The Official Back To The Bay Social Report 2008

[mrsswordfisherman]

The weather gods smiled on us for the 2008 Back to the Bay social #3

With a predicted 20-25 knot norwester only puffing around 15 knots at 5am we were set for a great day out on the bay.

Flightmanager and family arrived 1st with Mako and started setting up camp Fishraider for the assault on the beach at dawn. Admin and Hodgey arrived at 5.30 and quickly assembled the registration desk and cooking commenced in readiness for some hungry raiders. The well oiled team moved into top gear and away we went on one of our most successful socials ever.

Raiders arrived en masse and after a feed of bacon, egg, sausage, onion rolls and hot coffee they headed off in many different directions to target flathead, bream and trevally. There were some great prizes on offer donated by sponsors Pete from Go Fish Dural, Huey from Huett Marine and member reggie the rabbit. Pete joined us briefly as he had to go out. This shows the commitment from our sponsors even though they had prior engagements.

The catering crew had a well deserved rest for a few hours as the raiders attacked the bay and its tributaries. From early reports the fishing was a little quiet. Craig Huett arrived in a 5.9m Aqualine boat and took raiders out during the day for test runs.

Several raiders came along for a chat and to meet others and spent time chatting and learning about techniques and rigging of soft plastics. Two members in particular were very interested in trying their hand at soft plastic fishing shorebased. Swordie demonstrated the fine art of rigging soft plastics to slayer666 and italian stallion listened intently. Stewy showed Joe and Marco the retrieve required for flathead and shortly after Joe and Marco took off to practise their newfound knowledge.

About 15 mins later Joe comes running up the beach grinning like a Cheshire cat with his first ever legal flathead (48 cms) taken on 5" Gulp in green and black !!!!!! Everyone cheered him on and glad to see the first fish of the day being measured.

A few mins later Marco comes running up to the measuring table out of breath carrying something extremely large in a landing net. Everyone's jaw dropped as he produced his flathead capture of 72 cms!!!! Marco had never caught a fish before let alone on a soft plastic and the smile on his face was priceless. He recounted his "fight of a lifetime" to us over and over. Hi fives all around and off they went to fish again. This will go down as one of the most memorable catches in the annuls of raider history.

The wind had started to strengthen ahead of the predicted southerly change around 2pm. Raiders continued to bring in good sized flathead ranging from 40 cms to 50 cms and a solitary bream of 25 cms. As the finish time was approaching there were still a few raiders out fishing. Marty and smitty had decided to hit the Cooks River where their shot at glory paid off with a nice bag of bream the largest being 30.5 cms.

Unfortunately no trevally were landed so prizes were awarded to the 3 top flathead and the largest bream.

LARGEST FLATHEAD - 72 CMS taken by italian stallion and he received $100 gift voucher (Go Fish Dural)

LARGEST BREAM - 30.5 CMS taken by smitty and he received a Smartcast Portable Fishfinder (Huett Marine)

2ND LARGEST FLATHEAD - 50 CMS taken by Lasty and he received a Rod and Reel combo (Go Fish Dural)

3RD LARGEST FLATHEAD 49.5 CMS taken by robeebee and he received a Fishraider Measure of Success mat and anchor rope (reggie the rabbit)

Presentations were attended by Craig Huett and special mentions were made to all the helpers and sponsors who helped make the day a success.

The members who donated food and drinks and their time to help will be now recognised as Gold Members (if not already) Those members are:

penguin, slinkymalinky, Bar Up, forliano, fishguts, brickman, jewfishrobby, Mako.

Thanks to Hodgey, johnno, flightmanager, mrsflightmanager. The moderators do so much work for the site and its members, both on and offline and we thank them very, very much. Thanks Hodgey for coming up from Tuross Heads for the weekend to meet us all finally.

Plans are in place for the next social - bring on the Kingfish Social at Clifton Gardens .............

Cheers mrsswordfisherman

PS Check back for more pics later

[Flightmanager]

Another Social has come and gone , I think we may just be getting the hang of it !!

Great to see so many of you able to come and join us today , it was a little bit windy , and a bit warm , but everyone had a great time .

Thanks to all of you who donated goods for us to use , without your support , we would not be able to hold these events . Special thanks , as always to Stewy and Donna , for helping me to get this all organised and running smoothly , I'll start working on the next one tomorrow !

Congratulations to all of our winning members , there will be some tales told tomorrow at work Im thinking ......

Here are a few pics from the day :

Sunrise Over The Bay

Aqualine brought down by Craig from Huetts Marine

Taking the Aqualine Through Its Paces !

Joes Flathead

The Winning Flatty

Some of the Members Boats

Winners !!

Ross

[Hodgey]

Well, after a long drive home, I have a couple of minutes to reflect on what was a fantastic weekend. I must apologise to those members I neglected to say goodbye to. Needless to say I enjoyed meeting everyone at my first Raider Social.

Firstly though, I would like to thank Donna and Stewy for providing me with somewhere very comfortable to stay for the weekend. A lot of laughs, and Donna didn't blink an eye when Stewy and I adjourned to the shed to 'play with our tackle'.

Thank you to those Raiders (particularly Davemmm, The Iceman and Slinky) who took the time to point out popular landmark locations so I could finally understand where a lot of the members have been catching their fish. A HUGE thanks also to Sammy and Chris for taking me out in Sammy's bloody nice boat, demonstrating techniques and equipment that was very interesting indeed. Thanks fellas; your efforts were most appreciated!

Finally, like a lot of Raiders, the icing on the cake ... Marco's fish! Fantastic effort mate. Your excitement at your achievement, and the accolades from fellow members, is why our site is so well patronised. Congrats to all the Raiders that caught fish in some pretty trying conditions.

Thanks to the sponsors and everyone who contributed to making the day a smashing success. These social events are gold!

Cheers

Hodgey

[Guest]

True champions the lot of you

Some Raiders came from afar a field as Tuross Heads (Hodgey) and Yarraone and his crew from Bathurst.

Huey brought his boat down for the raiders to have a test run in from Brooklyn.

Pete from GoFish who made it down before he had to go out.

I enjoyed speeking with all the raiders,some who are regulars and some who are first timers.

Flatty and his son and their guests from Jogjakarta who only arrived in Oz in the am today

Choteo and his lovely wife and 3 littleuns under 4 and a new born in their boat.

Donnas lovely 2 girls,Iceman and his wife Donna and their two girls just to mention a few.

It was a fantastic day and the icing on the cake was Marco and Joe who had very little idea of what to do and both scored PB's on soft plastics

Congratulations to all the Fishraiders on conducting yourselves with the utmost integrity all day and to all the helpers,THANKS A BUNCH

With so much Fishraider spirit the Socials will continue and get better every time.

This was our third Botany Bay Social and another roaring success.

One of our raiders teams were seen to be fishing under an unamed bridge ,burleying with my bloody yellowfin I caught at Browns earlier this yr. Some people have a hide

Well done to all the fishos and guests who made this a day to remember.

Regards Stewy

[mottyman]

Another great social. They just get better.

A big thanks to Donna, Stewy and of course Ross on the BBQ. Good as gold mate.

Thanks to everyone who made the day possible, whether you donated something, gave a prize or won a prize. Well done.

Can't wait for the next one.

Cheers

David and Andy.

[Davemmm]

Presentations were attended by Craig Huett and special mentions were made to all the helpers and sponsors who helped make the day a success.

The members who donated food and drinks and their time to help will be now recognised as Gold Members (if not already) Those members are:

penguin, slinkymalinky, Bar Up, forliano, fishguts, brickman, jewfishrobby, Mako.

Thanks to Hodgey, johnno, flightmanager, mrsflightmanager. The moderators do so much work for the site and its members, both on and offline and we thank them very, very much

Thanks to all for setting up a great day. The rest of us are just a bunch of anonymous fishos who lie to each other over the internet. Without those mentioned above, and Stewey and Donna, we wouldnt get the opportunity for gatherings like this (so we can lie to each other face to face ).

I think a special mention has to go to Flightmanager. When I got there at sparrows he already had the place set up and the BBQ going (although it did take a full fifteen minutes before I got a free cuppa). I have never met someone so keen on looking after other people.

Thanks all

Dave

[The Iceman]

It was a great day and always good to meet other raiders especially Hodgey who I have spoken to over the pm system and Craig who I hope to be seeing sometime in the future about a new boat

The girls had fun and Donna would like to know where the sausages came from as they were really good Congrats to the raider with the big flattie Bet you are hooked on plastics now

I had a drive of the aqualine and was very impressed It had more room on the inside than it looked from the outside and was well matched to the 115 Etec The one thing that most impressed me was the ride in the short sharp chop out in the bay it skimmed over the top when opened up and had none of the drumming and banging you get in ally boats in those conditions I would have liked to give it a bit more but my youngest was looking very apprehensive so I slowed it down a bit

A big thankyou to all involved in organising the social and helping on the day A job well done

[NickN]

Thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome today. I really enjoyed myself and I am eagerly anticipating the next get together.

To make things simple and make the thread dial-up friendly I have added a link below to the images from today. All you have to do is click an image to enlarge it. The images have been reduced in size to make them easy to view. If anybody would like an original full quality copy of any image just PM me with the images you want and an email address and I will email them to you. Keep in mind each image is between 6MB and 10MB each so make sure your email is able to accept large files.

http://picasaweb.google.com/aroundsydneyph...y/BackToTheBay#

Well done to everybody who caught fish to weigh in it was a tough day with that wind and a slow bite.

[fishythings]

True champions the lot of you

Some Raiders came from afar a field as Tuross Heads (Hodgey) and Yarraone and his crew from Bathurst.

Huey brought his boat down for the raiders to have a test run in from Brooklyn.

Pete from GoFish who made it down before he had to go out.

I enjoyed speeking with all the raiders,some who are regulars and some who are first timers.

Flatty and his son and their guests from Jogjakarta who only arrived in Oz in the am today

Choteo and his lovely wife and 3 littleuns under 4 and a new born in their boat.

Donnas lovely 2 girls,Iceman and his wife Donna and their two girls just to mention a few.

It was a fantastic day and the icing on the cake was Marco and Joe who had very little idea of what to do and both scored PB's on soft plastics

Congratulations to all the Fishraiders on conducting yourselves with the utmost integrity all day and to all the helpers,THANKS A BUNCH

With so much Fishraider spirit the Socials will continue and get better every time.

This was our third Botany Bay Social and another roaring success.

One of our raiders teams were seen to be fishing under an unamed bridge ,burleying with my bloody yellowfin I caught at Browns earlier this yr. Some people have a hide

Well done to all the fishos and guests who made this a day to remember.

Regards Stewy

A great event comes with nice pictures as a big success.

Congratulations and thank you for the hospitality.

Andy the flattie

[sherackattack]

spewing that i couldn't make it

[Smitty]

Well, well, well another FANTASTIC Fishraider social!!!

Like everyone else I'de like to say a GREAT BIG - THANK YOU to the organisers and all those who gave up a day on the water, to make everybody elses day so enjoyable. Congratulations, you should be very proud of a job well done.

It's always great to meet other Fishraider members - to be able to put faces to names and to catch up with those we've met before....and it's definately ALL of these people who go a long way toward making this site the great site that it is!!!

A big thanks to Huey for the cool portable sounder, can't wait to get down the river and throw it at some of my favourite Blackfish spots, I'll be storing every reef, drop off and rockledge in my memory banks for future reference.

Stewy, whats this about tuna , do yellowfin Bream really eat yellowfin Tuna? If so, how do they catch them?

Thanks all see ya next time.

Cheers Smitty

[slinkymalinky]

A huge amount of thanks to all the administrators and members, particularly Mr & Mrs Swordie, Mr & Mrs Flightmanager for putting togther an event and a community that can create so much enjoyment, share so much knowledge, and just be a ripping good day out.

Miles of smiles from a club that isn't a club but is the sort of a community a fishing club should be!!

Awesome fish boys & girls.

Thanks Mako for the use of the van. Thanks Johnno for coming along to help out even though you couldn't be there to fish... that's incredibly generous.

Thanks Ross for the bacon & egg sangas as a morning wake up.

Thanks Huey and Pete for supporting us Raiders both commercially but importantly, also your involvement.

What a great day.

Cheers, Slinky

[Geoff]

A huge amount of thanks to all the administrators and members, particularly Mr & Mrs Swordie, Mr & Mrs Flightmanager for putting togther an event and a community that can create so much enjoyment, share so much knowledge, and just be a ripping good day out.

Cheers, Slinky

for me , unfortunatly no fish to weigh in , perhaps next time

Did pick up a new FR sticker & now proudly displayed on the transom

Geoff

[flatty hunter626]

dam! seems like it was great day ...pissed off i had to work now!

[Guest]

for me , unfortunatly no fish to weigh in , perhaps next time

Did pick up a new FR sticker & now proudly displayed on the transom

Geoff

Looks good Geoff and you are the first one to own a new transom sticker

Cheers Stewy

[ritchie]

WHAT AN AWSOME DAY!

Yesterday was my first ever fishing social and mannn, im blown away by the warm reception of mrs.swordie, hodgey, ross, slinky and the rest! Never thought the social to be that relaxed and laid back and oh boy didnt i feel VERY welcomed ??

Even though I couldnt bag any decent size fish Ive had heaps of fun and learnt ALOT about Real fishing!

Special thanks to NickN for introducing me to the wonderful world of SP's! mate, as i said, im converted and no more smelly fresh bait and its time to invest on some good SP's !

Everyone, Thanks again for organising such an amazing event, and thanks for giving opportunity for novice fishos like us to learn new things and mingle with the pro fishos..the best example for this is Joe and his flatty!!!

cant wait till the next social!

[robeebee]

thanks to everyone involved , what a great day

and a special thanks to davemmm who put up with me once again

( ooohhhhhhhh my aching back )

onya

[fishguts]

hi all! another great day away from work...WELL DONE ALL!

cya"s at the kingy!

..cheers!..stevo!..

[NickN]

WHAT AN AWSOME DAY!

Yesterday was my first ever fishing social and mannn, im blown away by the warm reception of mrs.swordie, hodgey, ross, slinky and the rest! Never thought the social to be that relaxed and laid back and oh boy didnt i feel VERY welcomed ??

Even though I couldnt bag any decent size fish Ive had heaps of fun and learnt ALOT about Real fishing!

Special thanks to NickN for introducing me to the wonderful world of SP's! mate, as i said, im converted and no more smelly fresh bait and its time to invest on some good SP's !

Everyone, Thanks again for organising such an amazing event, and thanks for giving opportunity for novice fishos like us to learn new things and mingle with the pro fishos..the best example for this is Joe and his flatty!!!

cant wait till the next social!

ritchie,

no problems at all mate I enjoyed the company and it was fun seeing you get into the plastics craze. I think once you have a couple of productive sessions you will really be ready to forget about that stuff they call bait!

I have some photos for you so PM me your email address and i'll shoot them over to you.

[slinkymalinky]

It was a great day and always good to meet other raiders especially Hodgey who I have spoken to over the pm system and Craig who I hope to be seeing sometime in the future about a new boat

The girls had fun and Donna would like to know where the sausages came from as they were really good Congrats to the raider with the big flattie Bet you are hooked on plastics now

I had a drive of the aqualine and was very impressed It had more room on the inside than it looked from the outside and was well matched to the 115 Etec The one thing that most impressed me was the ride in the short sharp chop out in the bay it skimmed over the top when opened up and had none of the drumming and banging you get in ally boats in those conditions I would have liked to give it a bit more but my youngest was looking very apprehensive so I slowed it down a bit

A big thankyou to all involved in organising the social and helping on the day A job well done

Hey Iceman.... the sausages came from a butcher in Rouse Hill next to the fruit market on Windsor Road opposite the old small local shopping centre. They were good, weren't they (mind you I probably didn't need to eat as many as I did!)

Cheers, Slinky

[The Iceman]

Thanks Slinky

I dont think I will go that far for a sausage

[arpie]

Sounds like yet another Successful Fishraider Social Event!!! Congrats to all who participated & won prizes for biggest fish - how good was that for both Marco & Joe to catch decent fish on their first efforts with sps!! And for Marco to actually take out the Biggest Flattie ..... BRILLIANT!! I bet they'll both be stocking up with heaps of sps very soon!

It is always fun putting faces to what were previously just names! Well done to the Fishraider Family for putting on another great day for its members!

Cheerio

Roberta

[slinkymalinky]

Hey Marco... make sure you enter your Flatty in FOTM!!

Cheers, Slinky

[Thunder]

Sorry I couldn't make it, the weather was the best fishing weather in months.

I was leg roped to the garden for the weekend as it has been neglected for months.

It looks like everyone had a good time and quite a few people got feeds.

It's great to see a first timer getting a horse of a flathead on sp's.

Cheers

Greg

[agro78]

Id like to say thanks for a great weekend its good to meet a few people that enjoy fishing as much as i do. Plus those bacon and eggs were awsome.

thanks

Clint