Well, after bearly a days fishing in the last 4 months apart from a few whiting sessions with the kids, it was good to get a clear day from work and a good weather forecast to coincide with one another.

Darryn and I headed out around 5-30am with visions of catching a couple of dhuies for Xmas, given that for the first time in as many years I can remember my freezer was completely devoid of fish and needed replenishing quick smart.

We trolled a few skirts at the back of staggies first up, in the hope of some SBT's but not a single bird in the sky, so we blew that off pretty quick and headed out to some spots in the 40;'s. We had to work hard for the fish and whilst we managed about 5 pinkies in quick succession (damn, didn't manage to pick up my tagging kit from Jody last week) they were mostly undersize with one just legal. All released well without the need for a release weight.

We moved out a bit further and with plenty of fish on the sounder it was proving difficult to get a bite from anything of substance,. A few Blackarse were landed one kept and the rest released and we managed a nice Harley which was also kept for the table.

With 2 table fish onboard we thought we should get at lease one dhuie between us so we headed out a bit wider and fished a few sopts I hadn't fished in years. Thankfully they came up trumps and I boated this nice little Dhuie, which went 60cm. However as I was bringing it up (nice and slow) Darryn hooked up as well, on a bigger fish. We kept my fish fresh as we landed Darryns in the net. Then a quick pic of mine before sending it back over the side with the release weight. (Damn, didn't have that tagging kit)

We then took a few pics of Darryns dhuie which was a fraction under 80cm (went 7kgs on the lie detector).

One more drift and I managed a very nice baldy to complete the bag limit. So we had plenty of fish for teh table between us.

We ended up the day with 2 dozen plump sandies, 5 dhuis (4 released), 6 Pinkies (all released), 4 Blackarse (3 released), 1 Harlequin, 1 Baldie, 1 sambo and a billion mini flatties as well, so all in all the drought was broken quite nicely. Weather was perfect (apart from the fickle drifts with current and wind creating strange angles that needed several drifts to master). All in all a great day on the water with a top mate, looking forward to the next trip now.

Merry Xmas one and all.