I went out yesterday with my friend Ben on his bosses Southwind UB520 yesterday for a bit of a fish.  Ben and Chad had taken the boat before, but this was my first chance to tag along.  We headed out from PT Peron around 8:30 for a bit of a look around the FFB. Conditions were every bit of the forecast 15knt easterly, but once we trimmed the boat up we were able to fish comfortably and using the clears and keeping the speed down we could work our way back upwind to the start of the drift without getting soaked or too badly jarred. We did a few drifts fishing blind over sections of the FFB with a  few shit fish being caught here and there. At one point Chad hooked up to something solid on his light outfit that took off and bricked him at the earliest convenience.

After a few hours we decided to head into the lee of GI which was really nice to warm up for a while.  We went looking for some sand patches to burley up in the hope of getting a feed of whiting and maybe a KG.  The first patch produced nothing but wrasse so we moved after an hour or so, onto the second patch and again got a burley trail going.  After a few more wrasse/cod Chad got a good run again on light gear which brought up a nice 37cm sand flattie.  Iki Jimi'd the flattie, Hi fives all round and more burley distributed.  Within a few minutes I had a few solid thumps and bang I was on with a good fight and I hear from the other side of the boat that Benno is on too! Double hookup with some nice runs on our 2500 reels with 8lb braid I got mine into the boat and its another sand flattie marginally larger than the other0.  At that point Ben had his boatside and we were stoked to see another flattie even larger than the first two.

Bens measured up at 46cms and with more hi fives, burley and beers we were again fishing, Ben managed a 39cm pinky which gave a really good showing of itself which was released in the hope that some bigger models might be around.  Ben and I also caught 3-4 decent sized Trevally which made it into the ice box. We had been fishing the shallows for a couple of hours now always with a large bait on the boat rod out.  As usual I had the drag set low and the clicker on with the rod in the holder hoping for a repeat of the gummy from last week.  The drag clicker slowly started ticking off and I took the rod from the holder let it have some more line before slowly tightening the drag and raising the rod tip.  At this it took off and after a few blistering runs we were treated to an amazing sight of an eagle ray getting totally airborne 3-4 times.  The ray was valiant but 15mins later I had him boatside and on his back and the circle hook was out and he could go back to his ray like ways.  

It was getting on a bit and we pulled anchor and prepared to return home however we saw some interesting ground near where we started the day so we had a few more drifts with nothing but doughnuts.  We headed back to Pt Peron arriving right on sundown for the drive back to Bens in Bibra Lake cold and exhausted, but thanks to a great set of clears, dry.  A great day out, Cheers to Ben, Chad and Bens Boss with the only downer being crushing my finger in the level wind on my overhead while snagged - That will teach me to be lazy!

Only two pics, Chad took a video of the Ray that I am yet to have a look at, maybe I will post some later if its any good. Yes - it was colder than charity

Bryan

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