Managed to duck out for a quick Darwin Harbour SWOFFING trip midweek
Wife back from her Cambodia trip Monday
Had the meeting with principal about iPad needs for students for 2016 on Tuesday (new covers, new iPads, more apps, chargers, cords etc - he didn't agree to an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil for me! bugger!)
So Wednesday was the day - instead of going by myself cause most of my SWOFFING mates are working (great being a teacher - at times!!), I invited my school's volunteer bus driver, Col
He was super keen to come along, so off we go early in the morning
Isolated 'mini' storms about since 3am, but we should be able to work around them
Swell and chop up a bit because of the storms but manageable
Nothing showing along the way from our launch point of East Arm ramp, until we get to East Point
Which had a 100+ birds or so working an area 200m off East Point- only just spotted them as I was travelling north
Here we found some 60-70cm sized queenfish working a current line harassing baitfish periodically
Without the electric (remember I had smoked up electrics last time out and haven't had it looked at yet!) it was a bit harder to get onto the schools but still possible
Col got into two fish quite quickly using flies on the end of his spin gear instead of a soft plastic or hard-bodied lure (while I got one nice fish on fly gear), though the swell was making it hard for him to stand up (he is going on 70 and hasn't been in a boat for a long time)
We left them biting (rather I got frustrated at chasing them) and took off for Lee Point for greener waters and easier fishing
Once at Lee Point, we found birds working again - again the fish were sporadic in appearance
but I got five 60+ queenies in quick succession
Last time out most queenies were 40-50cm - seems they have grown up a bit with most queenies today between 60-70cm
As we looked from Lee Point towards the city we could see a fierce storm was hammering it, almost covering it from sight in darkness and rain fall, another storm was coming from west and one building up to east. So for safety sake we headed back to ramp rather than get stuck in the middle as all three storms converged.
The storms seemed to open up for us as we travelled to the ramp and close in behind us - weird!,
We didn't get rained on a all but....
The water was crazy in chop and swell in the usual places of current confluence - East Point, Cullen Bay, the Naval Base, Stokes Wharf, the tip of East Arm Wharf
Sometimes we had to slow right down to safely traverse the mixed up water
Col had a great time, heaps of fish crashing the surface after bait, crazy jumping hooked fish peeling line of his threadline reel, and a couple of fresh fillets to cook up that evening!
He doesn't have as much to do while school on holidays so intend to take him out regularly over the holiday period. Hopefully I can get him on to some bigger fish to beat his now PB from today of a 72cm Queenie.
Until them - tight lines
Post script:
My elbow and its Tendonitis is still so F*^*(%*&% g sore and quite painful at times
As such having trouble with a backhand cast so much so I haven't been trying that cast
Attemping this cast tweaks that painful spot in elbow every time!
Even my forehand cast is shorter than normal
But you still got to be SWOFFING when you can,
So I will casting on regardless
But might looking into those steroid injections right into the area of soreness!
