Apologies in advance if I veer into overblown literay eloquence with my trip report for Sandy Cape. It's been a long time between drinks in regards to fishing (my last report here was back in late 2013 i think), after losing enthusiasm for it for some time after a long stretch of insignificant catches or none at all. Sandy Cape was our destination with family friends for my first ever camping trip. It was also the first time my 2014 Navarra would get a solid shake down off road and my first time doing such activities. The weather was great initially as we set up, checking in on the mighty Hawks progress at the camp caretakers big screen setup for the occasion, before going for a good walk to check things out and of course to gather intel for future fishing adventures. The high dunes provided excellent view points and a damn torturous workout for unprepared leg muscles. 

*at the bottom of the pic is supposed to be a large school of fish been harrassed by an ominous figure but it didn't come up properly. 

Pretty much all the beach fishing was a waste of time due to persistent weed and the poor weather on Monday, which gave our tent a hard time, made it generally unworth the effort, aside from a little cod dragged from the wash on the first night.

Went offroading Sunday for the first time and the Navarra handled it well before hitting the beach and been forced to drag our more experienced companions from a rather sticky situation. This is what happens when you hit the anchors on beach sand waiting for us to catch up!  Took a bit of jiggering and the help of the bloke in the middle and his excellent advice, who had been following behind us,  to save the day for the Pajero and earned much bragging points on our behalf. 

Took all the kids snorkling and sand boarding later, after all that excitement and noticed with a fair degree of amusement after coming back from behind the dunes rounding up stray kids, that a Hyundai mini van tried to imitate a fourby and bogged itself at the entrance of the beach access. The camp attendant was on hand and was able to extract the unfortunates from their predicament. 

The crap weather that rolled in Monday morning was not enough to put me and my mate off from hitting the point after missing out the day before on his little tailor sesh. In between intermittent showers and a cold westerly, casting into nice fishy looking wash, we landed one nice size tailor coming close to 50 cm and was busted off by three other hooters. These fish would have been at least 70 cm. One shook free at the bottom of the cliff as I attempted to help bring it up, the second cartwheeled its way to freedom along with my ganghooks, going over the reef with manouvers that would make a gymnast proud and the third showed itself with an enormous green and silver flash of its flanks before screaming back into the wash, ripping the first two gang hooks from its eye and leaving me with a pathetic looking single 5/0 hook and hollering with frustration. Strong wind threatened to derail the following morning but it had eased off to a rather moderate but chilly ESE. It was nothing like the other day, with bites few and far between and was surprised when I managed to hook up and land another tailor, smaller than my previous effort but still very welcome.

With nothing really happening, time was called and it was back to pack up the campsite in an easterly that had just contrived to pick up in strength at that very moment...not a lot of fun I am sure you can imagine. 

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