Brett Glover Story Line

From: Brett Glover [[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, 13 Febraury 2002 01:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Fishing Tale

Myself and two good mates Johnno and Irish work in the mine up at Roxby Downs. While the nearest productive water is about 330km away, we maintain a love of fishing (bordering on fanatical according to those who have to live with us).

Both Johnno and myself own boats and Irish owns a 5 acre farmlet at Whyalla. This coupled with the fact that our work roster is 4 days on 4 days off enables us to go fishing all to regularly (according to our cooks). The following tale recounts one of our latest escapades where I hoped to join Irish and Johnno in catching a 30lb+ snapper.

Johnno Irish and myself had recently been given some GPS co-ordinates to try from another good mate Golly. Golly grew up around the Whyalla and Iron Knob area and knows his fishing. He has been a reliable source of information,but we still haven't managed to get him drunk enough to reveal his own personal drops to us. Not through lack of trying.

I had to go to Adelaide recently to pick up a boat I had just bought from Queensland. While I was down there Johnno and Irish were in Whyalla testing some of our recently acquired drops. I picked up my boat and spent the day with the brother in law and his son out from the Adelaide coast.

While I enjoyed my day's catch (12 gar and 4 whiting) I was not happy to phone Johnno later that day to discover both he and Irish had bagged out on big snapper, with Irish catching one that pulled 16kg. That was all the encouragement I required as I quickly bid farewell to the inlaws and proceeded to drive to Whyalla.

I arrived at Whyalla at about 1.00am Friday morning and the wind picked up and started to blow at about 1.05am.

I spent the next day continually opening the ice box and staring at Johnno and Irish's fish, the bastards. The wind blew at gale force all day so we decided to settle for a BBQ and a few neck oils whilst watching a one day cricket match. Drinking with these two lager moths can be a dangerous occupation, as Irish always sets a cracking pace, though the next day he seems to blame everyone else. As expected we awoke Saturday morning to gale force winds and a panadol breakfast.

The wind and hangover were too much for me and since I had not seen the wife and kids for 4 days I decided to head back to Roxby and spend a few days with the family.

Johnno and his missus Chris arrived back in Roxby the same day and we got together and had a BBQ and a few coldies. After about 10 minutes the talk was around to fishing and we asked the women if they would mind if we shot back to Whyalla in 12 days time. Being the good sports that they are permission was granted, there were other things mentioned, like expensive gifts and the like, but I only heard the "Yes you can go fishing" bit.

As the time arrived we had decided on our itinerary, which involved knocking off work Thursday night and leaving early Friday. Getting to Irish's house about 11am which would let us fish Friday arvo and another session Saturday before heading home Saturday night. We kept a keen eye on the weather site on the net and all looked good for Friday with 10 - 15 knot Northerlies predicted with a cool change and SE winds hitting late Saturday.

By Tuesday night we had rigged all our rods and cleaned and serviced reels and had everything ready, including eskies, swags and tackle. Nothing left to do, so we put on a fishing video and worked on our beer fitness, which I must say has always been pretty good.

On Wednesday night Golly called over and said he was going down to Whyalla to fish the same weekend, and as his wife and kids were wanting to leave a bit earlier asked if he could ride down with us on Friday. This was not a problem, as it would provide another opportunity to try and pry some secrets out of him.

By the time we knocked off work at 7pm Thursday night it was too much. "Let's go now" Johnno said. After rounding up Golly and saying a quick goodbye to the family, we hit the road at 8pm. As Johnno was the designated driver and towing his boat Golly and I set about having a few drinks and demolishing a BBQ chicken that was tea.

After a couple of hours we had Johnno stopping every 25km so one of us could take a leak. (Just could not synchronize our bladders). Being a top bloke Johnno put up with us and by the time we got to Irish's house at 1.00 am joined us for a few before bed.

Awoke Friday morning at 6.30am to the sound of some freak on a two stroke motorbike screaming down the road on his way to work (the rude bastard). Breakfast consisted of the all too familiar 3 panadol and after a quick shower we were all ready to go at 8.00am. After hitting North's Tackle shop for bait and ice and anything shiny that caught our eye, we hit the boat ramp at 8.45am and the water was like a lake.

After launching the boat and punching in the co-ordinates we headed south. The 35km journey took next to no time as water conditions and Johnno's heavy right hand saw us sitting on a not too conservative 60+ kmh (this weight seems to transfer from right hand to right foot when switching from water to land).

When we arrived there were already 4 boats sitting around the area and as we had missed the tide we decided to head into shallower water and try for some pan sized fish before heading back out to catch the tide change in the afternoon.

We dropped anchor at about 10.00am, and again at about 10.02, 10.04 and 10.06. Some sort of ritual Johnno likes to go through before actually fishing. I personally think he wanted to pay me back for drinking all the way down the night before.

Johnno pulled out the big guns. His Abu Freeliner and his Penn 330GTI and baited them up with whole tommies. I was using my Ugly Stick and Abu C3 7000 combo, while Irish was using his $70 Surecatch rod and reel combo, which had outfished us on too many occasions for our liking. (I think it could meet with a mysterious accident before long.)

We fished for about 2 hours and not one snapper. But we did catch several dog sharks and Irish tried to land a piece of the Continental Shelf. Pound for pound it has to be some of the best fighting coral in the world around Whyalla, Irish reckons. We pulled the pick and decided to head out to where Johnno and Irish had caught their big fish a couple of weeks earlier.

Upon arriving at the drop Irish and I had already worked ourselves up for another 3 - 4 anchor drops. Luckily it was Irish's turn. But through some twist of fate Johnno managed to put us right on the drop first go (which reinforces my payback theory stated earlier).

We tied on the big rigs consisting of Johnno and I using 60LB Jinkai leader with a single 8/0 Gamakatsu hook. Irish was using a 20LB line with a piece of the same line as a leader?? Even offering him some heavier line did not change his mind and when we scoffed he mentioned something about a 16kg fish 2 weeks earlier. (He and his rod were looking closer to that mysterious boating accident).

The lines were in the water at about 12.45pm with the low tide hitting at 1.30pm we sat down and waited. We seem to have an unwritten law that prevents us from having a beer in the boat until a fish is landed. This being the case, I rigged a smaller rod and proceeded to catch a couple of small mackeral which, despite Johnno questioning their being eligible were good enough for me and Irish to crack the first for the day.

We berlied up just prior to 1.30pm and kept a steady stream of pilchard pieces flowing for the next hour. Johnno's cut back quite a bit with his berlying as in the early days he was a berly monster, resulting in fish coming on the bite and not having bait left as he had chopped it all up and thrown it in. (This also resulted in his first boat being named Baitwaster.)

The other boats had had enough it seemed and just as the last boat up and left at about 2.30pm Johnno's rod screamed into life. "I'm on" he yelled with delight, as he wound the handle and set the hooks and came up heavy. Those familiar with snapper fishing know that when they come on the bite it can be mayhem.

Before Johnno had boated his fish both Irish and myself were on as well. A triple hook up. Johnno managed to get his fish to the side of the boat and gaff it by himself (top effort that). It was a big fish!

I knew from the start that my fish was going to be my biggest, should I land it. It took off several times on runs where all you could do was let it go and then resume the fight once it had stopped pulling line off.

Just when I thought I had it under control and tired out it must have seen the bottom of the boat and it took off again on its biggest run yet. It must have taken about 50 metres of line before the drag pulled him up. It must have been his last big effort as getting him to the boat after that was a lot easier. Once I saw him I knew he would go close to the 30lb mark. Once Johnno gaffed him and had him in the boat I was elated.

As soon as our fish hit the bottom of the boat we cut our lines and tied on new leaders and baited up and cast again. The bait had barely enough time to find the bottom some 65 feet away when once again Johnno was on, closely followed by Irish and myself. The action was hectic and as Johnno had removed the carpet from the floor of his boat it was like fishing on ice.

The three of us once again all landed solid fish and knowing we had our limit we packed away the rods and set about having a celebration drink. I got out the scales and weighed Johnno's fish, which appeared to be the biggest. 14.5kg a quality fish. Mine looked slightly smaller and the scales proved this with a weight of 13.9kg. This was still above the magical 30lb mark and I was stoked. The remaining four fish were around the 12.5 to 13.5 kg mark. The action had all taken just on 30 minutes.

After cleaning down the deck and packing everything up we pulled anchor and decided to head in. We arrived back at the boat ramp at about 4.00pm and we decided that Irish would have to go back to his house the get the big fish box.

I am not sure if it was a coincidence, but the time it took him to get the box was exactly the same time it took Johnno and me to wash the boat and flush the motor and scale and clean the six fish. His saving grace was that he arrived with another box of beer on ice (good bloke). After packing and icing the fish we returned to Irish's house to clean up.

After a shower we went down to the local pub for a few schooners and a punt on the nags. As gamblers we make pretty good fishermen. The beer was cold and it didn't take long for Irish to start pouring them down. Johnno and me did the best we could.

We finished the night with a big BBQ of snapper cutlets and a nice salad Irish's wife Jill had made. Jill is an amazing woman. You only appreciate how amazing once you've seen Irish drunk around the house and realize what the poor woman has to put up with (ha ha).

The next day we were at the ramp at about 8.00am with the plan being that we would just go out to the weed line and get some crabs. This was all going well until we had about 40 nice blue crabs and realized we could probably still get out down south and catch the tide. Off we went with Johnno's heavy right hand. This journey proved fruitless and after 3 hours we decided to call it quits and head in. Speaking with people at the ramp it seemed no-one had caught fish that day.

We cleaned the boat and packed everything from Irish's house and bid him farewell. Before we left Whyalla I remembered the cook saying something about a gift. No worries. I got Johnno to pull into KFC and bought a bucket of chook (helpless romantic).

The trip home was uneventful and since my return I think half of Roxby has seen the photos. All in all it was another great trip with plenty of laughs and some nice fish. I'm planning on having Johnno and Irish around for another BBQ so we can discuss where we will head next trip.