Eventful day on the Murrumbidgee

[big Neil]

Today was forecast in the 40s so I arranged to get some shrimps early. The shrimps have been a bit scarce lately so I was pleasantly surprised to get about 50 to accompany the cheese which I use for bait. Headed off to the river and started to get the boat ready. The strap that holds the boat to the trailer had broken but I managed to salvage the end bits which had (miraculously) survived the bumpy trip to the ramp. Headed upstream and tried cheese and shrimp on the paternoster rig. Initially fishing was slow but I managed a few small Murray Cod between 35 and 50cms by moving round a bit. By 11am the sun had some real bite in it so I sought the shade of the huge redgums which adorn the banks of the river. There was a lot of skiers out and I persisted until it dawned on me that i hadn't caught anything on the shrimp. I replaced the water in the bucket to keep the little critters alive and started using the cheese (which was rapidly melting) on both hooks. Worked the trick though and the fish started coming in regularly. Both rods went off together twice with 2 cod and a cod and carp coming to the boat. I then had a mishap with the biggest Cod 56cms coming to the side of the tinny. He was only lighly hooked so I reached for the lip grips and gripped his bottom lip...suddenly he lurched and swam away with the lip grip firmly attached to his bottom jaw. Pretty stupid of me when I had the landing net ready for action. Hope he can work himself loose of them. The sun got too much to bear so I left them still biting and headed back to the ramp. Total for the day 1 Carp and 10 Murray Cod...all caught on cheese. Put the shrimp in the freezer for another day. Big Neil.

[nbdshroom]

Ah well, unlucky there. Hopefully it was able to spit out the lip grip.