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charleville
06-11-2006, 09:55 AM
Someday I am gonna shove my fist down the telephone line and rip out the heart of whoever it is who answers my call with that response, “Your call is important to us. However all of our consultants are busy at the moment. Your call will be placed in a queue....” >:( >:( >:(

Then comes the indeterminable set of transfers each one preceded with a recorded message which either says that the call is to be monitored for quality improvement reasons (Hah!) or that my call is important to them (Hah!) and I am about to be placed in a queue.... >:(

I hate *&^$^&@*!^#$@ queues. >:( >:( >:(

Of any sort! >:(

My wife will attest to that. ;) She, like most rational human beings, is happy to stand in the queue at the post office, or sit in a long line of traffic, or at the cash register at Myers whilst perfectly capable human beings who work for Myers are squandering their time doing other things nearby but not helping reduce the queue. >:( I usually walk around to be right in front of them and say something like, Whilst you are not doing anything could you...” Not for the first time have I received a grunt of indignation from the person behind the counter who has obviously been ill informed about what makes customers happy - or unhappy as the case may be. ;D

I have even been known to walk halfway across town to find a taxi rank which has no queue. Usually it is quicker to just wait in the queue but not for this little black duck. :( Actually I do that quite a lot when I am traveling interstate. Really dumb. :(

The truth is that I have no patience. :-[ Not a smidgen! Not one iota. Not a drop. Not a whiff. :-[ It is actually a trait favored for senior managers in large corporations and I was very pleased with myself once when I was in a group of people who were psyche tested and discovered that my level of impatience left them all behind. ;D

Usually though, it is a disadvantage :( - the source of many looks of despair from my wife about my bad traffic habits; :( or the reason that any hobby that I have ever had usually ends in failure because I don’t have the patience to read the instructions. I remember building a balsa/paper model of a Spitfire when I was a kid and the wings went on backwards. ;D( It seemed logical to me at the time. :( After all most aeroplanes these days have their wings tapering back but not the Spitfire. :( The front edge of its wings are straight and the back edge slopes back from the wing tip. What sort of a boofhead designed that?! ;D ;D ) It did look kinda funny though and I was always too embarrassed to show it to anyone after some smart alec pointed out my error and enjoyed doing so. >:(

It is also the reason why soft plastics have no attraction to me not withstanding that I have bought a few. After a half dozen casts, I just take them off the line and go back to ‘eco-friendly recyclable” lures - ie bait. ;)

I was pondering all of these thoughts last night as I made the journey back from Mud Island to Manly boat harbour at 11pm.

It occurred to me, however, that whilst I don’t have any patience to speak of, I do have persistence. :-/ Large lumps of it. Always have. ;) Evidenced by my working for the same employer for over 40 years, :) by my being married to the one lady for 32 years :) - by my persisting with part-time study for a total of twenty years after leaving school to improve my life :) - I failed a few subjects along the way (never did have the patience for quiet study! ;D) but I still kept going - oh, and, er - by the fact that I still have a whole bunch of Telstra T2 shares. :( ;D ;D ;D

It seems to me that patience and persistence should be directly correlated yet it seems possible to have heaps of one but none of the other. :-/

Take last night for instance...

The weather yesterday was magnificent. 8-) ‘Chief’ gave a great report on Ausfish of catching some great tailor out in the bay yesterday morning and described the conditions so wonderfully that I decided to give Mud Island a go last night. :)

The fishing opportunities were likely to be a bit sub-optimal because it was right on the full moon and the tide was not close to sunset. :-/ I have found from past experience that a night high tide is not enough on its own to bring fish necessarily. It is much better if it coincides with sunset..

And so it seemed that it might be the case last night. After anchoring just before sunset, I fished through to the 9.08 pm tide almost without a bite, pulling in just one undersized squire and a grinner. :'(

The weather conditions were very good to start with but degenerated a little leading up to the high tide. At the start of the session, the skies were clear with a big fat moon rising in the east. 8-) Then a big black cloud drifted over from the land, the wind kicked up a little bit and 1 1/2 drops of rain fell - enough for me to take precautionary measures with the boat’s canopy - but which were not really necessary by the end of the night. :-/ The cloud blackened the sky - which I thought was ok as it might help the fish to not be too skittish under a bright full moon. :)

I mostly had the place to myself last night until about an hour or so before high tide a boat came along from the south and anchored about 50m from me. No problems - they were a couple of blokes enjoying their fishing and went about doing so pretty quietly - which I like. ;)

But as soon as the tide changed, they pulled up the anchor and went. :-/ I guess that they were not getting much action either. That is a shame. :-/ If only they had a little more patience or persistence . :( Within a few minutes, a bit of action started and I ended the night with a fine feed as shown below. :) :) :)

Persistence has taught me that the bite action can start either side of a tide change and it is worth a wait for a half hour or so after the tide turns. So if it was you who was out there and skeddadled at the turn of the tide, sorry mate, but you should have stayed a little bit longer. ;)

The thick cloud stayed overhead right until I pulled up anchor just before 11pm. By that stage it was blowing all of about 5 knots, the moon came out from behind the clouds to be over my shoulder and the trip home was magnificent. :) :) :) I could have stayed there all night but I told a very patient lady that I would be home by midnight ... and I was. ;)

All fish caught on unweighted pilchards on ganged 4/0 hooks. The smallest went a smidgen over the size minimum; the largest was 50cm.

It was a damn fine night! I am glad that I waited past the tide though. :) :) :)

Pitsta
06-11-2006, 10:00 AM
Great reading once again . Welldone !!!

Mark

bundopeace
06-11-2006, 10:00 AM
nice report......patience foo a start..... ;)

For_Steve
06-11-2006, 10:46 AM
Your report makes a really nice read. It sounds like nice night on the water and you picked up a good feed as well.

TIM-DONSELAAR
06-11-2006, 11:00 AM
Nice squire and grassie there charleville...Well Done [smiley=thumbsup.gif] [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

cheers tim :D

T1
06-11-2006, 01:46 PM
Nice work Bruce and it certainly was a top night for it last night! You certainly scored more of a feed than i managed in 2 trips over the weekend at Wello so well done for the effort!

Take Care T

JasonT
06-11-2006, 02:06 PM
I love your reports Bruce.. Thankyou!

Thanks for the many many many minutes of reading pleasure! :-)
Did I say many many many??? I meant lots, or heaps , or bukku,.. you get the idea! :-)

And not one moment dull or uninteresting!
Thanks again and keep em coming!


JT

chief
06-11-2006, 03:11 PM
well done bruce, i was driving along the water front early last night looking at that huge moon and the bay and i had a thought of how you would have been going over at Mud. First grassie of the season , good to hear . Gee they fight hard. cheers

PinHead
06-11-2006, 04:38 PM
I am sorry but I do not have the patience to read such a long winded report..hehe

charleville
06-11-2006, 05:43 PM
I am sorry but I do not have the patience to read such a long winded report..hehe


No worries, Pinhead. The picture is put in just for you. ;D ;D ;D It tells the whole story and is worth a thousand words.. ;)

Adamy
06-11-2006, 06:45 PM
Pinhead stole my line.. ::) ;D ;D ...

Just kidding - I actually made it to the end - and actually learned something ;D - I would have been like the guys who packed up and left... OR I might have put away the bait and pulled out the placcies to go looking for the fish.... :D I dont seem to have the patience just to sit there and soak baits for hours and hours just waiting for the bite... good on you Chale.. your persistence paid dividends in the end. Well done - great read as always.

Thanks,

Adam

charleville
06-11-2006, 07:09 PM
I dont seem to have the patience just to sit there and soak baits for hours and hours just waiting for the bite.


I don't either. When you fish unweighted baits in a current, there is little 'just sitting there'. It is all about casting up-current and letting the bait float down through the water column and arise out the back to be retrieved and cast out again.

If you cast out with lead, you are forever rebaiting after crabs or pickers steal your bait anyway so you might as well fish unweighted and let the bait do as i mentioned.

The exception is for my second rod which has a bait-runner on it and which I cast out as far behind me as I can and just let it float.

It was actually on the bait-runner that the 50cm squire was caught. The bait had only just hit the water when the bait-runner ratchet screamed away.

:)

webby
06-11-2006, 07:41 PM
Your a persistent bugger mate ;D a feed a feed no matter what you catch.
Good to see the rubbers havent influence your style ;D
Headin over to Mile wednesday, so if calculations are right, they should be there, ;)
We definetly will have to soak some bait together, and cut some bio-platiscs up for berley ;D
As im about to get mid week days off, so watch out all swimming things :-?
egards

cactus_jack
06-11-2006, 08:03 PM
Love reading your reports Charleville, hopefully your missus is patient enough to let you back out there for some more

DD
06-11-2006, 08:05 PM
U must av been a fish in a previous life mr C ive never read a post of yours where you havent taken a feed home,uncanny;call me juvenilistic but mate can u cut to the chase my eyes get tired by the time you get to the juicey bits!!!!! ;D ;D

charleville
07-11-2006, 11:52 AM
U must av been a fish in a previous life mr C



hehehe! ;D ;D ;D

bidkev
07-11-2006, 08:26 PM
Bruce, you're wasted on us mate............get these reports off to a mag and make us pay for readin' 'em. .............a bit of wisdom........a bit of a chuckle.......and a lot of persistence........you don't do too bad on patience either, not in my book anyway.

kev

charleville
08-11-2006, 06:04 AM
Bruce, you're wasted on us mate............get these reports off to a mag and make us pay for readin' 'em.



Ah, you are very kind, as always, Kev. :)

I write these long winded meandering reports just for fun. Not everyone gets it that their long-windedness is an intrinsic part of the gag just like it was for Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy at the end of each "Two Ronnies" TV show, in which he meandered all over the place before finishing with a pointless ending. ;D Nonetheless, enough people get the gag to make it fun to do after each fishing outing.

It is a shame, however, that when regular contributors to these pages do become fishing journalists, we do lose their entertaining reports.... and after all, it was their entertaining reports that made them so attractive to the magazines anyway.

....and just think of what writing for a magazine would entail; deadlines (yuk! :(), limitations on how many words coiuld be written (Gasp! No! Never! >:() ...and editors infterfering with my sheer literary artistic brilliance! ;D ;D ;D ;D

No - I have a very kind readership on these pages and there is no pressure to perform. ;)

Many thanks for your words of support, though. :)