Thought I would give the sound a bash giving it is nearing the end of the snapper season, launched solo as a mate let me down at the last minute and avoided the crowd around the D9 and instead headed north of Woodmans seeking to fish the narrower northern channel edge.

First problem - the 8120 wouldnt find a gps signal - hmmmm that is a new one - so without a gps relied on the sounder and channel markers to find a spot, very clearly there was a fair swell running as it was actually breaking on the very edge of the channel in the 4 metre stuff this side of Carnac so headed north of that arriving at only a little after midday

Dropped a burley bucket (more on that later) and choped a whole block of mulies for progressive burleying

Being my usual stupid self fished with three rods, skippy fillet and mulie on two and unweighted mulie or scalie on the third, never expected much interest this early so settled back with a coffee and roll for lunch, murphies prevailed and two rods went off on bait runner pealing line of both at a rapid rate - picked up the first set and put pressure on - hmm clearly not a ray as I could feel distinct tail beats of a strong fish and was continuing to loose line - as I was well clear of obstructions I reset the first in the holder and picked up the second and engaged the reel, uhoh another fish but with the distictive feel of a good snapper - - I'll go for this one ! good fight later the inevitable happens, the snapper (i'de seen it clearly before it saw the boat and bolted for a seond good run cross lines (braid)  with the other rod with the fish on which was tight and still taking line. Tried my best to untangle the mackrame ? that had somehow formed but to no avail and the snapper line was now knoted and wasn't moving either way.  Picked up the other rod and afer a few munites had a madly rolling 1.8 metre gummy at the boat along with an even more tangled snapper with both visible. But the inevitable happened, the snapper took one last run and the mess of tangled braid gave out leaving me with the gummy (I would have preferred it the other way around) Landed the gummy happy with the feed it would provide but disappointed at the loss.

Rest of the afternoon resulted in several rays, the loss of an even bigger gummy at the boat and the securing of a second slightly smaller that the first which will be eaten today by some kids who love "fish bites" while we eat steak ........great afternoon, only one other boat briefly joined me before moving off, weed was an absolute pain even with a faily small tidal current but you cannot complain at two nice fish.

Just before leaving and after a totally biteless half an hour boat gave a huge lunge and the burley bucket rope twanged taught before snapping loose, hmm, no more bucket on the end ...........takes a big shark to snatch a whole burley bucket and cut through cleanly a nylon rope, might think twice before leaning over the side to wash my hands at the moment.

Have a great weekend and go the dockers !