We followed Jon and Jack out to Bynoe a couple of days later when, according to the weather forecasts, the wind and conditions would be better. Well that didn't work out. Sunday afternoon it
poured, and poured. The rain continued during most of the night, but it was going to clear? The forecast has said so!, however on Monday morning we thought that the alarm had gone off early because it was still pitch black and when we had a look, the sky was covered in thick black cloud and the rising sun could hardly be seen through it. But it was going to clear, so we drained the boat, and launched in Milne just before seven. The sea was calm with little or no wind so it was easy to make our way up to Turtle Island. But
then the wind came up and the sea got very rough, with an uncomfortable swell between Turtle and the outer Island flat we were heading for. Turned back and got to calmer water near 'Observation City'.
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| But, it was going to clear? |
There was a lot of activity in the creeks, there were barra tailing and swimming along in small groups and threadies rolling on the jelly prawns, so we had plenty of fish around us. Cathie has just got over a frozen shoulder thanks to the treatment by Michael 'Vinny' Austin (Nightcliff Naturopathic Centre), and we were a bit afraid of her using the fast rods that she usually uses. Instead she used a lovely medium rod that Larry Lockwood had made for her and had no trouble with the shoulder. The rod must have been a lucky one, because first cast she had barra, then threadies. They were not big fish and all ranged between 50cm and 60cm, but there were a lot of them and great fun. The barra for once didn't seem jumpy or put off too much by the casting.
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| The 'Lucky' Lockwood rod |
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| Typical barra |
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| Typical threadies caught...but there were some monsters around too. |
Most of the fish were caught in the same area, wherever the jellies were the barra and salmon were feeding. Did not see any really big barra, but there were some monster threadies around and as luck would have it the time that we hooked one of these, it decided to wrap the line around the electric and that was the end of that. Cathie had most success on what she calls her 'Every' Thing fly..........part Pink Thing, part Wild Thing etc., etc.,
The wind and weather got worse, so we made our way back through a storm to the ramp early. Bimini was up in an attempt to keep us dry but that was a waste of time and thank goodness for bilge pumps or we would have been swimming home.
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| Lovely weather for ducks! |
It rained again most of Monday night, and the sky was clearer the next morning, but only for a while. Because it had blown up at the top of the harbour we decided to try our old haunts in the Annie and the Charlotte. There were more fish down on those flats than we have seen in a long time. Some barra that appeared around 80cm with heaps in the 50 plus range, and even though the water was murky from all the fresh in it you could see them on the side in the mangrove roots. On the flats at the front of small creeks there were heaps of threadies and they seemed bigger than the monsters we had seen the day before. Great fun, but we didn't get any of the big ones. That's fishing.
There were schools of small macs and queenies around Knife Island, but the wave action made it pretty uncomfortable to fish. On the reefs there were also schools of small golden trevally as well as the usual suspects, queenies, GT's and snapper.
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| One of the goldies |
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| THE BASSETTS |
