AFTER receiving “get out of jail passes” from our wives, Sherbs and I decided to head up to Flatrock on Saturday night for an allnighter in the hope that we might be able to find some elusive mulloway.

With the trusty Andrew at the wheel, we arrived at Flat Rock at around 8 pm with a half moon rising and a light south wester blowing.

Andrew maneuvered us to our chosen location, a spot we had fished previously where a reef sits about 40 metres off the shore and nice gutter runs between the beach and the reef.

Sherbs and I soon had our lines in the water and within minutes we were hooked up. Whatever was on our lines had a lot of weight behind them and were pulling hard in the fast travelling current and the small shore dump.

Man, seaweed can sure pull hard - especially when there is at least 10 kilos of it. Sherbs hard fighting lump soon snapped his braid and I then heroically fought mine collection to the shore. Half an hour of de-weeding later, I finally had my rig back.

Deciding this wasn’t looking too good, we headed back up to the beach to Flat Rock itself in the hope that it would be clear of weed.

A few test casts with just a sinker on the line confirmed this was the case and we re-setup camp and soon had our lines in the water.

While the Flat Rock is a good fish attractant, it does make night fishing a little difficult as you have to make your way across the rocky reef in water up to waste deep to ensure your cast takes your bait away from the reef edge.

Eventually we worked out a system and were able to set ourselves up to that we could sit back in the comfort of some fold-up chairs, drink a few beers and fish at the same time.

Not too long after we got underway Sherbs had some movement on his bait which had all the hallmarks of a mulloway enquiry. Playing the patient game he waited till the weight came on set the hook. What seemed like a nice mulloway began pulling away from the reef with that telltale paddle tail action.

After a solid fight Sherbs had the fish at the edge of the reef where it unfortunately managed to hook itself up and then free itself. The disappointment was overcome with the thought that if there was one there must be more.

So we settled down to fish out the night confident we were in for some action.

After a few more hours of soaking mulies and squid baits, we finally had another hit and Sherbs soon had a small Port Jackson shark on the shore and then on its way back out to sea.

That small bit of action rejuvenated our efforts and we sent out some more baits. However, the action certainly wasn’t thick and fast and with a nice fire burning the temptation to pull out our swags and put our heads down until the morning was growing very tempting. Andrew had already succumbed and he looked pretty comfortable all wrapped up in sleeping bags in the front of the car while we froze out butts off in wet clothes.

However we decided to persevere and I soon had nice little banjo shark which was soon back out across the reef.
Another hour or so and I felt a decent bit of weight on my line which I was thinking may have been another big clump of weed. It turned out to be a decent sized Wobbegong which we decided to keep.

That kept our heads up for awhile longer and Sherbs managed to hook and land the biggest Port Jackson I have ever seen.

With only an hour or two until sunrise we settled down in out chairs with the hope that the action might hot up.

In fact it got even colder and our baits failed to attract any interest. Sherbs managed to keep his eyes open somehow, but I dozed off only to be awoke by a wave washing around my feet.

Eventually the sun came up and we were refreshened by a beautiful morning.

Unfortunately it was too nice with the sea flattening off with a building offshore breeze.

Sherb’s work mate Doug arrived and we changed up rigs to see if there were any tailor, herring or whiting around.

Sherbs managed a double header of whiting, but the flat conditions were definately not in our favour and after a 14 hour fishathon we decided that was enough and to head back to your warm homes.

While we didn’t end up with the catch we had hoped for, it was a great night out with a great mate and for two old buggers we did pretty well to stick it out in pretty crappy conditions.