RULE TWO.

Just a short report for the weekend...

Rules for the last few days fishing were as follows;

Rule 1:   HAVE FUN AND CATCH SOME FISH
Rule 2:   IF YOU MISS THE FISH...HAVE FUN.

Well whilst we did get fish each day, it wasn't easy, dirty water, bloody wind, and a seemingly lack of fish on the flats did not help. Graeme tells me the high temperature of the water had an impact on the fish.  

Buddha and Barra......first Day..first barra...and no bloody wind. 

There was a heap of us out there, I hope I don't miss any of you, but from memory after pushing rule two for four days, there was the Wilson boat, the Hagleys, the Stig boat, Foster boat,Two Williams' boats, Barbless, Broken Flagon boat with new flyfisher, Lord Jim's boat (with Dasher), Crusty and Blommy and finally the M & M boat (Mark and Mario) with me. 

As I said we caught fish, even enough to have a few platters on the table, but it wasn't the usual and wasn't there some sledging about some "fish a cast" comments.  Actually on the M & M boat I don't think there was a let up on the sledging. But I will leave all that to another story teller. 

Another barra on a wild thing

There were schools of smaller queenfish busting up around the harbour, and underneath some of these schools, there were some big fish, but the little fish kept monstering the flies and there were no real hookups on really big fish.  Barra were caught everyday, but not in the usual numbers and tarpon with blue salmon kept turning up.  I think Wayne was the only one to get threadies, but we did see some monsters on the flats.

Black and red worked to on this great fingermark.

The real monsters that we saw were, huge milkfish.  They were in the wind lanes slurping up anything on the surface.  I am not sure how big they actually get but to the end of the tail some of them appeared to be in the 1.5m size.   Must tie a wind lane fly for the future. 

So because there was not a fish a cast and we did not have to hide behind the gunwale to tie the flies on through fear of being attacked by ravenous fish, Rule Two was invoked, and didn't we have some fun thanks to the great company, and the wonderful staff and people at Sand Palms.

The pool actually overflowed with the mob in it, there was some sledging about some of us looking like beached whales and pushing the water level up, but it was mainly due to the size of the meals we had down there.  There was a few other issues with weight however, the M&M boat could not get up on the plane with the weight so we had to put on a 'Fat Bastard' prop to get it out of the water.  Couldn't move around much in it either for fear of it tipping water over the side of the boat because it was so low in the water.

The 'Fun' rule did have consequences however, all of us suffered rib injuries from laughing so much.  

UPDATE:   I've been instructed that this has to be shown too.  It was a medal that was presented to me and I was forced (under threat of no wine) to wear down there at Sand Palms.  Very unfair!  and they reckon I sledge!