With Randall’s early post about bagging out on crays, I was being hassled about getting out there and bringing some home (I am sure I am not alone as Randall seemed to post in a lot of forums – nice work).  With the weather finally playing the game this weekend, why not take the Daughter out for a run Saturday arvo to set the pots, and the MAAC Juniors the next morning to pull them and bait properly for a 2-3 day soak.  My pots have been drying out for 10 months so it was really about soaking them on Saturday.

It was a lovely afternoon with Sarah.  Conditions were perfect and allowed a lot of time to try and find some ground and then position the pot exactly where you wanted it amongst the structure.  I must say the Minn showed another very useful trait of the spot lock – use it to hold steady on the location and then watch the pot drop and settle on the bottom (visibility was “crystal” in about 6m).  I could see air coming out of them as they dropped so was not overly hopeful and it was really about getting them ready for future campaigns.

As I did last year, I have volunteered to take out some MAAC Juniors on Sunday mornings when conditions allow.  Because conditions were good this morning the plan was to pull and rebait the pots and take the kids for a fish on the way back.  After a fairly “long” launch at the ramp, I beached the Hornet at the MAAC and picked up four 10-12 year olds and we headed to the pots.  The highlight for the kids on the trip out was seeing baitfish breaking the surface and the schools of predators in the water column (herring smashing stuff).

The pots were certainly on their marks, and had not been subject to any early morning pullers.  The kids were excited as we set up to retrieve.  The first one comes up and there were feelers that the kids spotted as soon as it left the bottom.  Only a couple but then we could go through the exercise, of checking size, sexing it, checking for berries, tar spot or setose condition in females and taking the middle tail fin for keepers (one keeper, one throwback).  Re bait and set back.  Showing the kids how to read the sounder and plotter, when they could actually see the bottom was my highlight for the trip.  The next pot had 3, with 2 keepers.  Not a massive haul by any means but happy to get a few for the kids after a 16 hour soak of very dry pots.  I think the photo sums up what the kids thought about it.

Given the late start, due to extreme ramp issues, there was not a lot of time for fishing (this is my main problem with potting as it takes away the fishing time and there is not a lot of sport in pulling traps from the ocean, although finding the ground is a good challenge).  We called in on “Terry’s Pike Spot” on the way back and used the Fish Based Burley Block / Mulie Shred Block combination.  Within a minute the water was “boiling” with hungry herring and the kids could sight fish for them.  We only had about 10-15 minutes, and I didn’t have the proper rigs set, so we got half a dozen and had to come in – bit of a shame as the kids wanted to keep fishing.    

What a great day.  Nothing better than hopefully providing a good learning experience for the kids.