A little too much wind (and me getting soft!)

I must be getting spoiled...........
The wife almost had to kick me out of the house to go SWOFFING on the weekend

Problem was I wasn't quite in the mood - a few hard changes about to happen at school - staffing wise - which I instigated. gave me a bit of punch in the guts feeling
Had to be done for the sake of the students, but sad for one older teacher at the school not quite cutting it anymore, great guy but but but......
Overall, it really affected my usual enthusiasm for any opportunity to go SWOFFING
Almost to the point of defeatism when adding the strong wind forecast for most days over the long weekend

With my arm almost twisted behind me by my wife - I stayed Saturday night at a mate's place right in Dundee a few hundred metres from the beach.

Saturday afternoon I went for a walk along the beach north of Dundee Lodge area
There were schools of trevally and queenfish moving along the beach heading north about a hundred yards out
Easily seen as they disturbed the surface with the occasional slash at bait they were chasing
A pod of them came by every fifteen minutes or so
but ALWAYS just out of casting distance - bugger!

Worse still I lost (i.e. fell out of top pocket) my good reading/seeing glasses somewhere along the way, despite retracing my steps a few times looking for them (that pissed off the the wife and my chances of a few hundred bucks of tying materials I had been earning brownie points for!)

Then had a great chin wag around the fire Saturday night with mate Steve and his wife
Went to bed early and woke up just before dawn

I hadn't brought the boat due to my fishing funk, and forecast of lots of wind
So I walked along the rocks and beaches north of Dundee lodge
High tide was a couple of hours away and the packs of pelagics were there again moving along the beach heading north

As the sun poked its head over the dunes behind me, the wind started to pick up too.

There were the occasional free jumping mackerel in closer than the trevally and queenfish packs
And I managed to get one small one

The water was quite nice in close but fairly choppy offshore - so I was glad I hadn't brought the boat and paid the $30 for launching assistance by the tractor at the boat ramp - even if I could have fished close due to the wind direction, but the further you got from shore, the bigger the waves - so glad I hadn't launched the boat - bit to much of a hassle for this old bloke (isn't that a sad statement!!!)

And there really didn't seem to be any concentration of fish to target anyway - well that could be seen from the beach at least
But the water looked good at the very least

I did think about fishing on Monday in the local Darwin harbour but the wind has been fairly constant lately
10-15 most mornings and getting stronger till about 3-4pm, tapering off to almost calm in the evenings
but without navigation lights I haven't ventured out.
I might have to if the strong wind keeps ruining most mornings!

See - I am getting soft and spoiled  - If the wind is up - I am not up to it to go SWOFFING
If things continue in this vein, I might even need one of those blue tablets to get things up (so horrible the thought!!!)

There was a time when the wind wasn't even a factor in my fishing except for in the choice of location to fish
Maybe its because I know how good the fishing can be here in Darwin and if the conditions are not quite right this week they will be next week.

Here's hoping for next week!
See you on the water