Female Perspective
DAY 4
A sparrow farted and awoke me. Down went three cuppas, whilst watching the neighbours prepare for their day. I wondered if I have some sort of problem in being so interested in watching my neighbours, then put it down to the fact that there is nothing else to look at. On their departure to the Dam, I wonder down to the river for a look, upon which I decide that, “I’m heading back to the cabin to retrieve a rod”.
Rummaging around in the cabin for a rod and right tackle caused Thumps and The Boss to wake, “Geezus, the one morning I try not to wake them and they wake”, I think to myself. Well the idea of fishing the river blown, I began being a good mum and wife and prepared my family’s breakfast, cleaned the cabin, started a load of washing and swam around the pool with The Boss. Before I knew it, it was almost ‘shops open’ time in Gladstone.
Driving to the tackle shop we noticed that we have beaten the ‘shops open’ time so I take us around the town for some sightseeing to kill time. I ended the tour at the lookout, at the top of the tackle shop’s street. Gladstone hasn’t changed at all.
We were warmly greeted at the tackle shop door by the shop owner’s dog. Which I nearly stood on because I was too busy looking at all the toys (equipment) this ‘new to me’ tackle shop had on display and up on offer. I do believe I then nearly pushed Thumps out of the way to reach the ‘jewellery’ (lures) section. By the time the drool from the side of mouth had run its course down my chin I was greeted by the young salesman (dress in long shorts with no inkling of showing off his own personal tackle) named Ben.
Now this young man knew his stock, knew his environment, knew the local fish and knew the need of his customers. So supporting four new ‘jewellery’ pieces we brought from him, we head back to the van park. In which we stayed long enough to bring in the washing, make some sandwiches for lunch on the water, rig up the new lures and pack up the boat.
We hit Awoonga Dam by 10am.
Not giving a rat’s bum about protocol, I mention to the Skipper where I want go, (while I was dropping the pots over) and he takes me there, not before saying a few words first, words that were somehow drowned by the boat motor, something like “that’s where I’m heading anyway”.
On approaching my chosen spot the water just felt right, it just looked right and it even smelt right.
Seeing the mass of birds, on the water, feeding just topped off all these feelings and visual observations.
Thumps starts to employ the old Mackerel technique of trolling around wide of the school (in our case the bird on the surface of what must be fish under them). The birds begin to break up into small groups. Well that didn’t exactly work. Stuff me! Thumps navigates the boat in amongst the groups of birds.
DOUBLE HOOK UP!!!!!!!!!
Both reels are screaming their song to us. We both fleetingly look at each other in disbelief before going into action. I have no option but to leave Thumps to handle his own fish and boat/motor. He didn’t let me down. He had both fully under control on top of him looking out for me and my fish. I boat my fish. A stinking yucky ugly prong infested Catfish, (apologises to all Catfish enthusiast, I don’t like these fish, certainly not when I’m chasing something I class as more important).
I have the Catfish released overboard in time to see Thumps Barra cut the water in all its jumping glory. There was nothing I could do to contain my scream of glee at this superb sight.
Another 5 minutes of this fantastic Barra on Thumps line and in the boat she was, handled like a princess, being measured, having her photo taken, christen ‘Jenny’ and thanked for giving us the honour.
We have our lines in once more, and off we trolled. Not one minute into the troll and my rod goes off. “Ah, this time” I say to myself “it has to be a Barra”. 3 minutes of work and I don’t only have one fish on my lure, but two…….two stinking yucky ugly prong infested Catfish!!!!! (Apologises to all Catfish enthusiasts again).
Lines sorted, back on the troll, 7 minutes in I get a touch on my lure and I await the possible second go of it. Thumps reel sings and he shoves his rod into my hand. (shup Kingtin, lol) I hand him my rod as the second touch comes in and sticks. We are now both wrestling fish on each others rod. A quick look at my rod that Thumps is wrestling with tells me it may be a Catfish; the fish I’m wrestling with is in no way can be a Catfish.
Here comes the moment I wish to sooner forget. I fight this fish for what seemed like an eternity, it makes the muscle in my forearm burn, it just didn’t want to stop fighting, after each run I believed that it had tired but to my disbelief, it fought on, I talked myself out of ‘reef and meat’ moments, so much so I think I was saying it out loud instead of in my head. I handled it. I had it less then four winds from the surface when………….nothing………it was gone.
I was lost for words. I looked up into Thumps face, if my face looked anything like his then I was one disappointed looking woman. Thump tries to console me with words of ‘you did everything right’, ‘it just happens’ and ‘this is what fishing is all about’. I just couldn’t reply to him, not for any other reason then I feared I would burst into tears. I curse myself then for behaving like a spoilt rotten brat and resign myself to the fact that I got to have one of the greatest fights of my life, with a Barra none less, ending with ‘it was probably a stinking yucky ugly prong infested Catfish anyway’.
More trolling of the area produced me yet another stinking yucky ugly prong infested Catfish. With the changing weather and lose of birds, the fishing had become quiet. We trolled until the sun began to set.
We headed towards our dropped pots, at what both Thumps and I said, in chorus at the time, “Mackerel Trolling Speed”, call it laziness or the ‘don’t care attitude’ we didn’t reel in our lines only tightened the drag, laughing to each other about the amazement of hitting a Barra at this speed. Punch me in the lips and call me Mick Jagger…..Thumps rod got a hit, the fish held on long enough for me to believe that it wasn’t because the drag was to loose. To this fish we apologised for possibly ripping out its lips and a promise not to be so lazy again.
Both line in this time we head to the pots, I named my newly caught Red Claws “dinner”, then head to the boat ramp for the last time, all the while reflecting on what wonderful days we had, the splendour that Awoonga Dam had on offer, but most of all the importance of me writing this report so I can give thanks to all the people involved in stocking and caring for Awoonga Dam and the marvellous advise we have received from people of this site.
THANK YOU.
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see you next time we are there ‘Horse’
Originally Posted by Cloud_9
