Fishing and Spearing mix

Got out for a night fish a few days ago. Fishing was a bit slow but either side of the change of the tide things fired up a bit. Landed a few Spangled Emporer some Nannygai and Nathan jagged a stomper Reef Jack. Quick troll in the morning landing a average size Spanish and then a quick dive producing a few Coral Trout and a nice Painted Cray. Ran into some dodgy characters at the boat ramp ha ha. Welcome home Billy!

Barramundi

Just got back from a great trip to Mitchel River country with the Cummings family. Plenty of Barra caught by all, shot plenty of pigs and had a few relaxing ales. It doesn’t get much better than eating fresh fish a nice sunset and a cold beer with friends.

NSW Footballers

Its always exiting to have a solid plan of attack when heading out for a fish. Well the plan was solid, however as that little bugger Murphy keeps showing his horrible little head we all know that things don’t always go to plan. Arrived at the reef early and began to troll for Spaniards. Hopes were high a s a pro mackerel boat was there already so signs seemed ominous. After about 1 and a half to 2 hours of trolling changing rigs and mumbling a few choice words it was decided that we seemed to flogging the proverbial dead horse. The great thing about this time of year is that there is always a back up plan. Anchor up for a bit of bottom bashing and try for a nice feed of Coral Trout. As it turns out old mate Murphy must of found someone else to pick on for a while as we managed to land a few nice trout including the 3 pictured above. Given the result in the last State of Origin series they must of been NSW Footballer Trout on holiday to let me catch them. QLD Footballers would be far too fast and clever for that. Anyway one measured 55cm and the other 57cm. The big fella went 75cm and 7kg. All of these trout are actually blue spot trout and grow at a much quicker rate than the normal Coral Trout although their life span is about the same. For this reason they reproduce at a larger size and this is the reason that the minimum limit is 50cm and maximum is 80cm. They are fairly easy to tell apart from the common Coral Trout as the pectoral fins are dark where as the normal Coral Trout (38cm limit) are transparent.

Island Time

When someone talks about “Island Time” most people know it is slang for taking things steady and sometimes an excuse for being late. Well we weren’t late, we launched the boat right on the crack of dawn and were pretty confident of landing some nice Spaniards. Fair amount of run so a fair amount of fun you would think? After about 2 hours of trolling nice size gars with wog heads and then even running some Wolfie’s at different depths, things were looking a tad grim. We decided to anchor up and try a different tactic. Take it a little more easy and be a bit more laid back. Over went the jigs and up came some nice live baits. One was attached to a balloon and floated out the back while the other was threaded on to a 100 pound hand line and sunk to the bottom via some pretty healthy lead. We didn’t have to wait too long when the float started to make that familiar sound that all red blooded fisherman include in their tall stories. After 3 or 4 loops around the boat and some lucky moments involving the anchor rope a nice Spaniard was landed. A little while later the hand line began to spin like a second hand yo-yo until the brakes were put on and a nice size bar-cheeked trout was landed. Both lines were baited again and this time the hand line was the first to go. Unfortunately this bloke wasn’t going to be stopped as both myself and my big mate tried in vain to stop the underwater train. After that effort it was time to pack up and head for home but a new lesson has been learn’t ”Thank heavens for Island Time”

Hugh Jackman on SNL and the Xmas Kangaroo

http://www.ownedclip.com/owned-videos/Aussie_Christmas_Kangaroo

Spearfishing Trip

Its not very often this time of year that the weather forecast leads you to believe that the the only waves that will be made on the water is if you drop something overboard. Its even less of a chance that you get to spend a day on the water with your bridal party of 2001. Well as fate would have it the weather actually did what it was forecast to do and all of us managed to get the day of at the same time (miracle!) Got out early and jumped in the water on a few bombies that I had marked that had previously held good fish. The going was a bit slow to say the least and by 10:00am we had only landed 6 trout. The decision was made to try the other end of the reef were the current was coming from and as it turned out this was a good call. Found some patchy looking country that didn’t look that good but each little patch held a nice trout or 2. Finally I found a patch that looked promising and I was trying to encourage Richie to shoot something to stir up a bit of action. Rich was having trouble with his snorkel and was having trouble getting down to the depth. Finally I spotted a nice trout which I dived down on and shot quite easily. Then the troops arrived and trout started showing up in good numbers. I shot a few more as Tony had got  a few in front of me and casually said to him while he was in the boat “You better get in here there is a few fish around” We speared about another 4 or 5 each from that patch as well as a Tuskie and all were of good size. The last fish I got was the best of the day after Tony said to me “Did you see that big Blue Spot Trout before in that hole” I hadn’t but went down for another look and guess what showed up to greet me? Rich’s first spearfishing trip saw him land a nice trout while all the action was going on and I think he now might have the bug.

Terry Tate

Every Office should have one of these. Click the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzToNo7A-94