The Catch Up

[ActiveAngler]

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So after numerous failed attempts to catch up this year, finally the gods aligned and Dids and I managed a brief catch up a couple weeks ago. Pete wandered over on the Friday morning for a couple of nights also.
I met Dids at the ramp, and he had surprisingly had a trouble free run up, which isn’t generally the norm.
We launched and headed out as soon as there was enough water, reaching camp after 20 minutes or so. I had bought a new quick erection, so was unsure how long it would take to get up, but as had been explained to me, there “wasn’t much to it” I grabbed a few yabbies and threw a couple of crab pots in.

To be honest I haven’t even done much crabbing this year, the urge just hasn’t been there and the weather has been pretty awful. Thursday night was pretty quiet, with a couple quiet beers and a cook-up on the fire. Friday morning started early, with good coffee on the fire, and some ham and cheese croissants toasted on the BBQ plate. As a point of discussion, the cast BBQ plate I took over cracked in the first 5 minutes of being on the fire. Never seen it before. Pete turned up, set up, and went to dig some yabbies also, to try and tempt a few whiting. Dids doesn’t bother with bait species such as whiting very often, so flicked a few plastics for a flatty without much success.
Since the floods, most of the yabby banks have a thin layer of muddy silt on them, making walking a bit messy, but the yabbies seem to be in good numbers still. The other problem since the flood, caused by the same layer of silt I think, is that once the tides get big, the water gets pretty dirty.

This hasn’t worried the whiting, or flathead, but has made the lure fishing pretty tough the few times I have gotten out this year. I checked the pots, with one nice winger and a few undersized, then just went and fished the mouth of a few drains for a few nice sand whiting and a couple 50cm flatties on the start of the run in tide. Pete had a few nice whiting too, but apparently there were no decent fish in the straights…. according to the master. Dinner I think was mostly steaks on the BbQ and some good burgers and beers, with plenty of yarns around the fire till late.
There was a bit of condensation forming in a couple of the sleeping apparatus’ with Pete getting dripped on pretty regularly.

I had suggested a nice creek that should fish well early, so Dids and Pete headed that way early in the morning, ending up with plenty of trevally and Pete got a good grunter. I had a look along a bit of deep bank for a few tailor, and lost a nice blue salmon. Back at camp around 10am for a big breakky cookup, bacon, eggs, rolls, and then a bit of a rest. I wanted to have a bit of a fish fry for Saturday night, so planned to just try for a few whiting close to camp. Right on the low, I picked up a dozen good fish pretty quick, with Dids even getting in on the action. I was quite astounded when Did’s proved quite adept at catching a few whiting.
We had a bit of a late lunch, then I nabbed a few herring in the cat net, which Dids kept alive in his crab cooker somehow for the afternoon. We whiled away the hours, I cleaned a few fish, had a shower, Pete was out in the boat getting a few whiting, and Dids started fishing the livies off the bank.

As the tide rose, Dids plan proved quite successful, with him landing a few flatties, bream and cod.
A nice cook up of fresh whiting and flatties, and potato and onion parcels cooked on the fire in alfoil topped off a great weekend, with some nice whiskey and a cigar, and an amazing sunset.

There were a few bugs morning and evening, but they weren’t too bad. There was no wind all weekend so that didn’t help with that. We wrapped it up early Sunday morning and said goodbye until next time, but like I said as we watched the sun set through the smoky haze on Saturday evening, times like this just can’t be bought.

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