19.04.13 Cricket trip to Lottin/Cape Runaway

Doesn't time fly it only seems like last week that we were at lottin and here we are again another year on and our 22nd fishing trip is about to begin.
Day one. We load up and drive the 3 hour trip to Cape runaway where we stay, The weather in the last couple of days has turned to crap, after the best summer and Autumn in memory it is typical that this week is the drought breaker. We get to the house to see the paddock flooded and the river high and dirty. So it was unpack and knock a cap off a bottle or two.
Day Two. We awake to blue Sky's and a strong north westerly (not good), 4 of us take the 4x4 bikes over the hill (700 mtrs) to have a look and the sight was not good for the boats but the track was drying out fast and it was ok to take the 4x4 land cruiser over the hill and to fish the rocks at the back of Jim's farm. The fishing was ok with everyone except me catching snapper with Pooh getting the biggest at 5.18 kg. My day just got worse and worse. I cut my finger before I even had a bait out (my main casting finger) and it bleed like a stuck pig, then all I caught was a eel, to top it off the sole of my rock boots came off. I had to take a lot of shit that night, not that anyone cared about my cut finger on the rocks but when they saw it back at the house suddenly there was a scramble to find first aid kits.
Day Three. The wind had gone and the morning was still and perfect so took the boats to Lottin and headed to a rock island we like 6 km up the rocks. We spread out and got the berlie in the water, the fishing was slow but steady. I managed to catch a snapper early on to get rid of the boggy tag and did I mention my finger was still very sore. About midday I had a big hit and managed to land a good snapper which I put into a rock pool to keep it fresh. About a hour later Evan who was fishing with me and I decided to head to the gear pile for lunch, taking the snapper for weighing (as the weigh master the scales were in my pack) Blank yelled out to us to check out Gnomes fish, I opened the ammo box (old ex army plastic shell boxes great storage containers)  and saw a big snapper and thought this is going to be close. I weighted his snapper first 5.75kg and then mine 5.81 kg phew 6 gms in it, but I was in the lead. Heading home Evans boat had a disaster when he hit a submerged rock and smashed the drive shaft, luckily 20 metres from the trailer.
Day Four - The last day of the competition. With the boat out of action we had to go back to going over the hill in the 4x4, the day was perfect no wind or swell, which was sad as we could see the Cape rocks where we wanted to fish off were accessible, they are very hard to get on to. The fishing was slow with the odd good fish being caught around 3 kg, with the day ended no one was able to beat mine and finally the green jacket was mine for the next 12 months, we have been competing for the green jacket for the last 10 years and I have been coming 2nd for the last 5 years, now I can relax in future years now the monkey is off my back.

To top the weekend end off on the way home the heavens opened up again with flooding up the coast road to the cape and the wheel seared off Evans boat trailer, we were lucky that one of the boys brothers lived in a near by town and we were able to get a new set of studs and to be on our way after a couple of hours in the rain.

PS - my finger is better now

Ladies comp

After one postponement we finally got underway, this year Trish wasn't able to fish so it was just Deb and Lianne who crewed for me. The weather conditions were very good with little wind and little swell, we headed out to my spot at Arial reef where we had the berlie in and the stray lines out in no time. Our first fish in was a shark not a good sign but it turned out to be our only one, we soon had a snapper on board followed by another and another in fact we were catching and releasing a steady stream of pan sized (legal) snapper we kept a dozen 2 to 3 kg snapper and a 3.72kg which earned Deb 4th place and a prize. Lianne hooked a good sized Kingfish that won the fight and busted off when it dived to the bottom. The day turned out to be very good with both girls catching heaps with about 20 fish released and sore muscles the next morning.

very quiet at the moment

I went in the Young Nicks Charity contest with Evan and Sue as crew, we managed a few snapper stray lining, but nothing big enough to get us on the leader board. The last day Sue and I got into the skippies, boating 30 for the freezer.
Monday I took the day off from work and went out again for more skippies with Gnome for our cricket trip to the cape, as usual we only caught 8 as they seemed to have dispersed, small groups all over.
Easter was a toss up whether I took gazebo up to Bowentown or not, looking on the web, the forecast wasn't the best so I left her at home, as one would expect the weather was perfect and what was worse the snapper were biting with limit hauls for most. I manged to get out on the brother in laws small runabout in the harbour and we managed 20 snapper in 2 metres of water - It pays to watch fishing programs on TV as I got the clue how to catch snapper in the Harbour from the programme "Big Angry fish" which did a lot of its filming from Bowentown. Every place is different even though you are targeting the same species. Only 10 sleeps until our fishing trip to the cape, can't wait.