What’s that noise???? Actually, is there no noise???? The wind had finally dropped off after blowing for the last 2 months in South Australia. We had a window for a couple of days to go fishing. Kerry and I could do 2 days and Jules one.
First day was a bit of a late start for Kerry and I, we underestimated the morning light with daylight savings and found ourselves in broad daylight at 6am and still had a 2 hour drive in front of us. It looked flat all the way down the coast, even the windmills weren’t wind milling.
There were white caps at Cape Jervis, after a quick chat with the local charter operators we decided to go. A washing machine would have been a smoother ride so we decided to stay in close and wait for it to drop out. We pulled up on anchor and the tide was running so fast we struggle with 10oz sinkers to keep our gear on the bottom, it was terrible fishing. We decided to drift instead and still didn’t have any luck. Towards lunch time it started to drop out and we decided to head out to Sanders Bank and have a scout around, last time we were there we got Kingfish so were hoping for a similar result.
Alas all we could find were Swallowtails, they are great eating but easy to catch. There was a bit of a storm whipping up, no wind just thunder and lightning and an aluminium boat 30 odd kms off shore we high tailed it back into the mainland. We have a great Flathead spot and as the storm looked like it was going away from us we decided to stop first drift we both got a Flathead so we anchored up. I don’t know when it happened and nor does Kerry, the storm had turned and was heading across the passage, the Flathead were also on the chew, what does a girl do!!!!! One more cast, one more cast, then we had to go. We raced the storm up the Gulf with lightening all around us, Kerry was scared. We did make it, the fastest retrieval in the history of Justagirl, we sat in the car breathing again and having a belly laugh. The usual, that was close. your fault you wanted one more fish, lucky Jules wasn’t with us we’d still be out there.
Jules was arriving at around 10 to join us for the next day’s fishing. By now it was bucketing down and still lightening so instead of sleeping in the boat we went to the caravan park and hired a cabin.
Cheese platter and a wine, bedtime.
We were on the ramp early the next morning with Jules in tow we were all hoping for the first Tuna for the season kind a day, but nope, no Tuna. The tide again was running fast, so we spent some time on the drift, Kerry was on fire. A Harlequin Fish came on board, Kerry and Jules had no idea what it was and were going to let it go. I’m “NO” they are the best eating fish so it went in the Eski
We decided once again to head out to Sanders and try the reefs out there as we were not having much luck, We followed yesterdays session with a heap of Swallow Tails some huge Mackerel, a Nanny or 2 and some Trevally.
3 pm it was decided the Flathead ground was a go and gee it didn’t disappoint. Kerry got a nice Gummy Shark; we also got a dozen Flathead. The plan was to sleep overnight in Antechamber Bay one of our favourite camps. We had some new Lights onboard that Pacific Marine Installed when Justagirl was being serviced (Gee that sounds really wrong)
You can check them out at https://www.lazerlamps.com.au/ These lights are amazing and allowed us to stay out well after dark. Coming into the Boat ramp was like daylight with the top light shining the way. I also found them easy to drive with, normally lights in the boat are terrible and you get blinded.
We stayed in the Boat that night and all slept like babies, the wind came up around 3am which is why we came back to the Ramp. Thank you Carol from American river VMR she always keeps us up to date with what’s happening and suggested that the wind was going to come back up and should retrieve before midnight.
We had lots of fish to fillet and had decided the Harlequin was going to be Lunch at my place.
OMG it was delicious, we battered some and cooked some just in butter it was like the Blue Eye Jules and I had caught earlier in the year down at Port MAcDonnell.
Fished filleted, Boat clean, gear all washed up and put away, the end to a perfect few days shared with great people, doing what we love. NO, we didn’t find any Tuna so that’s out next adventure.
