Coorong - November 2006

Other than a time when we teamed up with my Dad and other rellies for a coorong trip, this was our biggest trip to the Coorong - 8 guys over 2 cars. I knew from the time the troopy pulled up next to me on the freeway and Will was hanging out the window with a beer in hand, there was gonna be some serious drinking done this trip.

First things first, set up an awesome campsite!



Click through to Flickr to see notes over the photo - I pointed out whos tent is who's.. very exciting stuff.

Lunch was soon cooked, beers soon cracked, and relaxing begun under the shade setup. It was hard to find the motivation to actually get up and go fishing, so comfortable it was.

Soon enough people drifted out to the beach, and in true Harry form, he caught a fish whilst sleeping in his chair. A nice sized mulloway to kick off proceeding, going about 60cm long.



He was released back into the water after a quick photo and Harry went back to sleep, now leader of the gashes competition.

After sunset, and a feed for dinner, the drinking around camp begun and tall tales and laughs all round well into the night.



It wasn't long before Matt was up to his usual antics, destroying some camp furniture



Ranger Will was up early the next morning and catching small Mulloway whilst the rest of us nursed our heads (dodgy burger or something I suspect). But it was this bronzie shark that put him out in front on the leader board.



I managed to hook onto and bring in a small salmon, and Will headed back to camp to commence work on the lunch burgers (yes, we had the camping burger every meal). He did leave his rod out on the beach though, and as luck would have it - Will is the luckiest fisherman ever - his rod started bouncing about in the rod holder. Andy was quick on the scene and had a decent fight with yet another bronzie!



Debate raged about who's fish it was, I think the general verdict was it cancelled itself out in a way, but really, we just wanted to have a chance of winning. It was really Will's catch.

Matt decided all this watching other people catch fish was a bit tiring, and headed back to camp to catch some zzzz's in the shade - something most people would stop drinking for. Not Matt.



I cant remember if any more fish were caught that day, but I don't have any photo's so I'll assume they weren't all that impressive if there was.

The next day, and no one had caught anything to catch up to Will, so once again, he continued his unbeaten streak with the Gashes. If only it was awarded for most sand dune borries taken, this man would win hands down:



Andre returning from the dunes, shovel in hand. A very familiar sight.

Beachport - August 2008

Deciding the gashes winner would be hard on this trip. What, with everyone hauling in so many fish we'd lose count of who caught what. Perhaps we'd have to go for a biggest salmon wins or something like that.

Oh, how I wish that was the problem.

Myself, with Sani, Andre and Ali, arrived in Beachport about 1pm and after driving around in circles looking for our house (I didn't bring a map, but I did know what it looked like ) for a while, we unloaded our gear and cooked up some lunch. Andy and Anna arrived soon after and before long we were on our way down to Beachport's famous Salmon Hole.

We were presented with a fantastic looking beach, a large reef running from one end to the other, creating a huge gutter in front of it.



I was pretty keen to bait up and get my hooks into the water in order to bring in the first fish of the trip, because it was sure to not take long in water like this. The fish had other ideas however, and had vacated the beach some time before we got there. So, we sat down and waited, and cracked open some beers.

There were thousands of these jelly fish on the beach. I think they are called Blue Bottles. Sani picked one up and its tentacles stung her - her hands puffed up like the Michelin Man!



Sani went off for an explore and nearly ran into this guy, who scared the crap out of her with an angry bark.



Andy couldn't resist the photo opportunity (I notice he took 2 beers with him for the "huge" walk - a few hundred metres)



We ventured back to the holiday home to watch the footy and tuck into a couple of beers. Before long, the music was loud, I was playing air drums, Andy was twirling around in circles, and Andre was doing laps of the decking around the house. Apparently there was a game of poker played too but my recollection is fuzzy.

A late start to the next day and after breakfast/lunch we headed back down to the Salmon Hole, with good faith that it could not fail two days in a row. It did.

We decided to pack it in there, and go for a drive down to Canunda. We were aiming for a spot called Whale Rock, but with the sun fast setting, we decided to put the lines in at a particular beach access point with a very nice gutter out in front.



Things were quiet here too, and there were still thousands of blue bottle jelly fish washed up on the beach. I blame them for the lack of fish. We were standing around having a chat, whilst I was holding onto my fishing rod, when I got a big bite and hooked onto what was probably a Salmon. It dropped off before I could get it up the beach though :(

With darkness setting in, we decided to head back - and my lazyness at not letting down my tyres started to come back to bite me. Lucky for me, I was driving and didn't need to get out to push! Eventually a largish hill caught me out though, and I succumbed and let down the tyres - would have saved a lot of time if I did this at the beginning.. doh. With that done, it was easy going to get out and back into Millicent to pump up the tyres at the servo.

An early night was had by all, still feeling the effects of the previous night.

Andy in a moment of Will like fishing keeness, decides getting up at 5:30am is a good idea. I happen to wake up and feel quite wide awake, so decide to get up too, and we head of to the Salmon Hole for a pre-dawn fish.

We get home around 8:30am and Andre is sitting there happy knowing he got 3 hours more sleep, and we had no fish at all.

Finally, that afternoon, I managed to get a fish on the board! You might be able to make it out in this photo - its in mid air as I am trying to catch it.



Yes a huge 15 cm Salmon Trout!

The next morning, Andy and I again tried the early morning fish, but again without any result. We went on to the jetty briefly on the way back, and Andy managed to catch a barracouta that came past. It was probably about 30-35cm - an ugly bastard of a thing. Back it went into the water.

In some last attempts to get any reasonable fish on the board, I went solo to the Salmon Hole to flick a lure around sunset for an hour, and with my failure, Andy went down to the Jetty to try his luck. Andy likes catching ugly fish, so he brought back to the house a large, but extremely ugly looking fish. I'm not even sure what it is, but Andy was keen to eat it and set about filleting it.



After a bit of "There's no way I'd eat that" talk, he decided to feed it to his cats at home :). Still, it was pretty big, and the rest of us caught absolutely squat, so Andy took home his first Gashes in a fairly unceremonious way (lets face it, its no Snapper).

This trip couldn't have been more disappointing in terms of fishing, but its gotta happen at times, even when you are fishing one of the best providing beaches in the state. Pity it had to happen when we were there though! It was good to see a few different areas that we don't normally venture down too, and also win a game of poker!

Preparation

Only a couple of days to go now!

Coorong - December 2007

A few days before Xmas and the boys and I decided what better time to squeeze in a trip with everyone having a day off work booked for Xmas eve.

We headed down to the Coorong, facing some of the worst weather we've ever endured, and this was in the middle of summer. Massive storms made visibility on the road limited, but as we rolled into the National Park, as seems to happen for us more often than not, the clouds parted and the sun started shining. Win!

Pulling into the campsite the wind was still blowing hard however and extremely cold. It shouldn't be like this in December! A look to the horizon saw the next big storm rolling our way and the decision was made to get out the "BIG TARP" for a shelter.

We set it up before heading out fishing just incase the rain came in and soaked everything. Finally we got out to the beach and it wasn't long before Matt had a big strike on his rod. The gutter was as close as it gets to the beach, and Matt's Alvey made light work of bringing in a nice 5.5 Kilo (from memory) Snapper to the beach.



As usual, Ranger Will suggested we throw him back, whilst the rest of us ran for camera's and scales, and the better suggestion of throwing it on the BBQ. Majority wins!



This will be a dinner fit for kings.



Matt cleaned up the Snapper back at camp, whilst the rest of us got back to fishing in a fruitless attempt to try and put our name of the Gashes trophy. It would be a dirty day to actually lose a gashes when you've pulled a 5kg Snapper off the beach and then someone goes and brings in a 100cm Mulloway or something. Of course, that didn't happen.

Instead, Ondie pulls in a worthless Skate (he says Shark, I say Skate)



And then it was off to camp to sit around sinking beers and listening to Matt and Will talk about how they are the sole members of "The Snapper Club".

Fishingwise, the rest of the weekend was slow. Highlights include: Matts $8 camping chair finally breaking after years of abuse (with suspected help from Will). Will finding a dead bird on the beach, and hooking it onto Matts line. Matt deciding it'll be good bait, and casting it out.. but giving up on the idea 1 minute later. Andre's enormous "FUCK" written on the beach - not sure what he was trying to tell overhead planes. And of course, catching a massive Snapper on a cheap arse surf popper!

Click for bigger versions of the photos

Coming soon!

I still have a fair few of the Gashes trophy trips to put up a report on - but Will is hopefully working on one at the moment from the August 07 trip over to Elliston/Sheringa.

The next trip will be in late August, down to Beachport for the first time. I've been wanting to check out this area for a long time.. I can't wait. Hopefully get to do a bit of 4wding in the national parks down there too.

It also marks Andy's second attempt on the Gashes... its fair to say, he won't win it :)

Coorong - June 2006

Matt and I teamed up with Harry for the June long weekend, and took the trek down to the Coorong national park. Was some hairy 4wding to be done to reach our final camping spot, but we found an 'alternate path' which made things a bit easier.



I actually took that photo on the way home. I swear we didn't see it on the way in! We must have joined up with this track from another section. The alternative was traveling along the beach which was completely washed out - one of the worst conditions I've seen it.

We had to make a good setup with some forecast rain over the weekend, and we were pretty happy with this effort. It did blow down in the night, confirming our thoughts that perhaps a few more poles were needed next time! At least it stayed up as long as we were awake.



Credit to Harry for spending much time leveling out the "floor"

Finally, we got some lines in the water, and within half hour I hooked onto a nice pan hotplate sized salmon at 47cm. I was quietly happy to be leading the 'gashes'. Landing a fish that quick was a good sign and we expected to be pulling in loads. But nothing else was caught for the rest of day 1. Just after sunset we headed back to get a fire going and settle into to many beers, port and a bit of a feast of fish, chops, and burgers.. mmmm



Day 2 provided not a single fish. Matt looked to get a good bite, but couldn't place his beer down quick enough to go wind it in before it got off. I was hungover as hell that morning - damn Harry and his damn port. Had to sleep in a bit before hair of the dog finally cured me.

Day 3 we decided we'd head home around 12ish, and get in a bit of a morning fish. Around 9:30am Matt pulls in a salmon and we measure it to be exactly 47cm - the same size as my fish. We hadnt previously discussed what would happen in the event of a tied gashes, and it was looking very likely for awhile. I still don't know what we would've done, but later that morning about 30mins before heading off, Matt goes out to check his rod which he'd left planted in the sand to find it dancing around like mad. The bastard had hooked onto one whilst we were back at camp packing up. Yet another 47cm salmon, but now he was up 2-1 and the gashes were all his.



We pulled in the lines, threw em in the car and headed off home.

Gleesons Landing - May 2006

The second ever "Gashes Trip" was down to a place on lower Yorke Peninsula called Gleesons Landing. We'd been down here once before with little success, but its a nice enough spot to try again!

Matt, Will, Myself and one of Will's mates, Mike (I think his name was - its a long time ago now) were all in on this trip. We set up camp and then headed straight down to the beach.



Myself and Will threw the smaller rods in with some cockles and managed to get a small feed of Mullet - but they were destined to be used as bait anyway.

The reason Gleesons Landing is a good spot, is because its right next to a place called 'the Dust Hole'. We headed over here the next morning, and spotted a likely looking gutter from the top of the cliffs.

After the descent down the stairs, and the loonnnng walk down the beach, we reached our desired spot and set up the rods. I stopped to take a photo of how far we'd walked. The car was on top of the cliff at the end of the beach, far off in the distance.



After an hour or so, my rod got some bites, and I pulled in a small salmon. Nothing special, but enough to sit me on top of the leaderboard on an otherwise quiet weekend. Not to be out done, Will pulls in a Salmon of his own a bit later, and it goes a bit bigger than my own. Damnit.

We headed back to Gleesons and our campsite to cook up some lunch, before heading north to a place called Swincer's Rocks. We'd also been here recently without success, but with good reports of garfish coming from there, we gave it a shot anyway.



Once again (at the time of writing, there have been 3 attempts at this location) we came up with no garfish. I think its a myth.

Back to camp for a few beers before hitting the beach again to fish through to sunset. It was incredibly cold on the beach and the lack of fish just made it even colder. Bella had the right idea of sitting in the car to keep out of the chilly wind.



Back at camp at night, we got the fire going and cooked up the Salmon we'd caught earlier over the fire, along with a couple of steaks. Mike (once again, I think thats his name :)) LOVED that grill.

Heading back home early the next morning meant no fishing, and Will taking home the trophy again. The tally for the whole weekend was 2 small salmon, and a probably a dozen mullet. At least Yorkes is reliable for Mullet in Autumn!