Bate Bay 23rd and 24th March

[Crabstar]

Evening.

 

Ventured out into Bate bay this past 2 days.

Saturday 23rd March

Headed out to Bate Bay and was greeted with OK conditions. Aim was to head to osbourne Shoal and give it a crack. Off we left Grays point approx. 530am and at the heads by 6am. Upon getting halfway out all my alarms started going off indicating engine overheating, with a temperature of 101 degrees I've turned around and there's white smoke it appears from the engine, Jesus! Quickly turned this off. Then there we sat as the sun started to rise i knew this was going to go down hill fast. Raised the engine up had a look and noticed there was a thick cotton on bag stuck around my engine so this was blocking the intake and no water was reaching the thermostat. (No idea how long this was on there for) This trip included my brother and his son and we really wanted to test my nephew out with his sea legs and he didn't failed. Landed a nice panny snapper 32cm while we waited for the engine to cool down.

Fished in the bay for about an hour and decided to turn the engine over, started no issues engine temp back down to 51 degrees. Decided all appears ok, no smoke, so lets go? Off we drove to the far side of Merries reef to a new area. Drifted what seems to be a reef rocky patch in 21 metres of water. Here we were able to land a cracker of a snapper and a fat blue mowie. Absolute stoked. Was about 930am decided to head home.

 

Sunday 24th March.

 

Conditions were suppose to be a Bath and they were in the bay, but the further you went out it was a good 1.5-2m swell with 1m-1.5m chop. Yuck.

Went with the old man for a quick bash before nightshift tonight as i write this. We managed to grab 3 good size ocean flatties however the green toads are thick as, every spot we moved to and from we had our baits ripped off, the green toads even followed the baits all the way up, the even wanted a go at the sinkers..... Weird.

 

Punched it home about 1030am,

 

[Yowie]

A few nice fish for your efforts, considering you have a problem on Saturday.

Green toads can swim rather fast for those of the "toad" family. Able to chase down a lure retrieved at speed, and I have had them chase a bait inside the Hacking. A nightmare from the fish world. Do not need them out off Cronulla. 

[zmk1962]

Nice report. At least you got a feed. Let’s hope third time lucky - no engine issues and no toads. 
Toads are a destructive nuisance, I think they are worse than jackets … at least jackets are good on the chew!

cheers Zoran 

[Larkin]

A couple of good fish for the effort.

too much rubbish around the ramps especially at low tide - ive sucked up foam, sticks ect.

in close not too much of an issue - out wide would be a big headache trying to clear the debris.

 

[jenno64]

Lovely panny there Crabstar, lucky the motor overheating was an easy fix! Hate the toads, it's like they could be in a 1980s horror movie:)

[Pickles]

Nice work @Crabstar, very healthy snapper and the 40+ a perfect eating size, (not so keen on the Morwong though, but fun to catch). Isn’t it good when you have a reliable motor. My Mercury 90CT has now 1325 hours and never given me any grief or needed any repairs (🙏🙏)