Never Know What You Will Get

[nosquid]

Well Sunday morning was a very early start 4:00am, Looked at the weather and thought that I might as well go off to manly for a beach fish session. It was not raining when I left but started to drizzle as I was half way there. Anyway my hopes were kind of down when I saw that the tide was very low and well the weather was not looking very promising. Well I got my stuff all sorted with one rod being baited up and the other armed with a soft plastic. The fishing was very slow and difficult as I only have two light gear rods. Fishing started at 5:00am and for the next hour nothing. Then finally the line had a bit of a tap…tap…tap and I struck back, winding in the line, I managed to catch a blue swimmer crab. It came off the line just on the shore but I did manage to grab it before it could get away. It was a very nice surprise but still not what I came out for. Then after many more casts of no success on the plastics I decided to concentrate on the baited rod. On one of the casts, as soon as the line hit the water I felt the rod load and see line peel off. I let the line go and then set the hook. I saw the fish hit the surface an it looked like a flathead. Anyway I reeled in the line and the fish swam just behind a rock and then the line got stuck. It looked like the lead weight had gotten stuck and the fish was frantically splashing about on the surface then ping goes the line and out shoots the lead weight back at me…almost hit me….anyway there goes my flattie…. It looked like a good keeper too (. I was really quite annoyed with myself as I really should have played the fish better and not gotten into that situation in the first place. Oh well I will have to keep trying….. So I rebaited and casted. I must have been getting bites as the hooks always came back empty but I honestly could not feel the takes, probably because of the incoming tide. Well eventually I reeled in and had a huge ball of line tangled on my hook. I took it of and then began to wind in all this loose line, when suddenly the line started to pull back and move in all sorts of directions. The line was wound in my hand I have to admit that at one point I almost thought that my hand was going to have some really serious line burns / cuts as the line had been pulled to the point that my hand was not getting any blood…..I eventually managed to twist my hand out of the ball of wound up line and thank goodness for that otherwise I would have been in some really serious pain. Anyway the I did suffer some cuts to my hand but because of the awesome fight going on in the water in front of me.. who cares……. I played the fish and eventually I landed a beautiful Australian Salmon. My first…. Well not really official but hey it measured 70cm and to top it off, it had a lovely repala lure attached to it. I bled the fish and took it straight home, I know a lot of people say that they are not the best eating fish but baked in lemon and butter with some herbs and garlic, the family and relatives were all very impressed with the fresh dinner.

Hey I am still eager to catch some thing officially and also preferably the elusive squid ………so if anyone out there can help me out for an outing that would be greatly appreciative,

Hope this year brings us all tight lines and great fishing

[hooklineandsinker]

what do you mean not official you got a free lure you cleaned the ocean of some waste and caught a 70cm salmon and had a great feed sounds official to me you should happy as

mike