We arrived at Fowler's Bay around 2pm and after a quick drive through the town, we made our way to Scott's Beach by way of an excellent short cut I took (the others were dubious).
We set up our tent and cooked up a bit of food before heading out onto the beach itself, where we half expected to be greeted by massive schools of salmon swimming up and down the beach after the reports we'd read. Not quite the case though, and we headed to a likely looking gutter mid way down. Around 5 O'Clock Matt caught the first fish of the trip, a reasonably large Salmon going 62cm. Without much action, we decided to head back to camp to have a feed, before giving it another go at Sunset.
Back at camp, there we now had some neighbours in the way of an aussie bloke showing a Swiss girl around Australia in a van. He asked us for some "Herb" - I don't think we had the kind he was after.
Went for a quick drive to Mexican Hat to see if we could spot any schools, but none were visible, so we headed back to Scotts and as we pulled onto the beach we saw our new neighbour pulling in a Salmon. We stopped nearby and he said there was a few about, but he was only after one, so was heading back to cook it up. We promptly took his spot.
We managed another 4 Salmon here - I can't remember who got what, but Kym also got a nice sized King George Whiting, and Andre pulled in a small, but legal Flathead. We kept those to cook up for breakfast. All the Salmon were filleted and put in the fridge to be used as bait later.
As it was getting dark, Andre's reel started screaming.. line peeling off fast - and Andre made a quick dash over only to grab his rod and have his line break instantly. He wound it in to find that his red surf popper had snapped off - leaving us guessing at what it could have been. We headed back to camp and made a large dent in our beer supply.
On Day 2, we started off with a quick drive down Scotts in search of visible schools, and then headed over to Fowlers Point, in search of a place known as just the ledge. After winding through various tracks, we finally found the spot we were after. Greeted with a solid platform 2 metres above the waters surface, and dropping into deep clear water, it was a great spot. We pulled a lot of small fishies here, including sweep, trevally and rockcod - but nothing worth of keeping.
I had my Mully rod out just incase, and line starting peeling away off the reel. I picked it up and was hooked on. Whatever it was went on a big run straight out from the rocks, and then turned left and headed out further. I was able to turn it around and bring it back in close before it went off on another big run this time out to the right, and unable to stop it, it got itself hooked into the reef. Defeated, I pulled on the line until it snapped off. I'm still not sure what it was, I suspect a ray as I didnt feel much in the way of headshakes, but the fact it darted off in changing directions makes me think it might have been something else. I'll never know now!
With no more excitement on the ledge, we headed back down to Scotts and spotted a small school of Salmon out at the back of the breakers. Another 2 guys had also spotted them and were making their way out to cast too. We quickly threw on some lures, and started wading out. I got to waist deep and one of the other guys said to me "Theres a bronzy out there" - and I turned around and walked to knee deep water. Having not actually seen the bronzy, I didnt have the same amount of fear as I suspected I would, and Matt and I waded out further again. We were having swell roll past at chest high, and were soaked head to toe, but we just couldn't reach the Salmon as they kept moving further out. One of the other guys was really keen and was just about swimming before he casted. He hooked on and made the long journey back only to lose the fish right on the shore. Spewing! They gave up after that, and we got back in the car and followed the school down the beach hoping it would get closer, but it didn't.
We had a fish at sunset on Scotts again, and disappointingly, there was still no action. Tomorrow we would need to head out to Yalata, and the bait supply was not looking good.
Part 2, where we head to Yalata, starts here
2 comments:
A great read so far Ryan. Did you try the Western end like I told you? Even if you cant see them there, they're there!
We fished the western end, which is where we got into a couple - around where you would normally get the KGW's. I thought I knew what you meant, but visiting again I wasn't exactly sure. I'll hafta hit you up on email to be sure next time :)
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