Landmullet

Thanks for the info Smobaby, Will look into getting my licence. Something i needed to do anyway.

After not going fishing for 3 months, i was sitting out the back yard watching the kids and scrolling through some sites in the hope i'd find some fishing motivation. It didn't take long for me to stumble across Scratchies radio interview re snapper on plastics. I have always planned on targeting snapper on plastics but am a creature of habit and tend to stick to the burley and paternoster approach. Filling the online shopping basket with jerk shads and jig heads i then contacted Jeff (Scratchie) for a bit of advice. Jeff gave me a ton of advice and was more than helpful. My neighbour Dave also loves to fish and has never been to Broughton so we booked some accommodation at Dutchies Motel Nelson Bay and packed the gear (and beers). 4am on Friday 24th we woke to pack the boat with a plan to be in the water by 5am and at the island on the drift by 6. We drove past Little beach ramp on our way to Shoal ramp and couldn't believe the sand mounds and disappointed boaters that were attempting to launch. When we got to Shoal ramp it was SHALLOW and i was a bit concerned. Desperate to get the boat in the water and this being the first launch in the new 200 series cruiser i felt i had enough grunt to push the bastard far enough to get wet. Getting it to the end of the ramp we decided to take the chain and winch strap off, put a rope line on the front and go for it. Dave was holding the rope line and i had the windows open so that i could clearly hear him yell "She's in mate, Great job" but unfortunately luck was not on our side. I put it in reverse and give it hell followed by Dave yelling "STOP". I asked Dave what was wrong and he replied "you better get out mate, it's not good". When i got out of the car i saw my 5.3m sitting at 45 degrees with the nose in the air, half off the trailer, sitting on dry sand and my trailers number plate detached. My first thought was F#*K my transducers are buried and probably in pieces, my second thought was F$#K it's 5:30 and we're still not in the water. I tried winching the boat back on the trailer but it wasn't moving. Luckily Dave has a bit more meat on him and managed to get her moving. I could hear the winch strap creaking and was convinced that the stitching would give way any minute and we would be those twats sitting dry on the ramp waiting until 11am for the tide to come up. Once the boat was on i checked the transducers and all was ok. Dave typed directions to Soldiers ramp into his phone and delivered more bad news to which i replied "20 F@#kING MINUTES"? We arrived at Soldiers and had the boat in by 6:15am. Arriving at Broughton by 7am we started the drift at one of Scratchies hot tips. I was flicking my plastics on the edge of the wash ahead of the drift while Dave had a soft plastic trailing the boat in a rod holder while he was flicking a small jig. Dave's rod in the holder went off and i could tell it was a thumper. After a short fight the fish was gone and so was the leader + SP. We re-rigged and did the drift again. BOOM same thing happened with the rod in holder, this time the fish was bigger and he was dusted again. Gave the spot another hour and decided to move to Cod Rock. Threw a few plastics and landed our first fish which means we could open the Allen's party mix lollies. Time to move again but not before a whale and her calf gave us a spectacular show. Nothing at the Sisters so we decided to give Gibber a go with some baits on paternoster. Finding some solid bait on the east side of the reef we picked our drift but found out very quickly that it was thick with barracuda. Loosing a ton of gear we managed two more snapper and decided to call it a day. Had a great time, learnt a lot and also realised that my VHF was shot. Looking forward to installing the new Simrad RS40 into the NMEA with my sounders and getting back up for another shot. Huge thanks to Scratchie for all his advice and assistance. Cheers! Richard.

Thanks for sharing!!