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sunny
05-08-2008, 06:26 PM
Had a day with not much to do and the weather looked good, so the boat was put in and pointed at the reefs to the north of Moreton.

First cast at spot X produced a pearly. Undersized, but still exciting to me because it was my first pearly. Unfortunately that was a sign of things to come, with one undersized fish following another at and ditto at spots Y and Z. Which would have been a bit miserable if I didn’t have two whales pop up next to the boat to say g’day.

After a while the Southerly was making things a bit lumpy so I decided to nip back around to Bulwer for a spot of lunch. To keep things entertaining I jigged up a few livies and put one out on the broomstick I keep for such things. Typical livie, I’ve just sat down sanga in hand when the Calcutta on the broomstick starts ticking over. I keep 50lb braid on the broomstick which made short work of what turned out to be a small bull shark of about 1m. Mumbling about sharks wasting good live bait and lunch time I put another livie down.

This one had the decency to wait until I finished lunch before it caught the express train which didn’t stop for anything. With the drag locked down hard and lovely burn marks appearing on my thumbs I wasn’t winning any line back and the backing was starting to show. So I got into follow mode behind it. (Always fun when you are solo) This helped me get a whole lot of line back until the express train noticed the boat and then it just took off. This time there was no catching up.

Here’s what I learned today. “Always make sure your backing is a strong as the braid”. Just as the backing knot slipped off the spool there was one of those lovely “plink” noises that is usually followed by loud swearing.
I think the guys over at the Bulwer campground probably heard a bit more than was strictly necessary, but hey, why should I like learning things the hard way?

scoota
05-08-2008, 06:44 PM
You never forget the hard lessons sunny, thats how you use the knowledge you have gained and initiate a new strategy for next time and the time after and those undersize ones turn into keepers and the bug keeps goin:)

Expect to see photos next time;)

Scoota....

Local_Guy
05-08-2008, 06:59 PM
sometimes you can never have enough line on the spool. guess you would have gone with just seeing the fish if you knew you were going to lose it. but hey, thats fishing.

atleast you got out, better than sitting at home or going to work.