They say ‘fishing is an adventure’! But when does the adventure start? A good mate who owns a restaurant has a sign in the kitchen ‘Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance’. Well we prepared proper the night before for fishing but the best laid plans can go haywire at anytime! The adventure started a few minutes after I departed home to meet TINN at Wello. Pulled up at lights and motor on the tow car starts sounding a bit lumpy… Hmmmm still running, has fuel, temp ok! No need to worry? Pull up at the Freedom Servo at Thorneside only for the old hilux to lump itself to a stop. Turn, turn and turn but it didn’t want to kick over. Pop bonnet, check fluids etc etc to no avail. Bugger! Call RACQ – upto 60mins wait but as I was blocking bowsers, ‘we’ll try and get someone there asap’! Bing Bing and TINN’s on the phone. ‘I’ve left home. Where are you?’ ‘Ummm, broken down at the servo…’ ‘Can you come and get me? We’ll leave the car here and take the boat on your car!’ Never let a ‘minor’ thing like a breakdown stop us! ‘I’ve haven’t got that car!’ So TINN does a u-turn and heads back home to swap cars. Meanwhile, the mood is getting darker and darker while I’m thinking that we should have the burley in the water doing its stuff right now… Nonetheless, while my car/boat is causing mayhem at the Servo blocking one side completely, RACQ turns up. We moved the car and got it started and he says ‘it appears like a carby/fuel problem but you should be right to get it home! Home?! Man, I’m going to Wello! So in the car and a quick call to TINN who was only a few minutes away and off I went. Phew I’m thinking! But NO NO NO, get to just before the Quarry/Brikdale Rd roundabout and 50mtrs short, same thing again! This time though in the left turning lane right in the middle of peak hour! TINN who had done a u-turn and caught up pulled in behind me. Now, people never seem to amaze me! I had my hazard lights blaring on both car and boat and TINN likewise! Not sure whether people are blind or what but you could see them screaming up in the left lane before realising there’s a series of hazard lights and stopped cars! Sensing that we needed to get out of there asap (funny enough), we made the call to unhook the boat and put the car up on the footpath and leave it there (hopefully someone will just take it and I’ll buy a new one)… So, we quickly unhooked the boat, rolled the car on to the footpath and hooked the boat up to TINN’s car. What a palaver!! At least we got out of there safely and at the ramp by 6.30pm – an hour late but better late than never! And could have been worse – could have stalled at the ramp…
So, on the water and off to our favourite spot with lines out in no time. Just great to be out there really! Within about 30 mins, I kicked off proceedings with a nice fat 45cm Snap! Not long after, added another to it at 44cm – both on Mullay. Meanwhile, TINN had a reasonable stream of fish coming aboard in the 30-38cm range on the TMSK special but no touches on the slab of Mullay. Eventually, TINN managed to finally replicate my rig millimetre for millimetre and added 3 of his own to the esky – all in the low 40’s. Action was pretty slow at times and by high tide, the throwbacks were getting smaller so we up’d anchor and decided we’d flick some placcies for an hour before heading home. A few throwbacks and not much else when the call was made ‘last drift!’! A few minutes in and BANG! ZZZzzzzzz he he he, can’t let TINN outfish me on the TMSK (or Mullay) for that matter! Zzzzzz and after a few minutes, a healthy super fat 50cm Snap hits the deck! Over 3 hours of Mullay, Pillies and Squid and the biggest fish of the night falls to the TMSK! Just before stumps and another at 39cm hits my placcie and accompanies the others in the esky! So, after all the drama to begin with, we ended up with nice fat fish between 39 and 50cm. For once, we didn’t actually get any massive hits/runs/spit hooks/dropped fish other than 1 early in the evening that just sliced clean through my 20lb leader on one hit! The bigger fish didn’t seem to be around last night. We also bumped into ALB78 at the ramp who had caught similar size and numbers to us! Lovely to meet you mate and look forward to seeing you again soon!
On the way home, we spotted the Hilux still there sitting all alone when I suggested that we pull up and give it a quick click. Bingo! 1st pop and she started albeit very lumpy still if I backed off the accelerator! So with TINN in tow, I caressed it home in tricky circumstances as now I know how V8 Supercar drivers feel feathering the brakes while maintaining revs – except that mine is a ‘superclassic’ that is nearly 30 years old with column shift! After a few hairy moments close to home due to hills, I managed to run it up the footpath as it conked to a stop! PHEW!! At least it’s home and can now get it towed and fixed at leisure…
Many thanks to my fine feathered friend TINN who went to a great amount of effort to get us out there and get me home again!! All that starts well ends well and at least we ended up with a reasonable feed in pristine conditions! Lets hope the next trip is not so ‘adventurous’….
Take Care T
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What am I saying???? You got out and had a good fish!! The TMSK works at night too??
Originally Posted by T1
, sh!t I laughed.