squid disappeared again, and hunger pains set in - so back to camp for lunch was the decision.
The afternoon plan was to head down to our old favourite spot on Salmon Beach, which thanks to the owners blocking off the road, now involves a 600 metre walk before climbing down the goat track. Once at the top of the cliff, we saw some other people fishing in our usual spot, but we thought it was worth a walk down anyway to see how we went. All the guys cast out and sat back to await the action.
It took a while before my rod had a solid bite, and I hooked into something large. It made a big run sideways along the gutter before a massive wave crashed down on it and whatever it was, got free from my hooks.
Another beer cracked, and a new bait out in the water, we waited some more. Again, I hooked on and this time wound in a small salmon. I followed up with two more small salmon and Kym had a very worried look of "I just lost the Gashes" on his face - but my 3 salmon were probably only equal in weight to his one, and he had caught many more tommies. Perhaps one more salmon would do it, and I was the only one getting bites. We sat back to crack our last beer and realised that Harry had made a fatal error in calculations regarding beach beer supplies. Some one had to go without. Kym went to rebait, so I took that as him volunteering himself to not have one.
The sun set, and we called it a night on the beach fishing. Kym still held a slender lead, put perhaps a morning fish might change things. Unfortunately for me, the next morning I got up and saw some fisherman down on the rocks below camp, and then all round laziness from all elected that we'd pack up and head home. Kym takes home his first Gashes!
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Coorong - April 2013
After many months without throwing a line in, the planets finally aligned and we were able to organise a quick get away. The Coorong had been getting solid reports of Mulloway catches all summer, and although those reports had dried up, we had to get down and try it out before it got too cold.
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.
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.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Far West Coast - November 2012
Back to 4 people, and the comfort of 2 cars for this years Far West Coast adventure - Myself, Will, Kym, and "new" Kym (Kym D for this story).
After stopping off at Penong for a delicious Schnitzel at the pub, and a few local characters talking up our prospects over the next week (one referred to Mulloway's as "c*#ts", as in - "you're gonna catch a big c*#t!") our hopes were high, and we set off on the last part of the journey to Scotts Beach.
Scotts had it's usual deep gutters and excellent looking water, but not the black schools in the water that we'd hoped to see. Having wasted many hours bait fishing for salmon in the gutters in previous years, we went off in search of schools, and ended up at the ledge. The ledge was quiet though, and we instead decided to try the deep gutter on Scotts after all, and set up camp. Things were promising when my first cast landed a Salmon, but it was all quiet from then on, and we soon called it a night after a long day.
The following day, we again searched for Salmon, desperately needing a few for bait before heading off to the dog fence. A great looking gutter at Mexican hat provided nothing and soon we returned to the rock ledges of Fowlers Point to berley up for some small fish. Instead of small fish though, a school of good sized salmon came swimming through, and Kym D who was persistently flicking lures out on his small rod, hooked up instantly. Will had a lure out in the water in no time at all and within a minute we had 2 good salmon up on the rocks. I hooked on myself, only for my lure to bust off as I was lifting the fish up onto the rocks.
Over the next hour, the school came and went multiple times, and we chased them around the corner and had persistent hook ups - at first I lost two lures for a single Salmon, but evened up the ledger and then got some footage of the boys hooking on - multiple hook ups at once were a common sight.
Bait esky loaded, and spirits high, we set off back to our campsite as the sunset, and soon everyone was relaxed and sinking some beers. It was good not to have a worry about bait on the back of our minds.
As we pulled on to the Dog Fence beach the following morning, we saw more fisherman than a winter trip to the Coorong! Most were fishing the nice looking gutter closer to the entrance, so we plowed on past, and into some really soft sand, but made it through no worries. We settled on a dark looking patch of water with some reef further out, which was creating a nice channel in front of it.
After setting up the tarp for some shade and shelter from the wind, we set up the rods and all casted out a fresh slab of salmon. Before Will required his first bait change, he was hooked on to a solid fish, and before we could get the camera's organised, he was already sliding a 96cm mully up onto the sand. A bloody good start, and gave us confidence about the gutter we'd set up camp in front of!
When the excitement of that fish wore off, Kym D got out the action kite and we had some fun screwing around with that. He then attached the GoPro to it, and got some awesome footage of our camp from up in the sky:
As the sun was setting, Will hooked and landed a huge dog shark, and then again hooked on to something even larger. He called large head shakes, and then no head shakes, and then definitely headshakes. Whatever it was, it was taking line down the beach and putting up a hell of a fight.Will put a heap of pressure on his rod to steer the mully away from the reefs, and soon we spotted a silver flash in the shallows. It was a big mulloway. He played it slowly and safely and waited for the right wave to push the huge fish up the beach. I grabbed it by the gills and slid it to safety. Will saw it was wasn't any chance of getting away now and let out a woohoo. There was jumping, clapping, and probably the odd high five or two between us all as I tried to snap off a few photos. In the fading light, getting the camera to focus was proving difficult. With a mulloway already in the esky, we'd have let this one go - but given it was easily the largest fish Will had ever caught, it deserved some justice in the photos. We decided to put it in the esky as well, and find some place to freeze it until we were on our way home. I grabbed out my flash and took a few pics that will no doubt be adorning the walls in Will's house soon.
After the excitement of that fish, we settled down and had some glow sticks out for any night action. I had a run and pulled in a good sized stingray - but it wasn't really the prize I was after!
The next day was quiet in terms of fishing. We saw that the left side of what we thought was a long running gutter was actually reefyness causing the dark blue water. This forced us to fish about 100 metres down the beach, making fetching a beer quite a journey. We did get the beach tent out to keep the bait esky cool and fished hard all day long. The weather was fine, but the fish weren't hungry.
Will landed a monster of a Salmon during the day, which the scales weighed in at just below 3kg. I think they must be broken because it was huge! That was the only thing landed until around 5pm though, when I noticed my line a long way sideways of my rod. I picked it up to check and felt some headshakes. It was an easy battle with an already exhausted bronzy. It's good to have at least one photo holding a nice sized fish, but I would have enjoyed a better battle.
When we woke up the following day, the gutter that had produced two mulloway was looking a lot shallower - sand had filled it in on the high tide overnight and we were restricted to a much smaller area to fish. We were really keen to fish the dog fence for a full 4 nights leading into the full moon, but accepted our fate and decided to pack up camp and move on. The plan was either to move down the beach to better looking water, or head straight to Tuckamore. With so many people fishing the beach on the way out, we didn't really want to muscle in next to anyone, so radio'd to each other that we'd just keep moving to Tuckamore and set up there for the full moon.
Whilst we were kind of disappointed to be moving away, it turned out to be a blessing. As we found out from other fisherman days later, a massive storm had blown through the area that same night and wiped out multiple campsites. Three metre swells washed up the beach and moved cars parked at camp sideways and washed gear out to sea. Down at Tuckamore where we were, we had very strong winds, but other than our tarp set up flapping around keeping us awake at night, we were relatively unscathed.
On the way to Tuckamore, I struck some trouble on the soft sandy track on the way in, slipped off the side and getting into a precarious position. The car was very tilted to the side, and the only way out was to back up, which would result in an even larger tilt. I edged up on the max trax slightly before we decided to tow it backwards with Will's hilux. This did the trick, and we were on our way again quite soon. We hit the beach soon after, and got about 80 metres in before Will's car bogged down. It was very shell gritty, and definitely going to be too hard to proceed, so we decided to camp back at the entrance. I tried to back up along the track but the slant of the beach had me sliding towards the water, and I soon gave up hope of getting out of there without assistance. The assistance was over at Will's car, which he'd managed to turn around, but was now having trouble going forward. With a lot of max traxing, we got the car back on to firm sand, and then did the same for my own car. Everyone was pretty exhausted from digging, so we cracked a coldy and watched the surf for 10 mins, before setting up shelter once again.
One thing was immediately obvious once we started fishing - there were plague proportions of these mini-Samson looking fish (I think they're called Sea Trumpeter, but we just called them shittys - far worse than c*#ts!). They were decimating our baits, and we were requiring a new slab of salmon practically every cast. Just to ensure our baits stood no chance at all, a few sand crabs were thrown in to the mix.
In the late afternoon Will had a large hook up, and sighted a huge shark out in one of the waves but soon busted off with nothing of his rig left. He then had a huge fight with a big black ray, which took some time to get in. Turned out that it was fouled hooked in the wing which would have made things more difficult. Once he was unhooked and released, Will's rod went off, and he pulled a fresh salmon in. Handy, since our baits were getting destroyed by shitties. As night fell, the wind dropped and it was the perfect night fishing weather. We stuck at it for a little while, but only Will got a run, and pulled in a nice Gummy shark which was then cooked up for dinner. You'll note the recurring theme of this day is that Will's rods kept getting runs, whilst every other rod, did not. Actually, that's the theme of the whole week! Kym A and myself are now used to this happening, but Kym D was left shaking his head in disbelief.
The next day Will must have hooked around 4 stingrays - even they were ignoring all other baits! The most humorous part about this was when Kym D went to gaff the ray in order to pull it up the beach for unhooking. He slipped and fell as a wave came in and sprung up in a panic as a ray swam around him. It wouldn't have been funny if he got a barb in his leg, but he didn't, so it was hilarious!
It was again a beautiful night for fishing, and we gave it a few hours (it gets dark really late over there) but once again, only Will got a run, and this time bringing in a very respectable Gummy. He hooked another massive Gummy soon after but this one snapped off and we called it a night.
After a quick fish in the morning for nothing more than an undersized mulloway (finally to someone other than Will, who didn't have a rod in at the time!) we ran out of bait, so had decided to head back to Fowlers for our final two nights, to clean up and maybe have one last crack at some salmon and mulloway.
We wanted to catch some fresh salmon for bait when we got back, and then hit up one of the beaches close to Fowleys for a final day session attempting to get a Mully. Unfortunately, the salmon once again weren't coming to the party (I did land a huge squid off though, which was destined for the dinner plate), so we opted to buy some pilchards and check out a spot within the bay itself.. We drove down the beach a number of km's but with an incoming tide and the beach being quite soft up high, we decided not to risk the cars. We turned around and set off to Cabbots beach. When we got there, the water looked very choppy and weedy, and to make matters worse, we'd left the rod holders back at the caravan park.
Plan C (D? E?) was to head back to Scotts beach and flick some lures / cast small baits in the shallows and see if we could get some Whiting or Flathead for dinner. Kym D managed to hook a Flathead on a soft plastic then devastatingly lost it in the shallows. Everyone besides me caught a good sized mullet though, so we all had our contribution for dinner.
Back at the park, we battered up our catch, and chopped up some potatoes into chips and had an awesome final meal of fish, squid, and chips. The only downer was running out of beer by about 6pm, but in hindsight, that was probably a good thing with all the packing still to be done, and a 10 hour drive ahead of us.
All in all, another great Far West trip. Three from three for legal mulloway in trips. It's pity Will has got every single one of them! Myself, I am shooting for the unwanted honour of most FWC trips without catching a legal Mulloway. Planning for 2013 will no doubt begin soon!
After stopping off at Penong for a delicious Schnitzel at the pub, and a few local characters talking up our prospects over the next week (one referred to Mulloway's as "c*#ts", as in - "you're gonna catch a big c*#t!") our hopes were high, and we set off on the last part of the journey to Scotts Beach.
Scotts had it's usual deep gutters and excellent looking water, but not the black schools in the water that we'd hoped to see. Having wasted many hours bait fishing for salmon in the gutters in previous years, we went off in search of schools, and ended up at the ledge. The ledge was quiet though, and we instead decided to try the deep gutter on Scotts after all, and set up camp. Things were promising when my first cast landed a Salmon, but it was all quiet from then on, and we soon called it a night after a long day.
The following day, we again searched for Salmon, desperately needing a few for bait before heading off to the dog fence. A great looking gutter at Mexican hat provided nothing and soon we returned to the rock ledges of Fowlers Point to berley up for some small fish. Instead of small fish though, a school of good sized salmon came swimming through, and Kym D who was persistently flicking lures out on his small rod, hooked up instantly. Will had a lure out in the water in no time at all and within a minute we had 2 good salmon up on the rocks. I hooked on myself, only for my lure to bust off as I was lifting the fish up onto the rocks.
Over the next hour, the school came and went multiple times, and we chased them around the corner and had persistent hook ups - at first I lost two lures for a single Salmon, but evened up the ledger and then got some footage of the boys hooking on - multiple hook ups at once were a common sight.
Bait esky loaded, and spirits high, we set off back to our campsite as the sunset, and soon everyone was relaxed and sinking some beers. It was good not to have a worry about bait on the back of our minds.
As we pulled on to the Dog Fence beach the following morning, we saw more fisherman than a winter trip to the Coorong! Most were fishing the nice looking gutter closer to the entrance, so we plowed on past, and into some really soft sand, but made it through no worries. We settled on a dark looking patch of water with some reef further out, which was creating a nice channel in front of it.
After setting up the tarp for some shade and shelter from the wind, we set up the rods and all casted out a fresh slab of salmon. Before Will required his first bait change, he was hooked on to a solid fish, and before we could get the camera's organised, he was already sliding a 96cm mully up onto the sand. A bloody good start, and gave us confidence about the gutter we'd set up camp in front of!
When the excitement of that fish wore off, Kym D got out the action kite and we had some fun screwing around with that. He then attached the GoPro to it, and got some awesome footage of our camp from up in the sky:
As the sun was setting, Will hooked and landed a huge dog shark, and then again hooked on to something even larger. He called large head shakes, and then no head shakes, and then definitely headshakes. Whatever it was, it was taking line down the beach and putting up a hell of a fight.Will put a heap of pressure on his rod to steer the mully away from the reefs, and soon we spotted a silver flash in the shallows. It was a big mulloway. He played it slowly and safely and waited for the right wave to push the huge fish up the beach. I grabbed it by the gills and slid it to safety. Will saw it was wasn't any chance of getting away now and let out a woohoo. There was jumping, clapping, and probably the odd high five or two between us all as I tried to snap off a few photos. In the fading light, getting the camera to focus was proving difficult. With a mulloway already in the esky, we'd have let this one go - but given it was easily the largest fish Will had ever caught, it deserved some justice in the photos. We decided to put it in the esky as well, and find some place to freeze it until we were on our way home. I grabbed out my flash and took a few pics that will no doubt be adorning the walls in Will's house soon.
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| Will's big mully - ~125cm long |
The next day was quiet in terms of fishing. We saw that the left side of what we thought was a long running gutter was actually reefyness causing the dark blue water. This forced us to fish about 100 metres down the beach, making fetching a beer quite a journey. We did get the beach tent out to keep the bait esky cool and fished hard all day long. The weather was fine, but the fish weren't hungry.
Will landed a monster of a Salmon during the day, which the scales weighed in at just below 3kg. I think they must be broken because it was huge! That was the only thing landed until around 5pm though, when I noticed my line a long way sideways of my rod. I picked it up to check and felt some headshakes. It was an easy battle with an already exhausted bronzy. It's good to have at least one photo holding a nice sized fish, but I would have enjoyed a better battle.
When we woke up the following day, the gutter that had produced two mulloway was looking a lot shallower - sand had filled it in on the high tide overnight and we were restricted to a much smaller area to fish. We were really keen to fish the dog fence for a full 4 nights leading into the full moon, but accepted our fate and decided to pack up camp and move on. The plan was either to move down the beach to better looking water, or head straight to Tuckamore. With so many people fishing the beach on the way out, we didn't really want to muscle in next to anyone, so radio'd to each other that we'd just keep moving to Tuckamore and set up there for the full moon.
Whilst we were kind of disappointed to be moving away, it turned out to be a blessing. As we found out from other fisherman days later, a massive storm had blown through the area that same night and wiped out multiple campsites. Three metre swells washed up the beach and moved cars parked at camp sideways and washed gear out to sea. Down at Tuckamore where we were, we had very strong winds, but other than our tarp set up flapping around keeping us awake at night, we were relatively unscathed.
On the way to Tuckamore, I struck some trouble on the soft sandy track on the way in, slipped off the side and getting into a precarious position. The car was very tilted to the side, and the only way out was to back up, which would result in an even larger tilt. I edged up on the max trax slightly before we decided to tow it backwards with Will's hilux. This did the trick, and we were on our way again quite soon. We hit the beach soon after, and got about 80 metres in before Will's car bogged down. It was very shell gritty, and definitely going to be too hard to proceed, so we decided to camp back at the entrance. I tried to back up along the track but the slant of the beach had me sliding towards the water, and I soon gave up hope of getting out of there without assistance. The assistance was over at Will's car, which he'd managed to turn around, but was now having trouble going forward. With a lot of max traxing, we got the car back on to firm sand, and then did the same for my own car. Everyone was pretty exhausted from digging, so we cracked a coldy and watched the surf for 10 mins, before setting up shelter once again.
One thing was immediately obvious once we started fishing - there were plague proportions of these mini-Samson looking fish (I think they're called Sea Trumpeter, but we just called them shittys - far worse than c*#ts!). They were decimating our baits, and we were requiring a new slab of salmon practically every cast. Just to ensure our baits stood no chance at all, a few sand crabs were thrown in to the mix.
In the late afternoon Will had a large hook up, and sighted a huge shark out in one of the waves but soon busted off with nothing of his rig left. He then had a huge fight with a big black ray, which took some time to get in. Turned out that it was fouled hooked in the wing which would have made things more difficult. Once he was unhooked and released, Will's rod went off, and he pulled a fresh salmon in. Handy, since our baits were getting destroyed by shitties. As night fell, the wind dropped and it was the perfect night fishing weather. We stuck at it for a little while, but only Will got a run, and pulled in a nice Gummy shark which was then cooked up for dinner. You'll note the recurring theme of this day is that Will's rods kept getting runs, whilst every other rod, did not. Actually, that's the theme of the whole week! Kym A and myself are now used to this happening, but Kym D was left shaking his head in disbelief.
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| Kym wondering when his rod will get a bite |
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| Will unhappy with the attention of stingrays |
After a quick fish in the morning for nothing more than an undersized mulloway (finally to someone other than Will, who didn't have a rod in at the time!) we ran out of bait, so had decided to head back to Fowlers for our final two nights, to clean up and maybe have one last crack at some salmon and mulloway.
We wanted to catch some fresh salmon for bait when we got back, and then hit up one of the beaches close to Fowleys for a final day session attempting to get a Mully. Unfortunately, the salmon once again weren't coming to the party (I did land a huge squid off though, which was destined for the dinner plate), so we opted to buy some pilchards and check out a spot within the bay itself.. We drove down the beach a number of km's but with an incoming tide and the beach being quite soft up high, we decided not to risk the cars. We turned around and set off to Cabbots beach. When we got there, the water looked very choppy and weedy, and to make matters worse, we'd left the rod holders back at the caravan park.
Plan C (D? E?) was to head back to Scotts beach and flick some lures / cast small baits in the shallows and see if we could get some Whiting or Flathead for dinner. Kym D managed to hook a Flathead on a soft plastic then devastatingly lost it in the shallows. Everyone besides me caught a good sized mullet though, so we all had our contribution for dinner.
Back at the park, we battered up our catch, and chopped up some potatoes into chips and had an awesome final meal of fish, squid, and chips. The only downer was running out of beer by about 6pm, but in hindsight, that was probably a good thing with all the packing still to be done, and a 10 hour drive ahead of us.
All in all, another great Far West trip. Three from three for legal mulloway in trips. It's pity Will has got every single one of them! Myself, I am shooting for the unwanted honour of most FWC trips without catching a legal Mulloway. Planning for 2013 will no doubt begin soon!
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Hoping for a Repeat
Annual Far West Coast trip is just around the corner - maybe we can snag a few more of these!?
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Coorong - August 2012
Two weeks ago, a quick message to Will about his availability to fish on an upcoming weekend was instantly replied to positively. The wheels were set in motion, and messages sent, and surprisingly, we soon had a big group of 6 people interested in coming. Not bad for a cold winter weekend.
At 11:30pm the night before leaving, Andy made one of his famous last minute decisions and decided to come along too. Luckily for him, Will's mate Tony was bringing his own car, which left a spare seat in Will's. So it was to be 7 blokes on one Coorong trip - the beers were set to flow.
At 8:30am Saturday morning, we pulled into Murray Bridge and met up with everyone for the final convoy down to Salt Creek, and soon we were airing down for the trip across the dunes. We heard good reports coming from further north, so spent a fair chunk of time driving up the beach, before settling on a decent looking gutter with a nearby area to set up camp.
After the long drive, the first move was to get the chairs off the roof rack, and a cold beer out of the fridge. Setting up camp and fishing rods was a distant third place for all but Will. As beer number two was being cracked open, there was some commotion coming from the beach and we looked up to see Will locked in a battle with a fish on the end of his line. We all raced over as a nice sized mulloway slid up onto the sand. It was clearly above the 75cm legal mark, but we raced off to get the measure just in case. It came in at around 80cm and was quite a fat specimen for it's size.
Not a bad result from the first cast of the trip! This had the rest of us scrambling through tackle boxes and fishing reels in order to get set up and fishing, and before long the beach was lined with rods all expectantly waiting. It took another hour and a half though before the next bit of action, and it was new comer Kym whose brand new Sensor Surf rod buckled over on to what was clearly something decent. He raced over and set the hooks in, and after a short battle, a good sized Gummy Shark was landed.
At this point we still hadn't set up camp or had anything to eat, so we broke back to camp and set up the swags, got the BBQ going, and unloaded the firewood.
The odd salmon was landed here and there, which were mostly used as fresh baits, but they weren't thick in numbers like we might have expected during winter. As the sun set, everyone gave up on the fishing, and moved back to camp to the warmth of the fire.
The following morning I awoke to a monster hangover and wrote off any chance of fishing in the morning. My decision to sleep in was worthwhile however, as when I finally got up I saw that the wind was blowing a gale and no one had landed a thing. My timing was spot on as Will pulled in a Gummy Shark of his own - the first of half a dozen or so he'd land in the next 24 hours. Unfortunately I couldn't replicate this.
The conditions were very windy, making casting hard, and keeping a line out harder. Kym managed to get a salmon, which kept Will in supply with fresh salmon fillets for bait. The gummies were lapping them up, whilst ignoring all other hooks as usual!
Tony had work commitments on Monday, so packed up and headed off soon after lunch time. The rest of us continued to fish, drink, or just generally stand around embracing the sand blasting.
As the rain started coming down hard, and our shelter long since destroyed by wind, I sat in the car watching Will's rod which was directly out in front of camp. It got a huge bite and bent forward as Will reached over to grab and strike. He turned around and looked back toward the car as if to say "this is big!" which was enough for us to get out into the rain and go have a look. Sure enough, another legal mulloway was on it's way in. Again, around the 80cm mark.
Two legal mulloway on the one Coorong trip was unprecedented until now - but within 15 minutes, that record got broken again as Will made it number 3.
Just before dark, Tony arrived back at camp. He'd managed to miss the turn off to the track behind the dunes, and got in some serious trouble on the beach as the tide was rising. He said he was stuck for a good three hours before the water actually hit his Hilux and lifted it out of the bog. With a heap of sticks from the dunes, he wedged them under the tyres and managed to get going again. He came back to camp rather than negotiate the rest of the track after dark!
The temperature dropped massively as the sun went down, and we were soon all huddled around the fire passing the port around. The radio crackled in and out of reception, but we did manage to hear the Crows get up!
The next morning Will continued his good run with a few more Gummy sharks, taking him up to 6 total, along with his 3 Mulloway. Obviously, he took home the Gashes once again in convincing fashion.
After the long drive, the first move was to get the chairs off the roof rack, and a cold beer out of the fridge. Setting up camp and fishing rods was a distant third place for all but Will. As beer number two was being cracked open, there was some commotion coming from the beach and we looked up to see Will locked in a battle with a fish on the end of his line. We all raced over as a nice sized mulloway slid up onto the sand. It was clearly above the 75cm legal mark, but we raced off to get the measure just in case. It came in at around 80cm and was quite a fat specimen for it's size.
Not a bad result from the first cast of the trip! This had the rest of us scrambling through tackle boxes and fishing reels in order to get set up and fishing, and before long the beach was lined with rods all expectantly waiting. It took another hour and a half though before the next bit of action, and it was new comer Kym whose brand new Sensor Surf rod buckled over on to what was clearly something decent. He raced over and set the hooks in, and after a short battle, a good sized Gummy Shark was landed.
At this point we still hadn't set up camp or had anything to eat, so we broke back to camp and set up the swags, got the BBQ going, and unloaded the firewood.
The odd salmon was landed here and there, which were mostly used as fresh baits, but they weren't thick in numbers like we might have expected during winter. As the sun set, everyone gave up on the fishing, and moved back to camp to the warmth of the fire.
The following morning I awoke to a monster hangover and wrote off any chance of fishing in the morning. My decision to sleep in was worthwhile however, as when I finally got up I saw that the wind was blowing a gale and no one had landed a thing. My timing was spot on as Will pulled in a Gummy Shark of his own - the first of half a dozen or so he'd land in the next 24 hours. Unfortunately I couldn't replicate this.
The conditions were very windy, making casting hard, and keeping a line out harder. Kym managed to get a salmon, which kept Will in supply with fresh salmon fillets for bait. The gummies were lapping them up, whilst ignoring all other hooks as usual!
Tony had work commitments on Monday, so packed up and headed off soon after lunch time. The rest of us continued to fish, drink, or just generally stand around embracing the sand blasting.
As the rain started coming down hard, and our shelter long since destroyed by wind, I sat in the car watching Will's rod which was directly out in front of camp. It got a huge bite and bent forward as Will reached over to grab and strike. He turned around and looked back toward the car as if to say "this is big!" which was enough for us to get out into the rain and go have a look. Sure enough, another legal mulloway was on it's way in. Again, around the 80cm mark.
Two legal mulloway on the one Coorong trip was unprecedented until now - but within 15 minutes, that record got broken again as Will made it number 3.
Just before dark, Tony arrived back at camp. He'd managed to miss the turn off to the track behind the dunes, and got in some serious trouble on the beach as the tide was rising. He said he was stuck for a good three hours before the water actually hit his Hilux and lifted it out of the bog. With a heap of sticks from the dunes, he wedged them under the tyres and managed to get going again. He came back to camp rather than negotiate the rest of the track after dark!
The temperature dropped massively as the sun went down, and we were soon all huddled around the fire passing the port around. The radio crackled in and out of reception, but we did manage to hear the Crows get up!
The next morning Will continued his good run with a few more Gummy sharks, taking him up to 6 total, along with his 3 Mulloway. Obviously, he took home the Gashes once again in convincing fashion.
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