Because of the moon and tide cycles, we left on Thursday this year, instead of the usual Saturday. The first major blow of the trip came when, after making splendid time on the highway and rolling into Penong at midday, we were informed by the barman at the pub that they don't serve meals on Thursdays! I was really looking forward to that Schnitty too.
Onward to Fowlers Bay, where we aired down the tyres, and took that yearly trek across the dunes, anticipation high as the water comes into view. A few schools were spotted in the water, but as we got closer we discovered they were well out of casting range. The 20 knot headwind did not help either.
Camp was set up in our usual little alcove behind the dunes to get out of the wind, and then we headed to the ledge in hope that a school of salmon would cruise past like they sometimes do. We fished for hours for just one salmon and decided to head back to Scotts Beach to check out if there was any action going on there. The cars got separated on the maze of tracks back to the beach, and by time the two Kym's and I had reached the beach, we saw Will and Matt casting lures out into a school with about 5 other people. They had 3 on the beach before the school scattered and moved out further. We missed the action, but at least there were a few more fish in the bait pile. Not that 4 salmon was going to go far with 5 fishers.
Will was up at the crack of dawn the next morning and drove the length of Scotts Beach to look for any schools in casting range. With none sighted he returned to camp. Shortly later, I was standing on top of the dune at camp, and looking directly out when I saw a suspicious looking dark patch in the water. I tied on a lure and headed out for a cast, and Will came too. We both cast to the school and had instant hookups, and then devastatingly, both snapped lines. They must have been some monster sized salmon. After running back to the cars to get more tackle, we came back to find they'd all vanished.
With no luck at another ledge visit, and Scotts Beach proving too difficult to land anything, we decided to roll the dice on hitting up a mulloway beach and hoping to score salmon whilst there. At least we'd be able to set up a proper camp and get comfortable. As we cooked up a feed before heading off, some quad bikes rolled into camp and it turned out to be Fisheries and Parks. Greetings were made and we let them know we had been here a night but hadn't had much luck on the fish. Then Parks asked about our permits. "You need a permit to camp here?" "Yes, it's on the sign on the way in, and you would have read this on the website before coming here". One, there is no sign. Two, who is reading the Parks website? Since arriving home I have tried to check it out, and can't even find Fowlers Bay Conservation Park on there at all. Perhaps the ranger also doesn't read it.
The two rangers were playing a bit of good cop, bad cop. After telling him I am sorry but wasn't aware and I'd ring up and get it paid once I got home, the bad cop said that wasn't good enough and I'd have to visit the Ceduna office to get it sorted out. I noted that it's likely we wouldn't be going back through Ceduna in business hours given our plan was to return on Saturday, and we usually hit the road very early. "Too bad, you'll have to work it out." said Bad Cop. Whilst Good Cop took my details, I explained to him our timing problem, and he said "No worries, pay it over the phone when you can". Thanks, Good Cop.
Further to that, we were issued a warning for camping "off track", as there was some dune vegetation on the path to the camp clearing (which was obviously well used by the recent camp fire remains). The irony was that they drove over the same vegetation to come tell us off. At least they didn't give us a $200 fine though!
So with that, we headed off, picking up a bunch of pilchards along the way as a back up plan. After much 4wding, wrong turns and scratched car panels, we hit the end of a beach and pulled up to to speak to a few other campers before heading off to find a spot to camp ourselves. The other campers said it was too windy to fish and not worthwhile, but we were here for a week anyway, so had to have a look. When we pulled onto the beach, we were greeted by an enormous, dark green gutter. Perfect.
Camp was set up behind a big mound of vegetation which provided a bit of respite from the wind. Soon after, we had baits in the water, mostly with salmon set ups to try and up the bait supply. There wasn't a long wait before all of us had bent rods and even a few double header salmons slid up the sand. There was no visible school to cast lures at, but they were taking baits and poppers with decent regularity. It was a great session and we soon had a few days worth of bait and played some catch and release with even more.
With the sun low in the sky, Will's rod (of course) had a huge bite and run, line screaming from the reel and some how managing not to get tangled in the absolute web of lines we had in the water. We knew this was something big, and hoped for a huge mulloway to kick off the week. It had the group of us about 200 metres away from the beginning point before we saw a fin emerge from the water, and knew it was a big bronze whaler.
Even once sighted in the shallows, it still took a fair amount of work to get it safely up on the beach. But once landed, we saw it was likely the biggest bronzy ever landed amongst our group. I fired off a number of photos and Will slid the shark back into the water to live another day. Great day 2 catch.
Conditions over the next couple of days were still very windy, but with a gutter so close in, casting was not an issue. I think it was Kym A, Will and Matt that landed 4 nice sized flat head during the day which made for a nights dinner.
Some local kids were fishing nearby when after many bust offs, Will decided it was time to change to wire trace which paid off shortly after when he hooked into another big shark. In front of a new audience he had the shark landed and was going to again release it, but instead offered it to the kids who had come over to watch. They quickly checked with their uncle back in the car and then graciously accepted it and called it a day for their own fishing expedition.
Whilst re-baiting one of my rods, a drag started screaming on another and there was panic to get to it quickly. I heard someone shout out "Ryan!" and without a thought grabbed the rod and commenced fighting something big. It was over quickly though as a shark took the hooks. Then I thought to myself "wait, my rod isn't red. Nor is it a Daiwa". Seems I'd grabbed Kym D's rod in the excitement. Whoops. He'd have his pay back later.
We found that the car fridge was cycling constantly, yet not actually cooling. After 2 days of this, the car battery was flat, and the temperature inside the fridge rising. When we ran out of cold beers, this became something of a crisis. Some googling suggested turning the fridge upside down for a few hours, so we used the bottom of the fridge as a table whilst we cooked up the flat head for dinner. The upside down fridge thing has actually worked for me in the past, but for a slightly different problem. But, after flipping it upright and plugging it in again, we watched the thermometer religiously for 30 minutes but it did not budge at all. What a let down. We turned it upside down again and went to bed.
The following morning we tried the fridge again, but with no success. It was decided that I'd head back to the nearest shop and buy a heap of ice and just use the fridge as an esky instead. After an hour of bouncing along the tracks, we got to the shop and felt that the fridge had kicked itself into gear again. We grabbed the ice anyway, just in case and headed back to camp. Spirits were mighty high when Kym D and I returned to camp with ice cold beer. The hours of driving, combined with solar panels plugged in had the battery charged up enough to keep the fridge going and it lasted the rest of the trip - even freezing up the water in the bottom.
From the start of the trip, I'd been calling Monday "Mully Day" due to the favourable conditions that were predicted. It was basically the only day of the trip that we'd have a break from the blistering south easterly winds. With that break, came heat. It quickly soared into the mid 30's and was stinking hot. And Mully Day wasn't turning out to be so great for fishing either. There was a school of Salmon about 1 km down the beach which we'd kept our eyes on as they looked too far out to cast to. Out of some boredom, and some much needed cooling off - I decided to walk down there and have a cast at them. I knew I'd have to get wet but getting neck deep was a bit much considering the shark bite offs we'd been getting! I managed to hook on to two of them, but they both dropped off in the wash. Some local guys pulled up and asked if I minded if they had a flick at the school. I appreciated the question (a lot would just cast over the top of you) and said go for it - I'd had enough. I headed back to the others defeated, yet much cooler. They later stopped at where we were fishing and offered us their bait and a massive bag of ice as they were heading back to Ceduna. Top blokes.
After the sun set, I made a quick call home from back at camp. I was watching my glow stick from up at camp but saw no action. As I finished the call and walked down to the beach, I see none other than Kym D winding my rod in, and Will about to grab a fish from the surf. I raced down to see what was sure to be a legal mully, and then raced back to camp to grab the tape measure. It came in at 76 or 77cm, just scraping in to legal territory. My second ever, and my first from the Far West Coast in 7 trips. Despite not doing any of the actual winding, I was still pretty happy. Mully Day!
Being a nice calm night, we all had rods out into the night, and there were regular bites happening and the odd big run. Kym A had a huge run on a stingray that he managed to get up on to the beach after a decent battle. Seeing the hook just in the sting rays lips, I though it'd be an easy removal. Unfortunately the stingray flapped at the wrong time, and the other 10/0 Gamakatsu hook went straight through the end of my pointer finger. With one hook through my finger, and the other attached to a flapping stingray, I had a moment of some concern - luckily Will was nearby with a knife to detach myself from the big ray. Note to self - carry a knife whilst fishing. It was a fairly eventful night with many more runs, and Will landing a banjo shark as well as a nice gummy shark, but no more mullies pulled in.
Tuesday started ok, with Will managing to land another bronzy. Given that the food situation looked to be running low, this one was kept and fillets put on ice. The weather turned bad though, and we had wind, spots of rain, and a whole lot of sea weed floating around in the gutter we were fishing. We sat around camp behind our wind break for the most part of the day, drinking coldies and listening to music. It was much the same on the following day as well. By Thursday the conditions, whilst still bad, weren't so bad that we huddled at camp all day. We had lines out and battled sea weed monsters most of the day. But it was a fruitless endeavour, and we were soon running low on fresh baits, despite the fact we were able to land a few salmon each morning.
By Friday, which was to be our last full day of fishing, we decided that rather than battle the weed all day long, we may as well head back to Fowlers and try get a few whiting or flathead from the sheltered area's before heading home. After two hours of cleaning and packing camp though, the idea of unpacking and packing again the very next day became unappealing. We decided to hit the road and head home that day instead. Before doing so, we had a quick look around and found some nice looking bays. Pity we didn't search earlier as we could have fished out of the wind. An obligatory group shot was taken and then we headed homeward.
We never had any final discussion on the Gashes Winner. I think Will takes the prize once again. Although I caught the only legal mully - our target fish of the trip, he once again cleaned up on the (big) sharks and also a few good flatties. Despite our mulloway beats all mentality... I think this one needed to be a bit bigger to get me over the line. Agree?
