Woke up this morning at about 5:30am - the wind was light and the weather was great. My very awake and cheerful daughter (5) was only to happy to make me an espresso to wake up and help get the gear ready for some abalone fishing. She really is awesome on these early mornings. Only condition is that I have to save a couple of shells for her collection, which of course I always do!

My mate, Matt O, drove through the gates at about 6:15am - bit later than usual - but for once I don't think he'd been on the grog the night before! Anyway we loaded all the gear into the back of my car and waved goodbye to the girls. By 6:23 we were out the front of Rudy's house and a couple of taps on the horn later and he was throwing his gear in the boot.

Down the freeway and in no time we were in the usual convoy of abalone fishers at Trigg looking for a parking space. We headed to our usual spot and donned the wetties and gloves. Walking down the street to the ocean it was clear that it was going to be a good day for it - the tide was really low and heaps more reef was exposed. We altered spots slightly due to these conditions and boy am I glad we did.

7:00am hit and we were in the water walking over the reef, of course with about fifty others fishers. The looked to be some good size ones but still only maybe 70mm - 80mm - wich really isn't that huge, but they have been getting harder to find as the weeks progress. Soon we jumped into the water and got right under the ledges and were onto some absolute corkers! Some were easily 100mm plus.

By 7:40am we were back at the car with our bag limit and smiles all round. This was the first time this season that we had all managed to bag out and they were pretty big by our standards!
Soon as we got home, the catch was emptied onto the grass and the tools were gathered for shucking. Matt O and I do the shucking as Rudy's a chef we get him to trim the gills ect and cook them up.

Abalone fresh from the reef

Its a bit of a pian to shuck them all but worth it in the end. We were really happy at the size and you can see in the pic below with the previous week's size compared. It really had us over the moon to stumble upon some really bigs ones as we have been putting in the effort all season (and it's so short!).

62mm next to a big one!

Once they were all shucked, and a couple of the good shells put aside for my daughter, we had a glass of OJ and packed them up. As we had a fair few this week we put a few in a bag for Matt O's uncle and also a few aside for Rudy's folks. The rest were put in the fridge for a lunch. We agreed to meet back at my place at 1:00pm - my father in law, The Boss as I call him, was pretty keen on an invite and had promised to throw in a kilo of king prawns so that was settled. The boys took off for a rest and I did a quick check that there were cold beers and wine in the fridge and had a bit of time out.

Before I knew it The Boss was tapping on the back door, cold beer already in hand. He passed me the bag of prawns and said he had to go and have a chat with his mate at the hardware store across the road. I put the prawns in a bowl and chopped up some nice fresh garlic and mixed it in with some olive oil. Bloody sensational.

A few minutes later the boys turned up and Rudy was rolling out his pro knives and the skills to match! We made easy work of the abalone prep with Matt O on the wash down, Rudy trimming them up and me on the hammer. In no time at all we had a big bowl of abalone strips ready for the pan. We all gathered aroung the bbq with beers, The Boss strolling in at a very convenient time!

Really quickly cooked is the only way to go.

There's nothing like standing around the bbq with your mates eating fresh seafood I rekon. Washed down with cold beers it's pretty hard to beat. Most of the time we won't make it to the table - we eat straight from the bbq. Hosin dipping sauce and mayo go well.

Seafood round the BBQ

A few were kept whole without being dusted in flour, these go straight on the bbq grill. Great way to do them - you really get that fresh taste.

A few whole abalone

Well a great arvo with the boys again and The Boss even took a few abs straight out of the pan over to his mate at the hardware store! The bloke's had a pretty rough time with a really sick boy - so the boys agreed it was well and truley in order to look after him.

Anyway - I love this time of year and recommend anyone who hasn't tried abalone fishing to give it a go. Now that the weathers heating up it's time for us to chase the crabs at night in the swan.... Can't Wait!!