Hillocks Drive - December 2014

Back to Hillocks for our third Christmas break trip in a row. With 9 people, and 6 dogs, and 4 cars. it was our busiest campsite in quite some time. With Hillocks now charging a pricey sum of $31 per car per night, they did quite well out of us!

Unfortunately, the western end of the property remains closed off, so we had booked a site as close to the fence as we could get (actually, it was just the last of the decent sites left to book).

Kym & Sally (and Dog-Ellie) left from north east Adelaide, Will & Dana (& Baby-Ellie) left from the southern Adelaide hills, and Sani and I (and our hounds) left from Port Hughes after visiting Mum. With no coordination at all other than "meet you there in the afternoon", we miraculously arrived within 2 minutes of each other! Kym's brother Scott, his partner Kate, and his daughter Taylor were all to arrive the following day.

We set up camp and settled in for lunch and a few beers, and quickly got into super relaxation mode. We decided that fishing could wait until Prime Time, around dusk, and that is when we loaded up our gear and made the hike to our usual beach fishing area.

Will, Kym and I all got two rods out into the water each, and it didn't take long for my rod to get a bite, and in came a nice salmon, probably around 1kg or so. As I was digging a hole in the sand for that one, my other rod had bites, and salmon number 2 came sliding in soon after. I got my first rod back out, and before I could bait my second rod again, another fish was on! I wound this one in to find that I had in fact a double header. Four quick fire salmon on the beach - the plan was to use these for bait over the coming nights.

Will soon had a couple landed himself, including a nice sized Sweep from the surf. Kym lagged behind, but finally managed to get on the leader board with another salmon.

By the time some dolphins cruised by and seemingly spooked all the salmon, we'd landed (and released half) about 15 salmon and a sweep. Will and I evenly split, and Kym still on one. We had some big baits out in the water as the sun set over the water, and soon after, Will had a massive run. He was hooked on to something with headshakes, but it snapped off after a few minutes. Possibly rubbed line across the rocks, or maybe a shark whipping line with it's tail. We fished for awhile longer, but it was all quiet, so we headed back to camp.

The following day marked the beginning of the wind. The entire day it was blowing pretty hard, and even back at camp the dunes weren't providing much protection. Down on the beach would have been near on impossible to fish, so we chilled out around camp for the entire day, and helped out Scott with his tent and other setting up once he arrived. Then perhaps the highlight of the trip, Kym & Sally making pizza's on the Weber Q! We're heading into "glamping" territory here.

The next day was more of the same. Some reinforcements of the shade setups were made, and Will & Dana decided to go for a drive to explore around the foot. The rest of us went on a hike in search of a swimming rock pool out on the point. It was far too windy and cold for swimming, but Sani was keen regardless. The walk included a particularly tough climb up a steep dune, so by time we got there, the pool was tempting. Still, the wind ripping through there said no.

Still, the girls had a quick dip before we headed back to camp - arriving just after Will & Dana returned. We convinced ourselves that the wind had subsided enough to go for a fish. Knowing that this was likely to be a shortlived adventure, we packed light and hiked down.

Indeed, the swell was too large, and seaweed to common to put in much effort at all. We headed back to camp right on sunset.

The next morning we went for a walk to to beach without any gear, just to check on the situation. Big swells were still hammering the beach, so Kym suggested that we drive over to the other side of the foot at Point Turton and have a fish there instead. All agreed, and we were on our way.

The water at Point Turton was flat and calm, and many boats were out on the water. Stark contrast to over the Marion Bay side. The jetty was packed with families fishing, though not much looked to be getting caught. We headed onto the jetty armed with squid jags and a few lures, and spent a few hours flicking those out into the water. Sally and Scott both managed a squid each, but other than that it was all quiet. We grabbed lunch at the bakery and headed back to camp, which was still blowing a gale. Thankfully our setup had stayed in tack though.

Another evening beach fish was had, and this time I managed to hook a small salmon. It was of the just legal variety, so immediately got sent back out to sea on triple ganged hooks. I had hopes for hooking whatever large fish Will had on the first night, but after many hours of nothing, we threw in the towel.

It was a late night around camp and with the drive home the following day, I assumed that was me done for fishing. I might have held a slender lead in the Gashes but it wasn't conclusive. The dogs had other ideas however, waking me up at 7am. No one else was stirring, so I decided to take the rods down to the beach for one last effort, hoping to take some fresh fish home (not for me, of course).

I half expected to see Will already down there fishing, but the beach was empty. The wind had dropped right off and it was now great fishing conditions. I managed to only get two more fish, before the sun started roasting me and I thought I better get back to camp to help pack up.

Far West Coast - November 2014

With Will sidelined on new born duties, the gashes competition was wide open. Of course, it was possible we may not see any mullies hit the sand either. Or, mullies might take someone else's bait for once!

Ben and his mate Cam tagged along on this far west journey - always good to have a second vehicle out there for safety - though the new Patrol performed flawlessy (and no feeling of "will it start?" before heading off from a remote camp). In my car were the two Kyms.

Day 1

As usual, we hit the road by 3:30am, and by 12:45 on Thursday, we pulled up at the Penong Pub for lunch. Despite our booking, it seems they didn't expect us, and had to go heat up their kitchen equipment. A few beers and a game of Buck Hunter later, and we were full up on chicken schnitzels and on our way again.

We aired down behind the dunes and set off over the top. I got slightly lost as the tracks had all blown over, and then made it to the familiar section with two short steep sections. Only this time, the second steep bit was not so short, and a lot steeper than usual. Three attempts to get over told me this was no hope, so we headed back into the township to move along the fowlers beach towards the ledge area. Having been severely bogged in the seaweed along this stretch in the past, I grabbed the binoculars to check out how much space we had between weed and water. Some other 4wd's were coming back along there, so it was deemed safe and off we went.

Coming off the beach, the tracks were very overgrown - the new Patrol suffering the first of what was to be many new pin stripe 'features'. I told myself it was good to get the first one out of the way, but still grimaced on every screech there after.

We had a quick flick on Scotts Beach into a suspicious dark section of water, but came up with nothing. We headed back out to the point to suss out the ledge, and to my dismay, there was someone else fishing there! Despite this being a fairly well known location, we've never actually had anyone else there. So, we decided to fish around the bend a bit.

Cam scored the first fish of the trip, being a tiny rock cod. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to get much better for Cam in the fishing department this week.

It was getting late in the day, and the nearby fishers had left empty handed. We needed to set up a camp, so moved around to their spot and rolled out the swags. Nothing decent was being caught, and everyone was exhausted from the early start, so we hit the hay early. Ben cast out a squid head and went to sleep next to his rod.

Day 2

We woke early to get packed up. The plan was to have another prospect for any salmon schools, but press on to the Dog Fence with our purchased bait supply if nothing was about. We had a good 10kgs of pilchards as well as squid heads and other bits and pieces.

Ben had a big run on his squid head in the night, but pulled the hooks. The frayed line suggested it might be some type of shark.

Whilst getting the car packed up, we spotted a black circle further up the coast. The newcomers thought it might be sea weed, but I've fished this spot enough times to know that area is usually all sand! We head off quickly to go and inspect it closer.

By time I have climbed down the cliff to get to a fishing ledge, Kym D is already hooked onto a salmon. Hauling them up the 8 metre drop was difficult however, and we dropped many at the last moment. Thankfully the school moved a bit and we were down on a lower, more manageable ledge. The school was out quite far now and required our best casts - but the hook ups were frequent, and we had around 20 on the rocks before they moved on. It was an awesome morning fishing session.

After filleting our catch and topping off the esky with crushed ice, we set off to the dog fence. There is a nice track running behind the dunes that provided good safe travel for the first 5kms or so. After that it was pretty easy going along the beach. We selected a campsite opposite a nice big gutter, and unpacked.

Unfortunately, as a few quickly found out, the bottom seemed to have a bit of unseen reef, and rigs were getting snagged and busted off. I must have got lucky and hit not reefy patch, because I landed another salmon soon after. Despite having just caught a load, I thought fresher the better, and threw it in the esky.

I was at camp cutting up a new bait, when I heard an almighty crack, followed by some "ooohs" (said in that kind of painful manner when you see a footy player get hit in the nuts). I peered around the car and see Kym A staring up his Sensor Surf rod which had snapped in half right in the centre. He stared upwards for a good 10 seconds in disbelief. He had only been leaning back lightly to try and pull out a snag when it went bang. Kym had another 10 footer, 6-10kg rod on board, so he was still in the game, but would have preferred something more heavy duty for casting big baits.

However, as weird as this might sound, this may just have turned out to be a blessing in disguise (more later).

We decide it is probably best we move camp rather than continue on the snags, but since it's getting late, we'll stay the night and move early.

Day 3

We arise early and get packed up as quick as possible. I'm thankful we both have awnings now, and haven't set up an elaborate tarp shelter. I had noted a good gutter about 2.8kms from the entrace (we were at about 9km now) and decided to go and check that one out again. I was worried someone else would have set up camp there, but luckily, everyone had passed on it. Not sure why, as it looked great! Another fisherman out there told us good looking gutters "are too good to be true" and always passed on them for lesser looking water.

Anyway, we set up camp again, and thankfully, no snags this time. Ben then brings out his spare rod for Kym to use, the Abu Garcia Thunder Stick. Ben is talking this thing up like no tomorrow - it is the rod that always catches. The rod that gets fish when no other rod can. A rod blessed by the fishing gods themselves. But one wonders why he not using it himself.

The thunder stick didn't catch any fish that day, but neither did any other rod... until after sunset.

We had our rods out, with little ebay led lights flashing away, and were talking around camp, when Kym D says "Someone is on!", and like a dream come true, that someone was me.

I bolt down to my rod, as best as I can in my waders, and strike. The fish was shaking its head and making massive runs. I have never caught a big mulloway before, but I was pretty sure this was it. At least I hoped it was and not a shark. It certainly wasn't a sting ray.

I was using my Wilson 5120 and Penn 950ssm so knew I had plenty of grunt to let this thing run on the drag and let the curve of the rod do it's thing. Still, I was incredibly worried about this being a one that got away story, and my legs were shaking with nervousness.

The other rods were wound in to ensure no tangles caused any heartache, and I'm not sure how long it took - it felt like 10 or 15 minutes, but soon Kym D was in the shallows calling "big mully!" and I just had wait for the right wave. It came, and the fish was up onto the sand. Elation from everyone went up, and I couldn't quite believe it. This is my eighth far west coast trip, and my first good mully (the only other being a just legal last year). It's all worth it at that moment.

The fish measured 113cm, and weighed 33lb (or 15 kg). It was certainly quite fat for it's length.

Everyone re-baited and got lines out in the water again, and I commissioned Kym D to do my filleting work for me (under the guise of not wanting to waste any precious mully meat).

Soon after, Kym D again notices something happening with the rods, this time saying "my rod has gone!". He raced out there to see his rod wasn't actually gone, but the tip of it, holding the light, had snapped off and slid down the line. It seems that he had hooked a big bit of seaweed and the sideways current put the wrong sort of pressure on the tip. One Shimano Beachbasher rod busted. Now, two heavy duty surf rods out of action and it was only day 3. Luckily, he had a Sensor Surf to still use, but having seen one busted just a day earlier, there must have been some nervousness there.


Day 4

I was up early again, feeling rather happy, thinking about engraving my name on the Gashes trophy. There were a few lines out in the water, but a bit of seaweed causing issues, and a general consensus that we'd get serious around 12:30 on the incoming tide.

Now, here comes the blessing in disguise: Kym A, now using the Thunder Stick, sees the rod buckle over onto something weighty, and line start streaming out. Everyone jumps into action. Camera's come out, brag mats come out, other lines are wound in, and everyone is down on the beach.

It is clearly another big fish. This was Kym A's seventh outing for no result so far, so I was hoping for him that it'd be a good mully - say, about 112cm good.

It was a long fight, but when I saw it come into the breakers looking beat, I picked it for about 1 metre long. However, when it came sliding up the sand, I knew my gashes hopes had been short lived. It went off the end of the brag mat. We estimated it at about 123cm - a little bit shorter than the 125cm monster Will caught a couple of years back - but a bit skinnier. Probably around the 40lb mark, but we didn't weight it as Kym decided to let it go. It was a bit slow in swimming off, but was still giving its tail some sluggish kicks as it went back through the gutter and out of sight, so hopefully it was ok.

More high fives and a long walk back to camp. The thunder stick delivered just as Ben promised. I asked if he was taking it back now, but he said after the second catch I'll be getting a bit annoyed, after the third, I will take it back, and the fishing will be ON. That was the thunder stick prophecy. Unfortunately, it didn't quite pan out.

Day 5

It was a day full of seaweed, seaweed, and more seaweed. Not a single bite was had. Many beers consumed.

Day 6

Seaweed was still hanging around, and our fresh fillets were running somewhat low. We had a pre-trip plan to at some point move down to Tuckamore for a fish, so we figured it might as well be now, rather than put up with the sea weed any longer.

We packed up, and headed off, detouring via Fowlers to check for any Salmon. It didn't look good so decided to grab a quick bite at the Kiosk before moving on. I was determined not to let my tyres down for only a 5 minute stint on sand, so went on the Fowlers Beach again as it is quite firm. All was going well until we hit a sea weedy section, and I made a spur of the moment decision to head below a big ball of weed rather than above it. Down goes the front right tyre into slush. This is the worst spot to be bogged - you're in absolute slush and the tide creeps up quickly.

Ben gives me a snatch backwards and it pulls me far enough to get max trax under the tyres, and I'm able to gently reverse out. Ben, however, gets bogged himself in the sand, and has to let his tyres down to move out. In hindsight, I could have perhaps then snatched him forwards myself, but at least I didn't have to let my tyres down only to pump them up 5 minutes later!

The track into Tuckamore provides many many more scratches. They still hurt like the first. It won't matter when I catch my next big fish though.

Unfortunately, the first casts at our new camp provide returns of bait gone, bait gone, bait gone, and.... a shitty. Shit. These things are a right pain in the butt. Baits are stolen almost instantly and when you do hook them, they spike the crap out of you leaving painful holes in your hands.

Day 7

Seaweed was becoming a problem again, and the shitties still a massive issue. Around lunch time, Kym A got a solid bite on his rod amongst the shitties, but no hook up. He then rebaits and casts to the same spot and almost instantly gets a hook up. A nice gummy shark comes up the beach. It is his first ever Gummy, so that makes two firsts of the trip for him (three if you include the broken rod.. sorry Kym). The Thunder Stick strikes again!

Despite the catch, it was clearly not a fishable location when you couldn't keep a bait for more than 2 minutes. We made a decision to move on the next day.

Day 8

Not willing to risk driving the beach, where we've come unstuck before, we take some behind the dunes track - very narrow - more scratches.

We pop out onto the beach again about half way up and it's easy going from there.There were a few great looking gutters and holes along the way, so it was hard to decide where to set up camp. Perhaps we picked the wrong one, because we had absolutely no bites all day! It was windy as hell all day too, making it pretty uncomfortable. The wind dropped at night, but still nothing was biting.

Ben has to head off the next day, and the forecast was showing more wind, so we decided to join him for the drive home.

Day 9

The cars were packed up early, mully fillets distributed, and we were soon on our way home for that enjoyable 10 hour car ride.

This trip had some great moments. A crazy session landing solid sambo's from the rocks. Two PB mulloways, and a first ever gummy for Kym. However, between those moments, it was barren - not a bite or a run to be had. Not even a single stingray to be seen (I'd normally see this as good thing, but they can be entertaining when nothing else is on the go!).

Salt Creek Again

When I saw new moon, low winds and sunny conditions for the weekend, I quickly asked for and received Friday off work. Unfortunately, the others guys don't have bosses as considerate to fishing needs as mine, and no one else was able to make it. So, it was just me and Sani, off for a romantic weekend away camping and fishing!

The destination, as it often has been this year, was Salt Creek. I popped into the Salt Creek servo around 11am to have a chat to Adam, who didn't fill me with great confidence on the recent catches ("a few sharks, a few salmon..." without much enthusiasm), but the good fishing has to begin somewhere.

I found a very likely looking hole about 4 or 5kms up from 42 Mile Crossing, and pulled the Patrol up and quickly set about getting my rods ready. Sani set up the cooker and prepped lunch - she was quickly proving to be a very useful companion.

I had wanted to get some fresh squid heads for bait, so stopped in at a fish store in Meningie on the way. It was more of a shed with a couple of fridges, but in any case, they didn't have squid and I walked out of there with some mullet fillets and a bag of 'just in' pilchards. They weren't brined, but looked very fresh and hadn't been frozen at all.

On my first cast, I am pretty sure I saw one of these super fresh pilchards disintegrate into the air before the sinker even hit the water. Nonetheless, I set up my other rod, my old Wilson 5120 that hadn't seen any action since I bought my Penn Prevail last year, and casted that out. The pilchard appeared to stay connected to the hooks this time.

I rebait my first rod, and cast back out. Being the only person fishing, I thought I'd go twice as hard as normal with two big set ups. The old Wilson had a few shakes, and I noticed the line well down the beach. I started winding it in, and found a bit of weight on the end of the line followed by some good headshakes. A nice little gummy was soon on the beach and I was stoked. Within the first 30 minutes of fishing, I had a good catch.

Although my baits were disappearing as soon as I cast them, it wasn't long again before I had another bite. This time a small mulloway which was quickly returned. Things were looking hopeful and confidence was then high.

Disintegrating baits were proving problematic, however. I had brought along some left over brined pilchards from a previous trip that were going to be berley. I found that they were actually holding onto the hooks better (not by much though) and saved them for bait. They'd be needed if I couldn't catch a salmon to use as bait, as the supply was quickly thinning, having to rebait every single cast.

I fished hard and long - into the dark hours without a single bite. The water looked primed for fish but it wasn't happening for me.

We retired to the tent around 10pm, and I was up early on Saturday in hope and need of an early morning salmon.

Some seaweed was floating through the gutter, but it was more of a nuisance than a problem. By lunchtime though, I still hadn't landed anything that could be used as bait, and had run out of mullet fillets, and was running low on pilchards. When I starting reeling in 20kg piles of ribbon weed, I decided there was no point sticking around for a night time fish, as my pilchard supply was bound to run dry by then (and didn't want to take the hour round trip to Salt Creek to continue battling weed piles). So, we had a slow pack up whilst I optimistically had lines out in the water, hoping for that last moment catch. Instead, I got a whopping pile of weed and snapped my rig off. Definitely time to head home then.

To make matters worse, my air compressor packed it in half way through inflating my first tyre. Lets hope 4wd Supacentre can do a warranty replacement before this year's Far West Coast trip!

Boating Newbies

With supposedly great weather predicted on Sunday, we decided to get Will's boat out on the water for a much overdue fishing expedition.

Whilst we're fairly comfortable these days when it comes to beach fishing, we are complete newbies in the boat. The plan was to get out in the morning and load up on squid, then catch some snapper on the arvo tide. Of course, we don't have a GPS or even GPS spots, but with some stories of mates of mates getting into a few close off shore from Wirrina, we launched the boat there about 10 am feeling rather hopeful.

We spent many hours drifting around for barely a touch (and in my case, not a touch). Kym and Will had a few cuttlefish between them, but chucked them back. Kym got a couple of perfect small bait sized squid.

We then headed out deeper and sounded around looking for some structure on the bottom which would be a likely snapper producing spot. This is a lot harder than it seems.. we'd see something good and then loop around to try settle on the spot and fail to find it again!

We eventually dropped anchor and commenced the waiting game.

Without any hint of life below deck, the weather report failed us with some very gusty winds chopping up the sea. It was getting quite uncomfortable, so we headed in shallow again to get onto smoother water.

After stopping at various spots, we finally hit upon some action as the sun was getting low in the sky. Kym winding in a big King George at 43 cm. That got the hopes up! A few big sweep were landed and released, and many rock cod too. Then Will got a good hook up that he thought might be a salmon. Instead, a monster KGW at 47cm come into the boat. Unfortunately, it went a bit quiet on the whiting after that and I was copping a well deserved ribbing about my lack of fishing ability.

With the sun getting quite low and the boat without any lighting, it was time to head in. Almost defeated, I changed back to a bigger rig declaring I would go out with a bang. On that last cast, I finally got a good bite.. excitement was huge... a whiting of my very own approached the boat, and I launched it out of the water and onto the deck. The others immediately pointed out it was smaller than theirs to belittle my moment in the spotlight, but I didn't care, I was finally on the board with something I could keep!

The last cast catch made us have another "last cast" and Will came up with a fish again, this time a really cool looking leather jacket, its blue sides shimmering in the sunlight. Being quite large, it went straight into the icebox.

So after about 9 hours on the water, we had 3 whiting, a couple of squid, and a leather jacket. Not exactly a great haul, but a few lessons learnt and it beats sitting on the couch.

Coorong - August 2014

As many trip ideas are born, Kym and I decided over a few beers that a late August trip had to be done. The girls were keen and the only question remaining was where to go.

It's not often the forecast for Salt Creek shows light northerlies and blue skies for the weekend, so they swayed us to head down there for the weekend, hoping for a winter mulloway.

Will and Dana couldn't get the time off work, but were keen enough to come down early on Saturday to get one night in.

We rolled onto the beach Friday morning and very surprisingly, settled on a campsite / gutter with reasonable speed for us (Kym and I have been known for driving up and down the beach without committing to any spot for lengthy periods of time).

Our new Blackwolf Turbo Tents went up in a turbo like fashion, and the first camping burger of the trip soon followed. Eventually, we got the lines into the water, and Kym was soon winding a salmon back onto the sand after his very first cast. Straight into the bait bucket for that one.

His next cast landed an undersized mulloway. The cast after that, another salmon. This continued for his first eight casts with a mixture of salmon and small mulloway landed. The biggest mulloway went 68cm.

The one fish per cast was going well for Kym, but then he got a little bit too confident and decided to throw in a second line. The streak was over, and no matter how long he took before winding in that line, he knew there was likely no bait left on the hooks.

Around the same time, my line finally saw some action, and I grabbed the rod and pulled back to feel quite a bit of weight on it. I thought this could either be a big pile of seaweed caught in a rip, a big stingray, or a decent sized fish that wasn't putting on a lot of fight. I hoped for the latter, but after about 15 minutes of struggling and very sore arms, I saw the stingray come into the shallows. It took a long time to get a good wave to push it up onto the sand. I'm not sure if this is a different type of stingray to others I've caught, or someone has previously chopped it off, but it appeared to have no barb on it's tail. Still, I wasn't taking any risks so, cut my hooks off and let it slide back into the water on the next wave.

The salmon continued to be landed at semi-regular intervals, which meant we were able to have some good fillets of fresh salmon out for bait. As the sun set in perfect conditions, hopes were high for a big mulloway to come along, but unfortunately it was a very quiet sessions at night. We pulled in the rods around 9pm and sat  around the fire.

I woke up the following morning surprisingly early, before everyone else, and before the sun at come up over the dunes. I thought some driftwood was washed up on the beach, but on closer inspection, it was a whale vertebrae! A cool find I thought. 

I decided to go for a stroll up the dunes to look at the view and take a few photos. My rod was still in the water on the beach, so if I got a bite it was going to be quite a run. 

Will and Dana rocked up around 9am and Will soon after had a salmon landed - also his first cast. He wasn't able to go on to beat Kym's eight in a row streak though.

The fishing was good again, although the catches not as regular as the day before. Will got another 68cm mulloway (Why are there so many mulloway agonisingly close to 75cm, yet so few just over?)

It was another awesome day in terms of weather, and the campfire drinks went late into the night. So late, that everyone was a little slow moving in the morning, but the seaweed had washed in and meant fishing wasn't much of an option anyway. We cooked up breakfast and headed off home.

Gleesons - July 2014

Because we're getting old and soft, this trip was very much reliant on a preferable weather report. When the weekend forecast showed no rain and very little wind, I suggested to Kym it had to happen. Luckily for us, short notice days off were granted and the trip planning began. Unfortunately, everyone else had less luck securing a day off, or simply didn't read their email in time.

Tossing up between Salt Creek and Yorkes could have taken weeks itself with our combined indecisiveness, so I called it as Yorkes mainly to give the new Gashes bus it's first run without too much risk of catastrophe (the beach at Salt Creek is quite sketchy at the moment from recent reports).

I'll glaze over our attempts to catch some squid for bait along the way. Lets just say we left them biting at Wool Bay - and we still left empty handed.

So, we head over to the Dust Hole to check it out and see if there were any schools about. Sad to see that the old 4wd access track is well and truly closed off now. With no visible schools in the water, and no desire to go walking for a few kms, we headed back to Gleesons and set up camp so we could cook up lunch.

The new Gashes Bus!

Then we cracked beers, baited up, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Not a single bite. The next day, Kym attempted to catch some small salmon trout on his light rod to use as bait. I admire his persistence, casting continuously for an hour before finally landing one. When he landed a second soon after, I knew it was my time.

Kym working hard whilst I sit at camp

One cast, and I land a tommy, which was soon sailing back out to sea on a couple of 8/0's. Content with having a good bait out in the water, I went back to my seat and continued drinking some of West End's Finest. Unfortunately, when I went to check on it an hour later, it wasn't there. I hope it didn't come off during the cast, at least. That would be more painful to accept than the idea that perhaps a huge mulloway came along and pried it off the hooks somehow.

Another night around the fire with rods out in the water until midnight, and still, not a single run. We did have a local mouse come and sit by the fire with us though. Kym fed it some cheese and it was very happy. You can actually see it in this photo on the left of the fire.

Fishing was slow but the scenery and weather were perfect

With all hope of catching a decent fish lost, we casted out for one final crack in the morning. Kym was trekking off down the beach to the next gutter, when I noticed a small tap on my rod. Was that a wave? better check. I wind in a little and feel some weight on the line.. quickly followed by the glorious feeling of headshakes that I'd missed so much. On my light surf rod, it actually proved a bit of a challenge to get up past the breakers, but soon enough I had it on the beach. A nice 2.8kg Salmon. It looked like he'd been having some trouble with the local shark population.

Looking mighty happy here.

Hopes were high that this was the opening of the flood gates, but it was just a lonely salmon and nothing more was caught. We soon packed up and headed back to Adelaide, thinking we mustn't wait 3 months before the next outing.

Coorong - April 2014

Better late than never...

After Kym secured his first legal mulloway back in February, we were keen to get back down to Salt Creek to add to the tally. The reports of good fish were starting to dry up and it seemed like this might be the last chance of the season.

I set off along with the two Kyms and swung by Ben's house to form a small convoy.

At the Salt Creek servo, we were informed that some recent catches of snapper and mulloway had come between the 42 mile and tea tree crossing - so that is where we pointed the cars. We crossed over a bone-dry tea tree, and turned left at the beach. After a bit of indecisiveness and back and forth on the beach, we settled upon a campsite with a decent looking gutter adjacent.

The sun was shining, and weather superb. Perfect beer drinking weather! Now, the lengthy time between the trip and writing this has some details a bit sketchy here. It wasn't the beer consumption.

Over the course of the trip, there were a few elephant sharks landed, in fact I am pretty sure everyone present landed at least one. The real excitement of the trip came when Kym D wound in a mulloway that called for the measuring tape. Unfortunately it fell just short of legal at 73cm and was sent on it's way.

Being that the mighty mulloway is the dream catch, that was declared enough to take out the Gashes.  The other highlight of the trip was a fox walking in to camp whilst we sat around the fire. He was eating up old baits and discarded bits of elephant shark.

Photos to follow. I managed to avoid photoing any fish once again.

A fairly lazy effort at setting up camp.

Can't complain!

The weather was right, the fishing not so much

Crystal clear skies

Our night time intruder