WELL we have had a month or more of exciting fishing opportunities, first Dan Edwards and I entered the Bermagui Blue Water Classic comp with skipper Ken for two solid days on the high seas, and they were high even though our fish count was pretty low.
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Then we had the excitement of our own wonderful Narooma Convention with all the excitement and good weather and good company that always accompanies our special weekend.
And as if that wasn’t enough for greedy fisher people I talked Dan into bringing a heap of gear home and forsaking our overgrown lawns to fish the 2014 Canberra CARPOUT………The weather was atrocious - damp wet, thunder and lightning, we did a recce the day before the comp Dan being an ex-military man, one needs to get a feel for the terrain.
Under the span of King’s Avenue Bridge we found four smelly carcases of dead carp, two rusting and empty cans of sweet corn and we knew we had our spot. Sunday morning we had planned to rise at 5am to pack and get to our spot before anyone else could take it.
The alarm did not go off, and I was delighted to sleep in until 6.30 we grabbed our gear and raced to the lake just in time to beat two Canberra boys in a Ute, they had to take the span next to us. Dan was jubilant and we set up. Fishing was to begin at 9 so by 8.30 the chairs were in place the rod holders set, the thermos of doctored coffee had been opened and when we saw other lines hit the water we began to fish.
I pulled in a 2.2Kg carp about half an hour into the comp. We had forgotten to bring a net home so our next door neighbours came over in a gesture of friendship and gave me a hand to land the beast. I was jumping up and down as I had expected to catch a couple of goldfish sized ones.
About a quarter of an hour later Dan got an enquiry on his line and pulled in a fish that as around 1.5Kg. Out came the laced coffee…we had a mini celebration, I said to Dan we’re going to catch 15 fish today! I always get super excited.
Well about an hour on, around 11 o’clock off went Dan’s rod again and the line pulled straight out. He took around 15 minutes to play the fish in, it rolled up the line like a carpet and that lad of mine looked at us (a group had formed of seven including myself three nets had magically appeared) and said “This fish is giving my wrist a bit of a workout”.
The fish surfaced and we all got pretty helpful, all giving Dan unwanted advice! And up it came 7.12Kg’s of very ugly fish. Dan’s fish weighed in as the second heaviest in the comp. We were delighted the one that beat him was 7.68Kg one of our neighbouring fisherman commented to us after the weigh in that he could have stuffed his fish down its throat and Dan would have won. He caught a half kg fish.
My first was my last, but even with the rain, the Italian Car club people, the runners, the cyclists ringing their bells, the dogs and dog walkers the 2 kilometre hike to the ladies loo (several times due to coffee and rain)
Around 800 people pulled in over 1.5 tonne of carp and redfin out in six hours, the Canberra club thinks that might have been a record, Dan and I added about 0.1 per cent to that total and we felt great. It makes you wonder how many carp there are in that very brown and muddy lake of ours, so different than the beautiful inlet that we have in Narooma.
- Pat Lucock