It was a windy saturday afternoon on the 14th of January, a friend of mine had invited me over for dinner earlier in the week to which both me and the mrs agreed to attend.

I received a phone call from him around lunchtime on saturday saying bring a rod just in case the wind dies down in the afternoon to which i happily obliged. I grabbed the flickie that i normally take out on the boat which is a shimano tcurve revolution travel 3 piece attached to a shimano spheros 14000 FB with 30lb braid. I grabbed a bag of mullet packed the rod in the car and off we went.

Got to my mates place in Silver sands and saw he had made up half an esky full of burley ready for tonight. I said '' shit... going all out are we '' to which he replied '' Na i just need to get rid of thei S-^T''. We cracked a few beers and had some dinner which consisted of rissoles which contained prawns and 2 cray tails with many other herbs and spices (EPIC) salads and some lamb. After an hour or so, the sun had gone down but was still light so we packed some beers, grabbed the burley, the rods, a torch, the mullet and headed down the beach.

When we arrived we joked about how there was a gutter right in front of us ( because we are too lazy to walk down the beach looking for one ) and said this is where all the big fish hang out. It took us all of 5 minutes to tie the rigs on (tailor rigs) and we launched the burley into the drink about 70m up wind. We casted out and sat down for the next beer.

The women came down about 15 minutes later asking the typical ''have you caught anything yet'' question to which me and my mate both look at eachother and roll our eyes. About 3 beers later by this time its dark and things were not looking good.

We were forever getting small hits by whatever was there and i pulled in 5 ghost crabs. I was thinking ''wow that burley really brings in the shit hey'' and shortly after that i had a hit... my drag was too tight and i pulled the bait from its mouth or it let go.... i loosened my drag right off and bang.... i'm on.....

Drag screaming off i see the direction of pull flattening out as whatever it is, swims straight out to sea.... after nearly being spooled it spits the hooks. I had to stop 3 times to have a sip of my beer while winding all the line back in but this gets us a bit more motivated to keep going. By the way as i was a little tipsy by now standing up was not an option, only to cast.

After much debate me and my mate had both decided that it was most likely a snotty (stingray). So although we had some glimpse of catching something we were a little dissapointed that it was most likely something we didnt want.

SO.... I rig up the next bait and cast out and sit back on my perch waiting for the next one...

2 minutes after casting the same thing happens... drag still tight and i get a hit but the hooks pull. I loosen my drag again, bang its on again. So this time i slowly tighten the drag but notice a distinct change in direction of pull, this time its going north, not west. It swims about 150m up the beach before turning around and swiming back towards me. All this time i have not moved off my perch in fact i think i was even laying down for some of the fight. I thought to myself, im getting some line back here so i might have to get up. we start to walk towards the water and follow the fish as it turns up and down the beach and we both keep calling it for a stingray when i see some distinct red eyes in the torch light, and the yelling starts...

MULLOWAY !!! MULLOWAY !!! MULLOWAY !!!

I fight against the waves, then one decent one comes in so i gave it a bit extra as the wave broke so old mate could grab the leeder and drag it up the beach then the hi 5's started.

Happy as a pig in shit, i pick up the fish and walk back to where the women are to show off how good i am at hunting and gathering because thats what you do after that many beers :)

We didn't fish for long after that as we were more than happy to split the mulloway so home we went.

I wont forget that night for a while.

I have been fishing that beach for about 20 years since i was a young tacker and all through my teenage years i had been chasing one of these bad boys and the old ''ah lets just have a go'' trip paid off.

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