A day on the water - SA
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:25 pm
Hey fellas,
Thought I would get this up, either to make you jealous or so you could live vicariously through me.
I didn't post it, but about a month ago I bugged out of Melbourne, back to Adelaide. Working from home anyway, had some incidents in our apartment building, bla bla. So we did our isolation here and are planning what's next.
As a side effect of being back here, in the glorious state of SA, land of the free, fishing is still okay. In fact, it's a bit like the twilight zone. Things are kinda normal, apart from everything being closed. Thanks to a blitz of testing, bit of luck from the whole cruise ship tango, and less visitors generally, SA is pretty safe.
I took off with my Dad - same household and all so social distancing rules are okay - from North Haven, basically the upper end of the suburban beaches here.
Got rained on as we got the boat in the water and headed out, but the water was flat calm and barely a breeze in the air.
Usually my family just go crabbing but I was keen to test some new gear. And have been eating crabs since I arrived (woe is me) so I was keen for some squid or fish.
Well, we hooked a decent little squid on first cast near the 'black pole', just out of the marina really, and an even bigger one followed that in. I managed to get my jig in the water in time and hooked him. This was probably my PB at the time.
Had a line out for gar with some gents on the end. That went off with a nice Tommy on the line. I was hoping for some mackerel too, to give my new UL rod a run for its money.
This thing is the lightest rig I have ever used... 3lb polyester line (didn't know it existed a few months ago) with a 3lb leader. Well, it worked and I hooked a mackerel in our berley trail with the smallest soft plastic I have ever used, on a 0.7g jighead. It pulled like a horse and bent my rod in half. A lot of fun on that little line - in fact, I could up the drag much higher than I thought I could. Wouldn't want to pull it up on a tall jetty though.
I did have some troubles with the line tangling though, it didn't like wind or loose casting. Had to cut off the leader and decided to tie my jig onto the poly line directly. That worked a treat, my plastic hit the surface and a mackerel slammed it straight away. Really feels like a big fight on this little thing!
The rain came in again and we got soaked. Quick break for lunch.
We moved the boat a little further north and found a nice weedy patch. Lots of casting all over and we landed a few more squid, including an even bigger kraken, definitely my PB now. Hard to see (beer can for scale) but this thing was huge.
Its tentacles had more meat on them than the smaller model squid we pulled in.
Headed in as it was getting dark, pleased as punch. Best session I've had in a while.
Final count: 8 squid, 2 mackerel, 1 tommy, 25 blue swimmers. Not being greedy - the crabs are shared out among whatever family want them! At an appropriate distance of course.
An hour after we got back, everything was cooked up and good to go. Quick turnaround on an awesome dinner!
I am going to write up some gear reviews on the purchase thread as I have a fair bit of time on my newer, weird rods now.
Cheers for reading and hope we're back to normal before long.
Thought I would get this up, either to make you jealous or so you could live vicariously through me.
I didn't post it, but about a month ago I bugged out of Melbourne, back to Adelaide. Working from home anyway, had some incidents in our apartment building, bla bla. So we did our isolation here and are planning what's next.
As a side effect of being back here, in the glorious state of SA, land of the free, fishing is still okay. In fact, it's a bit like the twilight zone. Things are kinda normal, apart from everything being closed. Thanks to a blitz of testing, bit of luck from the whole cruise ship tango, and less visitors generally, SA is pretty safe.
I took off with my Dad - same household and all so social distancing rules are okay - from North Haven, basically the upper end of the suburban beaches here.
Got rained on as we got the boat in the water and headed out, but the water was flat calm and barely a breeze in the air.
Usually my family just go crabbing but I was keen to test some new gear. And have been eating crabs since I arrived (woe is me) so I was keen for some squid or fish.
Well, we hooked a decent little squid on first cast near the 'black pole', just out of the marina really, and an even bigger one followed that in. I managed to get my jig in the water in time and hooked him. This was probably my PB at the time.
Had a line out for gar with some gents on the end. That went off with a nice Tommy on the line. I was hoping for some mackerel too, to give my new UL rod a run for its money.
This thing is the lightest rig I have ever used... 3lb polyester line (didn't know it existed a few months ago) with a 3lb leader. Well, it worked and I hooked a mackerel in our berley trail with the smallest soft plastic I have ever used, on a 0.7g jighead. It pulled like a horse and bent my rod in half. A lot of fun on that little line - in fact, I could up the drag much higher than I thought I could. Wouldn't want to pull it up on a tall jetty though.
I did have some troubles with the line tangling though, it didn't like wind or loose casting. Had to cut off the leader and decided to tie my jig onto the poly line directly. That worked a treat, my plastic hit the surface and a mackerel slammed it straight away. Really feels like a big fight on this little thing!
The rain came in again and we got soaked. Quick break for lunch.
We moved the boat a little further north and found a nice weedy patch. Lots of casting all over and we landed a few more squid, including an even bigger kraken, definitely my PB now. Hard to see (beer can for scale) but this thing was huge.
Its tentacles had more meat on them than the smaller model squid we pulled in.
Headed in as it was getting dark, pleased as punch. Best session I've had in a while.
Final count: 8 squid, 2 mackerel, 1 tommy, 25 blue swimmers. Not being greedy - the crabs are shared out among whatever family want them! At an appropriate distance of course.
An hour after we got back, everything was cooked up and good to go. Quick turnaround on an awesome dinner!
I am going to write up some gear reviews on the purchase thread as I have a fair bit of time on my newer, weird rods now.
Cheers for reading and hope we're back to normal before long.