Hello everyone,
Today Ben and I wet
Tiger Ben and a few lines and other things .

We set out pretty early and we had actually for once the night before made a bit of a fishing plan together.

We planned to head outside first and fish for  flathead .
Then around 11 be in the Boys Home channel chasing George Whiting
So thats a cool plan .

Ben has almost finished setting up the sounder and its working a lot better than never ,
So Ben was playing around with the sounder while I parked the car .

When i stepped aboard the first thing that I try and do every time that i go fishing is to turn on the tunes .
The stereo in the boat seems to have a mind of its own sometimes and it chose to play me nothing but dead silence .

So off under the
San Remo bridge and out towards Cape Woolami we go,
Hit the last marker and usually there every time its a bit of a rough ride for about 75metres where there is i guess currents clashing below the surface and shallower water and sometimes it can really chop and stand up.

Well all I could see was white caps ahead of me , and slop and chop ahead ,
So we hit it the rough bit and it actually didn’t end .
Probably a km into it I thought maybe we turn around,
Ben and I quickly discussed this and  we decided to continue on to our first mark .

I had brought with me two longer rods this time for the flatties today as last trip the long rod I used was absolutely fantastic.
I caught the first flattie  and it was a nice one
I got another great bite and lifted the rod  pretty quickly to set the hook and my rod just collapsed in a heap as it broke in the thick lower bit of the shaft at the reel end.

Bugger .
Shit happens

So I grabbed out a whiting rod to replace it with and I dropped that over the side .
Ben got a great bite and he said to me something is wrong dad ,
My new reel is broken .
I looked across and l could sort of see the problem as the braid as a spool full was spinning on the spool so you couldn’t wind it op .

I should have offered Ben ten bucks for his broken new baitrunner but instead I asked him if he put a bed of mono line on his reel before he spooled it up with  the braid .
He said no .

Theres the problem ,
But how are we going to fix it ?
I came up with an idea ,
So we wound  up our other lines and Ben held his rod while i drove the boat foward until all of the line ran out .

I then tied the braid off to the rodholder and cut the line
Ben then spooled up a few metres of mono line .
Then we tied the braid to the mono and Ben wound the line back in with a  nice flattie on the end of it still.

We then tried my next set of marks, and entered it in to the chart as a waypoint.
And launched the drone as we were flying along at this stage .
The drone worked and put the brakes on  ,
But there was no fish .

It calmed off a bit .

We didn’t really hit the flatties today
But we had a quick go over at the Punchbowl ,
And was that a dangerous rock platform today with the fair swell pounding it.
I thought to myself
Hmm
I wonder what its like to live in that house there
At least id be able to see what the sea is like.

So its time to stick to the plan and hit the Boys Home channel.
So I’m still running two chatplotters  and when we entered the narrow channel the two gps’s showed two completely different positions by about ten metres.

We had a fish there and we caught a couple,
Then we thought we would try our luck at the outer entrance of the
channel .
I was looking at my trusted old gps and Ben was looking at the Lawrence .
He is saying to me turn right, turn right .
Too late we hit ground zero .
We are stuck hard on the mud.

We looked at each other a little perplexed and I wasn’t going to stay  there for hours waiting for water
I swore a bit and
I started undressing
Down to the jocks again and in i go.

Now i only had to push the boat about a meter over and we would be saved , once I hit the water there was an instant big massive problem .
It was mud with no bottom.
Every time I put a foot down i sunk up to my thigh ,
So I couldn’t really push as I had no feet .
I was trying to explain to Ben the problem and i was gaining about an inch for every ten steps.
So it took a  while,
If I had of got desperate i would have tried standing on the chopping board to spread my weight out further and maybe give me a step.

Once we got floating again i got Ben to quickly drop the pick and  I climbed aboard
As the tide  happily swung us back right into the middle of the channel.
Phew.

I said to Ben at least its not winter .
Dried and dressed and back into it .
We tried another spot between two boats up the bay and they were both catching whiting and for some reason we couldn’t even loose a bait .

The wind got up in the bay  and we headed back to the Boys Home channel for another crack .
The anchor jammed so I had to climb out on the deck to free it a few times.
I must have a longer chain than i had before as it fills the reel too much .
But Its an easy fix ,
and i just can’t fault the Sarca anchor.
It has picked in every time that I have dropped it .

My radio actually came on  then by itself  just out of the blue playing a Kylie song
Ben couldn’t blame me for that .
Then it turned off again.
Just Like magic.

I put out a heavier rod and it got a great bite and a big fight.
As I thought straight away
It was a Scate,
Its one of the Ray family
It wasn’t big thank goodness as if you catch the big ones it is like trying to pull up a stubborn bath plug thats been siliconed in the hole .

Ben put out his big rod ,baited up and he caught himself one also.

Fishing like we did today for both if us is so different in contrast than  us drifting out in deep water .
It was good though except for bloody hungry toadies giving us  a hard time , and eating our pippies.
And 
The unexpected swim .

And to top it off at the end I landed a nice pike .

Cheers xxx
Curlyg