Interesting, mildly successful, weekend trip.

[Ducksta]

In this installment of 'How Ducksta consistently fails to catch fish' I was hauling enough gear to get 6 blokes out on the shore/beach around an esky teaching them the art of catching your own dinner.
Well, would you believe that on my way up the coast with my mate's on Friday night I realised I'd remembered my battery chargers but forgotten my camera's, yet again, only a week after last time. And of course, nobody else packed one.
So anyway, we were staying at Pearl beach, NSW, which is a small sandy stretch just inside the heads in Brisbane waters.
As mentioned, I had brought quite a bit of gear. And we also had golf clubs, a couple of cases of beer, and a few bottles of port, in tow.
Anyway, due mostly to what I can only put down to being some dodgy snags on the Friday night BBQ, when I woke up at a gentlemanly 7 and tried to get interest in a morning down the beach, I was greeted by bloodshot eyes, the smell of old sweat, and a lot of very angry yelling. No love for fishing but I decided to dive in for a wake up swim, and had a look around to get the feel of the place for a later mission.
After a bit of rehydration and some lunch at the local bowls club a couple of the boys mooted and interest in heading off for a quick nap and then an afternoon fish, while the others hit the lynx.
So those of us who headed back to the house quickly set about setting up a few rods for the assault later. I had earlier picked the beach for probably being a good whiting, bream and flathead spot. So obviously this meant I had to tie a few rigs and test a few drags, and answer the questions 'what are you doing now?, 'what is that thing?', 'what does it do?' about 800 times each.
So I set up 2 light beach rods a bit heavier to leave some big baits out and 4 light rods for us to hit the shore with a bag of prawns in easy reach of the sandy flats I called for prime real estate.
So the time came that the stinking hot had f-ed off and I thought the beach was beckoning. Tried to rally the troops and only one mate was still keen. The others had discovered that the rental had Foxtel and were busy watching reruns of Friends or something.
So I took my mate, he who had never fished at the age of 29, down to the beach. Taught him the simple art of casting a spinning rod in easy conditions. D'oh, forgot the cardinal rule - don't get sand in the reel. Ahh, lucky I've learnt this lesson previously and prepared by having reels of no more than $20 value on hand for the newb's. Still, brand new <$20 reel making some godawful noises already.
Anyway, he got the hang of casting and not putting his reel in the dirt easily enough, but unfortunately conditions meant that every line in the water for more than a minute had free floating weed wrapped around it in quantities enough to snap some rods if not handled correctly.
A move was in order, down the beach to a sheltered corner free from weed. So here we set up shop.
Over the next few hours, I got a few hits, but consistently missed fish. My mate, however, barely lost a bait. To his credit though, he stuck it out with me and actually really enjoyed the afternoon outside relaxing.
In the end I landed 2 decent tarwhine approaching 30cm, right on dusk. And I dropped another one of similar size while trying to run the rod down to my mate so he could feel what 'catching' something felt like. I'll have to take hime some place I can gaurantee success next time. Perhaps my aquarium...
Normally I'd send them back but as we were heading back to an already hot BBQ plate I dropped them in the esky. I had hoped for a couple more once they came on to get a bit more of a taste for everyone but lucked out.

[Snodger]

sounds like a good weekend regardless mate and possibly another fishing convert.
good stuff.
Steve

[Bazil Brush]

Fish are a bonus on those trip's mate.sound's like you had a good time anyway good one.

Baz