tough day at The Twelve

G’day lads

three SA’ers (Pogo, Scrat Rat and myself) and The New Guy Tim launched at Roseville this morning, and headed east. With Seabreeze up and down like a yo- yo recently we were hoping to at least get to the Twelve Mile and if lucky, to Browns.

On logging on with Coastal Patrol and clearing the Heads we could see this was not to be. A stiff northerly was coming up fast and whitecapping. In a little open tinny like mine prudence is the better part of valour so instead we turned into the wind and headed north- looking for a salmon school or maybe a few kingie arches, on The Whale. Up to Long Reef but nothing doing, so back past Bluefish with a couple of wobblers out. First strike a Sergeant Baker (remember when they used to be rare??) and next up a nice bonito, which we put on ice for shark bait:

On rounding North Head a school of salmon was rolling on the surface, one bloke nearby hooked up. By the time we got into gear they had sounded for good.

The wind was backing off so (at his request) we dropped a seasick crew member off at Balmoral, came back out and headed for the Twelve. the water looked magic out there, 20.8 degrees and a deep blue. But the wind was at 15 knots and with no sea anchor onboard we skated along at 2.2-2.5 knots, making cubing very difficult:

After an hour or so we quit cubing, put up the outriggers and trolled big minnows and squidgies back up the trail. No joy. A wet trip back to the Heads (but without a word of complaint from our ultra upbeat crew) and we picked up Tim at the wharf. On rounding into the home straight to the ramp there were a few chopper tailor splashes and kingie boils in the murky water. Two kingies hooked up and one brought to boat:

Just one of those days that didn’t quite work out, but made much better by the great bunch of blokes on board. We’ll try again next week. Cheers to all, Andrew

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