With the reports of swan tailor firing up again this year Ben and I took the dinghy out into Melville water last Sunday arvo for a troll.  We had a pretty easy going afternoon with about 6 tailor landed between 3pm and sundown.  I think we kept 5 between us for a feed between 36-39cms and released a smaller one.  It was quite pleasant on the water with a few beers and snacks, but we never saw bird action or located a school properly.  The only double hookup was when Ben had a tailor on, I retrieved my lure and cast over his fish and managed to hook one following his and we boated both fish. I was using two rapala xraps in blue and a green and I think Ben was using a selection of Barramundi lures.

We were pretty stoked to open the tailor account for the year and decided we would be back out there ASAP.

So I started a new job this week and was pretty tired so we decided friday afternoon would be a go after I knocked off at 2:30.  I had a beer after work and then my phone rang, it was Ben saying our mate Chaddie was waiting for us at the river already.  I knew it would take me an hour at least to head home, get my gear and head to Bens so I decided to tell Ben to take Chad out in the dinghy by themselves and I would see if I could get down there later.  I got home and had another beer, felt pretty tired and decided I would bail on fishing - Smart decision as you will see!

So Ben calls me at about 7:30pm, im thinking cheeky bastard is going to be bragging about the tonnes of tailor and how nice it was, Ben starts telling me how great it was, they found a school, boated five in the first hour with a few fish lost and double hookups.  Im thinking shit I should have bloody well gone! So I say to Ben, so how many did you end up with? He goes 'Well you see it was all going well until that fifth tailor got to the side of the boat Chaddie grabs the net ready to boat the tailor, but he had his hand right down close to the net opening, took a swipe at the tailor, but it bounced off the rim around the net and went nuts - thoroughly embedding the treble of the lure in his right index finger in the knuckle.'  By this stage im already laughing way out loud, so Ben then tells me how Chad dropped the net overboard, Ben recovered that, got the fish into the boat still attached to Chads hand, cut the lure from the line, removed the fish and settled Chad down, then retrieved the other lure, which was by now rightfully wrapped around the prop.  Im still laughing pretty hard when Ben tells me they are currently in the emergency department waiting room at Fremantle Hospital for a doctor to see Chad and remove the barb.  I think they were there for 3-5 hours or so and had only managed one hours fishing.

I went to see Chaddie yesterday who was looking a little bit sorry for himself, mainly because he thinks he ruined a perfectly good opportunity to fish.  Fortunately he recorded the whole 24 minute hook removal ordeal on his new samsung galaxy s3 for posterity and I was able to watch it on the big screen with a beer. I will see if I can get hold of the footage and get it up onto youtube, the hook was really in there and its amazing watching how rough the doc had to be to remove the hook.
 

I have a photo of the treble hooked in his hand, but it was sent to my phone which is giving me grief atm, the other photo is from last sunday.

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