Port Stephens- Next Gen stepping up!

[Scratchie]

G’day raiders, 

Headed out this morning with my second son in tow. A bit of an early get up for him but he shook off the sleep eyes and off we went. 
Picked up some bait pretty easy at cabbage tree and left for our first mark. 
Got the drift sorted and first cast the young fella was onto a screamer. Netted that one and continued our drift. I managed a nice pannie then it was time to move. Got to our next mark and it was all happening. Live bait everywhere, the boys hooked up again, livie goes off, then I’m hooked up! Left the live bait rod, got mine in, netted the boys, picked up the rod and it was gone but we were still smiling. A few more for the box. 
Changed locations again and with a perfect drift anticipation was high! And we had every right to be, the boys reel is singing again and after a decent fight, onboard comes another cracker. 
Then we see some kings and huge ones rounding up garfish. So we troll our livie around the area but the throttle didn’t seem to be engaging properly. We stop fishing and check the motor to find a clip that holds the throttle open had broke. 😩😩😩Now I needed to manually feather it as we called it a day and headed home. Just a small plastic bit ruined what was a cracking morning on the water but we didn’t let it take the smile off ours faces! 
Made it back safely. Although it did take a bit of time but still a great day to share with my boy! 
 

Thanks for reading, 

 

cheers scratchie!!! 
 

 

 

 

[rickmarlin62]

Nice lot of reds jeff  good to fish with the kids hey

[jenno64]

Glad you made it back safely.....great to see the next gen looking very comfortable in your shoes!

[Hoods]

Nice report Scratchie - Thank you. Whats his name?? Little Scratchie??!! Better be careful or he will be the one to boat Whiskers!!

[masterfisho7]

Well done some top reds there 

[kingie chaser]

What do they say, the apples dont fall far from the tree.

 

Well done fella's, some cracking Snaps there 

[Yowie]

Nice bag of reds again Scratchie. Your young blokes are fish maniacs like you. 😂 Nothing wrong with that. My son likes fishing, but he is usually chefing away in a kitchen.

[Rebel]

Great report and photos. Your son looks really happy.

[mrsswordfisherman]

Well done @little scratchie jnr growing up so fast 

[zmk1962]

👍 🤙 👍  ... guess the fruit didn't fall (sorry wasn't cast) far from the tree ! ....

Looks like an awesome day out congrats.  Can't beat being out with the family - fish or no fish.

Cheers Zoran

[big Neil]

A great report Scratchie. Always the best to have a bit of bonding time as they get a bit older and find other interests. Glad you were able to get back to shore despite the problem with the motor. Just shows how easily (and unexpected) these things can happen and why it's super important to know how to find and overcome problems while on the water. 

Tight lines, bn

[Scratchie]

16 hours ago, rickmarlin62 said:

Nice lot of reds jeff  good to fish with the kids hey

Thanks Rick! My kids love it especially when they show their dad up! 🤬🤣

15 hours ago, jenno64 said:

Glad you made it back safely.....great to see the next gen looking very comfortable in your shoes!

Cheers mate! Yes they are very keen and good anglers the lot of them! 

15 hours ago, Hoods said:

Nice report Scratchie - Thank you. Whats his name?? Little Scratchie??!! Better be careful or he will be the one to boat Whiskers!!

Little scratchie Jnr! (Brandon)  And I was worried about that yesterday (whiskers) cause he was on fire and we were fishing that area. Don’t worry, I had a pair of scissors ready! 🤣🤣🤣

 

15 hours ago, masterfisho7 said:

Well done some top reds there 

Thanks 🙏 

14 hours ago, kingie chaser said:

What do they say, the apples dont fall far from the tree.

 

Well done fella's, some cracking Snaps there 

That’s true. But he’s definitely fitter faster and stronger than I was at that age! And a better angler! 

13 hours ago, Yowie said:

Nice bag of reds again Scratchie. Your young blokes are fish maniacs like you. 😂 Nothing wrong with that. My son likes fishing, but he is usually chefing away in a kitchen.

Thanks yowie! Yeah they all love it. They enjoy the whole journey. Boy was copping it yesterday how good he was! Damn, he’s usually netting for me! 🤣🤣🤣

2 hours ago, Rebel said:

Great report and photos. Your son looks really happy.

Thanks. He was happy I was the net boy for a change! 

1 hour ago, mrsswordfisherman said:

Well done @little scratchie jnr growing up so fast 

Thanks! Isn’t he what. Even looking at the photos I thought it was Tyran! Haha 

1 hour ago, zmk1962 said:

👍 🤙 👍  ... guess the fruit didn't fall (sorry wasn't cast) far from the tree ! ....

Looks like an awesome day out congrats.  Can't beat being out with the family - fish or no fish.

Cheers Zoran

Cheers Zoran. And I agree. Fishing with the family is always the moments I actually look forward to the most! And it’s something I hope they do with their family in the future. 

1 hour ago, big Neil said:

A great report Scratchie. Always the best to have a bit of bonding time as they get a bit older and find other interests. Glad you were able to get back to shore despite the problem with the motor. Just shows how easily (and unexpected) these things can happen and why it's super important to know how to find and overcome problems while on the water. 

Tight lines, bn

Thanks BN. It was an awesome day up until then. I’m no mechanic but I am pretty good at problem solving. It was still a long trip back 😩😩😝

[Scratchie]

@big Neil 17 kilometres of holding this in open ocean, keeping it on the plane and making sure that the backwash doesn’t flood the motor is nerve wracking! But I had all my safety gear and procedures in place should worse come to worse! 

 

[GoingFishing]

Good on you team Scratchie - awesome stuff. Sounds like one of those days that you remember forever. Glad you made it back safely.

[Scratchie]

32 minutes ago, GoingFishing said:

Good on you team Scratchie - awesome stuff. Sounds like one of those days that you remember forever. Glad you made it back safely.

Cheers Sam! It was an awesome day and the fishing red hot. 
I was disappointed in the breakdown as I’ve spent the last 6 months updating the boat to have it in perfect order. But this was something that was unforeseeable and just had to be dealt with at the time! All’s well that ends well. 🤙 

[GordoRetired]

Scratchie goes fishing and we all get to see multiple pictures of the kind of Snapper I dream of catching. Another good day out. Well done 🙂

[Scratchie]

19 hours ago, Brendonjohnson said:

Unreal session! 🤙

Thanks mate! They were on the chew that’s for sure! 

1 hour ago, GordoRetired said:

Scratchie goes fishing and we all get to see multiple pictures of the kind of Snapper I dream of catching. Another good day out. Well done 🙂

Cheers Gordo! Guess you can only catch what’s in front of you! 🤣🤣

[Pickles]

Fantastic effort Scratchie Jeff, an amazing day on the snapper - love to read your posts mate, inspiring stuff.

[Keflapod]

Hey Jeff,

And I was gonna say "oh of course the motor had issues and you had to return to port because your son was getting all the action", but you have a photo to prove it. I guess you have the knowledge to diagnose the problem at sea, implement a solution and got yourself back to port without any incident. That's huge I reckon, and there was more effort involved in that than catching the fish.

Well done on the fishing results as well. Big smiles on itchy's face after those nice snaps. Oh, maybe it will be the "itchy and scratchie" show? Except you two won't beat eachother up.

And as was stated earlier, your son might get a hold of whiskers first. You never know. I guess it will be 'watch this space'.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Keflapod

[Scratchie]

45 minutes ago, Keflapod said:

Hey Jeff,

And I was gonna say "oh of course the motor had issues and you had to return to port because your son was getting all the action", but you have a photo to prove it. I guess you have the knowledge to diagnose the problem at sea, implement a solution and got yourself back to port without any incident. That's huge I reckon, and there was more effort involved in that than catching the fish.

Well done on the fishing results as well. Big smiles on itchy's face after those nice snaps. Oh, maybe it will be the "itchy and scratchie" show? Except you two won't beat eachother up.

And as was stated earlier, your son might get a hold of whiskers first. You never know. I guess it will be 'watch this space'.

Thanks mate. 
I hope the young fella doesn’t get whiskers before me or he’s not coming again! Lol 

As I’ve said, I’m no mechanic but I can problem solve and fortunately it served me well. 
Took my boat to my mechanic and the throttle arm had popped out of two plastic clips. $4 later and she’s good to go! Not something that you can plan for but glad the fix was inexpensive!