harold

as they say, what doesn't kill you only serves to make you stronger. Next time you will fill the boat with PB's.

Who ever did it is a dog to drive off.

a fantastic story and a great catch. By contrast i was in a budget meeting. Yuk!

Now that's fishing. Good on you.

great fish. I am going to fish out wide of Lion Island tomorrow afternoon and then back into some more sheltered water on Tuesday night/Wed morning. Hope i do half as well as you.

at least you had the joy of the hook ups!

guess it has all been said but congratulations on a wonderful catch & release.

in that weather? you are a madman! still beats my day off which was spent inside.

The wind forecast looks crook for the next few days.

good on you and your mates for having a great time fishing!

you truly are crazy. I went down to Akuna Bay this evening to check on the boat and it was 13 degrees and pouring. I got wet just running to the boat from the car. You must have been like a drowned rat. As they say Fishing is not a sport, it is a disease! Good to see you at least caught something for your troubles.

what a great Flathead.

great fish,

But fishing is like that isn't it. You can get 2 blokes fishing beside each other in the same boat and one cleans up and the other doesn't get a bite. The good thing about fishing is there is always another day.

congratulations on a great fish.

a guy from our marina caught half a dozen keepers east of lion Island last sunday morning.

i have had cruisers on the Hawkesbury for many years and i agree with the wind remarks. His anchor will slip when it is blowing 30 plus knots and it will!

thanks for the well wishes. It wasn't that long ago i considered anyone 60 years of age to be an old man. Now i am there!!! On and upward is the only way to go.

We decided to get on our rarely used boat on easter sunday and the plan was to spend the night out on the hawkesbury. We hopped on board about 10am and left the berth at Akuna bay about 30 minutes later. our first stop was over at the rail bridge and after an hour and a half of pulling up 5 cm fish we decided to move on. We headed to a place that I later found out is called Cottage Rock, threw out the anchor and decided this was the place to stay. After about half an hour my 6 year old son starts to bring in reddies and a half decent bream-all of which was returned to the sea. About 4pm my wife decides to go and have a sleep and suddenly my rod goes off with a 53cm Flathead being brought on board shortly after. We put him/her into the fish tank and within 3 minutes my son yells out "dad, i have something bigger", so i help him out and we land a 52cm Flathead. I decide that deserves a beer after all i didnt have to move the boat until tomorrow, so one beer became 2 which led to a bottle of wine as well. Now i dont usually drink, it is probably 2 months since my last beer or wine. Anyway, by 5pm I am feeling very merry and my wife comes on deck and says "you are drunk!" It is one of lifes mysteries why we say we are not drunk when we are, anyway it is time to cook dinner so i say "I will clean the fish". So into the bait tank i go and i summarily execute the 2 fish. I decide i need to wash them so i climb over the back onto the marlin board lean over with a knife in one hand and the headless body of a flattie in the other and suddenly i am in the drink-head over heels and i can see the bloody fish sinking so down i go after it. Realising it was getting too deep i gave up and returned to the boat to my wife leughing telling me she had told me i was drunk. So now we had 1 fish. I pulled out the gas barbecue which i have not looked at for over a year and set it up, went to light it and-no gas. No worries i remember putting a frying pan on the boat when i bought it and i have a butane single burner stove as a back up. Hmmmmm no frying pan, thats right i used it a year ago and took it home and didnt bring it back. We do have a very small saucepan on board so i then cut the flathead up into 8 cm pieces, put some oil in the thing and throw in the fish. What a gastronomic disaster. By this time i am starting to believe i may be affected by the booze! My wife produces some nice sandwiches so that plus some fruit make for a healthy dinner! About 8pm it is getting quite dark and so we all decide to go to bed. I set a rod with a squid on it and go down below to settle into a nice sleep. About 1.30am i hear the reel going off so i quickly run up the stairs (i now notice the huge headache i have as a result of the drinking) and i grab the rod and bring it in. On the end is a small shark but attached to it is the worlds unluckiest blue swimmer crab and it is quite large. I lift them both over the side of the boat and immediatley the crab lets go of the shark and goes bloody mental. It is hell bent on biting something so i grab the net and spend the next 10 minutes, in the blaackness of the night trying to get the thing in the net without being bitten. The only light i had was the reflection from the anchor light up above. I put it in the now empy fish tank thinking i would show my son in the morning and let it go. My wife sees it and decides it is going to be eaten thus we brought it home and she ate the poor thing tonight. Also during the evening i managed to catch the ugliest eel god ever put on the planet (it had a head like a cat fish) and i somehow managed to stab myself in the hand. We had fun and it reminds me of what a fabulous time a family can have by spending time together and going fishing. I hope we dont leave it so long before we do it again only next time i will leave the wine in the fridge. Sorry there are no pics but we didnt take a camera with us. Hope you enjoyed Easter and if you have never been to Cottage Rock, go there and take a crab pot with you.

Mate i have caught squid off palm beach where the weed beds are. Between the beach and the southern head of the hawkesbury. good luck and take a few different jigs because different colours work at different times for me.

what a huge squid.

doesn't seem fair given all the time i have spent over so many years just trying to catch one half the size!

now thats a fish

great fish

good on you