Conned my favorite little deckie into getting up really early and coming out to the 3 Mile with me this morning.  My regular (YPM) had mates staying over and couldn’t leave them and the Friday night “ring in” had to study for exams – fair enough.  When it is all said and done however, a day on the water with your young daughter is gold.

As usual, if you want to catch the pinks, we got out there just as it was getting light – Hillarys is an excellent ramp and you have no problem launching and retrieving in the dark.  Went to our usual spot as it just keeps giving and giving – I found it by accident one day and I don’t know what it is about it but it has very rarely failed to produce.  Got a floater in the water, set the bait runner and started setting up,  and within a minute it was running away.  My clear lack of attention meant I missed it however a squid latched onto the left over pillie but covering the deckie with black ink didn’t seem like a good thing to do, and it was quite small, so we made no attempt to boat it.

A quick re-bait and within 30 seconds it was smashed again.  I was ready for this one and got a good solid hook up.  It was quite feisty and it had the characteristics of a good pink so was no real surprise when it got to the boat.  My deckie did an absolutely awesome job of getting the net under it so we boated a 72cm pink within 5 minutes of arriving at the spot.

We both got straight back out there and the deckie hooked up on a bottom rig.  This one was very large and unfortunately she got absolutely smoked and busted off.  As is the way with the pinks, they go off as quick as they come on and we didn’t have a hit for the next hour.  A day on the water with the kids is not about targeting the large specimens, but making sure the kids have a good time, catch some fish and enjoy the experience.  My deckie was keen on going and catching some bread and butter fish as I do think she was a little scared by the power of the big pinks.

A quick call home and we met mum at the ramp to offload the pink for cold storage, and my deckie could go for that much needed toilet break on terra firma.  We then set off on search of fish she could land on light gear, plus I really wanted some whiting, herring and skippy for my next batch of burley.

What a fantastic few hours we had.  Conditions were perfect for small boat travel and we went to a few different spots and explored the ocean.  My usual whiting spot of Trigg was a dud so we headed out a bit deeper and got some solid sand whiting.  We then headed to an offshore reef and got a heap of skippy and a variety of other interesting things.  The best part was I hooked them and let the deckie reel them in – she even got a 35cm pink.  The 20+kg Sambo chasing some of the skippy up to the boat was quite an experience for her  – no attempt to hook him with a livey as there are only so many hours in the day.

Back home through the big ships and a stop to look at a huge pod of dolphins all around the boat topped off what was a really memorable experience.  When we got back, she couldn’t wait to tell everyone about all the things that happened on the day – gold.

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