School Holiday Happiness

How do you keep your fishing obsessed family, well two of them, amused over the school holidays – go fishing of course.  Our plans of travelling somewhere in this great state to chase piscatorial trophies went to crap because we were too lazy to organise anything properly, and the weather looked a bit dodgy to punt thousands of clams on it being good when you got there.  All there was to it, watch the Perth weather and take a day off when it looked ok.  That was today, although the swell and wind was borderline – and it was quite cold at 6am.

The target for today was to get YPM a good Sambo.  He has been worked by these beasts over the past months but has yet to get a big one to the boat.  He fishes with 30lb braid and the big ones always seem to take 100+m of line and “rock” him on the shallow reefs.  One thing we have learned over the last 6 months is that the big ones fight dirty.

Off to the ramp before dawn, and it is never a good sign that there was only one other trailer there.  We waited till it was light as the swell was still 3m at Rotto and we didn’t fancy taking on the “hole in the wall’ in the dark.  It was fairly spectacular to go “through” in the swell with big waves breaking either side of you.  There was one that looked like it could break in front of us and I was pleased we have a small fast maneuverable boat so we could react and “cross” it in a safe place.  Nothing like a “heart starter” in the morning.

We stopped off at 3 Mile to try the new burley – it worked a treat which is good seeing we have so much of it.  No big pinks unfortunately, but true to form YPM got smashed and busted off on the rocks.  We did however put this one down to a large ray as it really liked the bottom.  The 31cm black arse went back as it was just marginal and deserved to live.  We decided to go out further and try our luck as the swell was well spaced and there was not much chop.

Headed to some “solid” ground in about 30m and fired up the Minn to “hover” over it.  The next few hours were awesome, even though the easterly continued to increase.  The skippy were in plague proportions, and a good size as well.  We probably landed close to 40 with many over a kilo.  We returned every one and YPM commented that, “even though we don’t keep them, it is so much better than catching wrasse and parrot”.  Landing one big one did cause crossed lines though and we needed to take a break as I had to clean up the mess.

YPM decided that watching me incompetently untangle things was quite boring.  He threw down the bigger rig to fish the bottom with a whole snelled mulie whilst I did the work!  Within minutes, he was smashed and there was no doubt this was a big angry fish.  I must say he did really well in what was probably a 20+ minute fight.  There were tangled lines in the water that needed to be cleared through the fight, as well as the need to walk around the boat to keep the “pressure on”.  At last, that big sambo came to the boat and there was one very happy young fella who finally caught his prize.  Weighed, measured and photographs and back he went.

You gotta love it when a kid catches a PB.  He followed up immediately with a nice KG (mum really likes them) and it was time to come in.  It’s good when a plan comes together.  The weather looks ok for the last arvo of the school holidays tomorrow, so guess what!

 

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Ability is what you are capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it - LH.

 

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Rosie's picture

Posts: 159

Date Joined: 13/01/13

Congrats to YPM - first Sambo onboard

Thu, 2014-07-17 21:21

Some good fighting fish and a nice KG to take home. Sounds like a good session.

Young Pinky Master strikes again.

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Seek & Deploy

tim-o's picture

Posts: 4657

Date Joined: 24/05/11

Too right, nuthin better than

Thu, 2014-07-17 21:27

Too right, nuthin better than a sambo tussel to warm ya up on a Perth winter morning, nice one Luke. Put a hook in one of those skippy next time and hand the rod to ya old man

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I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.