jackyboy

Hey everyone, first time poster here. Been lurking for a little while but thought I'd share a short story of emasculation from the other day now I have time to sit down at a computer. So my girlfriend and I had a few days off and decided to travel up from Sydney to stay with my parents on the Central Coast. Quick backstory: I had only recently taken an interest in fishing in the last 6 months or-so after not going near it since I was about 12 years old. Now I go fishing pretty much any chance I get, I can't seem to get enough of it On the first day of thinking of things to do while we were up there she suggests we go fishing, since she wanted to know what all the fuss was about (she had never fished before). Being such a nice afternoon we decided to give it a crack, so I got her a 3 day licence (can never be too careful with that stuff), picked up some pilchards, grabbed the rods and headed out in the car for the bridge at Woy Woy. The whole car journey she was beaming with confidence that she was going to catch a bigger fish than me. "Yeah, yeah" I thought to myself... So I showed her the ropes, put on half a pilchard for her, taught her how to cast, etc. and pretty soon she was baiting up herself and casting and everything. After the first hour or-so we had quite a few little nibbles but no fish to show for it. Just as I thought all was lost, something grabs my bait and takes off. I started reeling it in and suddenly it turned around started peeling line off me like no-ones business. I thought it would eventually slow down but it just kept going... And going... And going... About 1 minute after hooking the fish and a solid 20 second continuous run (by which point the fish was somewhere under the bridge) the line snapped. I will not repeat the words uttered from my mouth but I'm sure you can do a pretty good job using your imaginations... And so we kept fishing, little bites here and there. Until suddenly I heard a confused "Ummm, help?" coming from my girlfriend. I turn around only to see her rod completely buckled over. Now, I did think about stepping in and helping, I really did... But she seemed on top of it and I wanted her to say she caught a fish all by herself, despite knowing that she would never live down the fact that her premonition in the car earlier came true. After a short fight she eventually reels in one of the biggest bream I've ever seen with my own eyes, and certainly the biggest I've seen pulled out of Brisbane Waters (pic attached). Not being the sharpest spoon in the drawer I realised I left my tape at home, but I had my shoe and a spool of line to compare it to. After measuring it afterwards it came to 39 cm, which is nothing to be sneezed at. We put it back in the water to fight another day. After learning a few months ago how long it takes Bream to reach that size I suddenly felt a bit guilty about bagging them now. Beginners luck, eh? EDIT: Sorry, don't know why the picture uploaded upside down, but you get the idea