Went down to Shady last Saturday hoping to score a few fish and also my last chance to get on the board for march. The going was tuff with a few rats high up in the river. My decky landed a 69 and a 63 but my couple were undersize. They were pretty dark anyway so they were all released.
We decided to head to Marsh for the run in so we shot down the river and along the coast arriving at the mouth just after dark to be greeted with an empty marsh ck mouth, woohoo! 5 minutes later a boat came down from the barrage and took up position opposite. 10 minutes after that another boat came up the coast and anchored behind us. Never mind it was good to see that it wasn't just us that couldn't get a fish! I hooked one that spat me as it jumped but that was it, so we headed out of there and camped up in Tommycut for the night. I got one about 70 on a fizzer only to loose it at the boat with what can only be described as net technical difficulties. That was as close as i got to a legal barra for the trip. We got a few swampies around the back of the second barrage on the way back but again nothing legal.
Camping on the boat was ordinary as we realised when we got down there that a rat had got into my boat and died. Along with the putrid smell we got smashed by a storm at about 5 am.
By the time we got home on Sunday arvo the boat was rotton so i started pulling off panels to get this bastard out. Ended up finding 4 dead rats in the bilges! I baited them in my old shed the week before so they obviously wanted to repay me for the feed i gave them! I'm reluctant to put my canvas covers on in the shed because i think it would be worse, and the boat would never dry out. I ended up making a new simple cover up out of shade cloth and bungy cord and so far it's working well. I need to hurry up and get my plans in for the new shed!
This weekend
Anyway, the pathetic services of some of the freight companies and building suppliers up here meant that my gear wasn't ready for the job i had booked in to do over the weekend
After dealing with a less then happy customer i packed the boat and headed for a quick solo session and one last crack at my march barra.On the water by about 6.30 on saturday and i headed straight over to what i've now started calling perseverance creek (i don't know it's real name!) This creek has let me down the last 3 times so i was keen to get that monkey off my back. Anyway it didn't take long with my tigerlillie bomber getting smashed by a very spirited 73cm harbour chromie that was hell bent on reaching a snag a bit further up the drain. After assembling the net, drifting into the mangroves, and going around the leg of the motor 14 times i finally had my march barra. That was big relief and an awesome start to one of the best harbour sessions i've had in a while. It quietened down a bit until the low when i got another 3 good fish in the space of about half an hour, the best going 81 so it was an upgrade for the comp, the others going 65 and 63. Unfortanately the big one was bleeding pretty badly so cut its throat and stuck her on ice with the other 3.
Mission accomplished, stocked the very bare freezer back up, and got on the board for the month.
On a side note all my fish for the comp this year although aren't that big, they've all come from the harbour. Yep she sure is fished out boys, better off going to shady every weekend with the masses!
Cheers.
