Decided to take one of my riggers out fishing on sunday. Coming from tasmania he was keen to get into some dhu's. We were both eager and pumped for the day ahead as the forecast was looking shmick, but were about to be let down. 

The swell inside the reef was very messy and acounted for a very ordinary (read shit) beach launch. The boat came off the trailer no probs but then the water just disappeared and then reappeared in a big surge that pushed the boat sidewards and onto the sand. A couple of surges later and we are okay and pointing in the right direction but very wet (didnt matter because it pissed down about 30 mins later). Finally we were on our way when I looked down at the sounder to see all sorts crap on the screen- bloody weed on the tranny, or so I thought. Put the motor into neutral and went to clear the weed only to find the tranny completely snapped off and hanging by the cable! Fu#k Fu#k F$ckety Fu#k. I dont think I've ever sworn so much without taking a breath.Obviously our profesional beach launch was to blame.

I had to get Twig onto some fish but with no sounder it was going to be a challenge. My only option was to blind drift some of my marks and hope for the best. Spot one saw 4 dhu's, two on jig(me) and two on bait(twig) then everything went dead until twig caught a boltcutter- time to move. At spot two  I hooked up a donkey dhu only to have the bastard reef me due to a sticky drag on an old reel that desperately needs a service (I had to back the drag off and thumb the spool- blister on right thumb) Twig followed with a dhu and a pinky(both kept) and then it was my turn to get smashed again. As I was pulling up something average it got munched by an unknown that took about 50ish meters of line in about 5 seconds plus my fish and my snapper lead- leader was shreaded to bits, any ideas? Was too fast to be a shark I think. Next drift I caught a rather greedy sargent baker that was filleted and sent back down on a sort of modified drift bait rig (I used assist cord to snell the hooks together to make them waft around a bit better than fluro) to see if I could get the big bastard that reefed me earlier, didnt work, I could only manage one of his kids(kept). 

By now the weather had turned from a sloppy easterly to a nice calm ocean which would have been ideal for searching for new ground, just my luck. Anyway after a bit of whale watching we decided to call it a day so I could head home and sook to the wife about how I need a new Furuno (wink wink). All up not a bad day I suppose but it made me think just how much we rely on electronic devices in our lives. 

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