My Mate Lost His SX, Not Yet..

Catch Report 20/9/2006

Jialiang called me mid arvo saying he needs a 'pre-departure' fish. What the?! Like that also can.. Anyway, since the wind was dying down, I told him why not and we headed to Hen & Chicken Bay. He brought his Fly gear and proceeded doing flyfishing while I stick to my only form of angling and that is using a hardbody 1st. I did some mod to another Smilin' Jack of mine which I've bought it sometime ago but haven't use yet. The brown trout colour was put to test and it swims like the rest of the stable. But it could not tempt any fish around. It seems like a pretty dud day, with not much bites and surface action was just the usual occasional mullet jumps. Worst of all, there were heaps of rubbish on the surface and I saw a dead animal like a huge rat or cat or whatever bloated and floating! Yuck! Suddenly, Jialiang yelled out that he got a fish and he was delighted to break his duck on flyfishing finally. A small flathead decided to eat his fly of what I could see was a crazy charlie. A photo was definitely needed.

After feeling hopeless using the hardbodies, I used my previous kept Gulp Sandworm. I realised keeping it too long the colour seems to fade and became more soggy after soaking in the wet bait bag of stimulate drops. Still, I tried and there were the occasional bites without hookup. Tried my 'secret' spot and voila, a bream climb onboard the hook without me knowing it was a fish at 1st! I felt it was a flathead or some weed but then I saw the silvery flashes and knew it was a bream. Only a small bugger of 24cm without much interesting fight.

After that, everything became quiet badly. Jialiang suggested going up to this jewfish spot I heard about only to feel the wind suddenly changed direction and blew at us. He persisted with his flyfishing while I walked away from the wind and tried the same 'brownie' lure again. It was a rough terrain at that stretch and pretty much hopeless persisting there so we walked back where we came from and Jialiang changed to soft plastic fishing. I too changed to a sp I've so long since used it. Tied on a bloodworm grub and we continued towards the night. Mostly when I fish at night, I can't see my line properly, even with my headtorch it still wasn't that visible. When that happens, I tend to twitch my line more violently, because I was afraid that it'll get snagged. Actually it's a stupid mentality, no matter how well you'll work the lure, if there's heaps of crap beneath the water, it'll still be snaggable. Anyway, while Jialiang was rigging up his SX48, I got a good solid take which was quite rare for flatheads as they usually just somehow appear at the end of the line. This 43cm jumped and took the plastic and I could feel the instant action. Still, there wasn't much fight and I could easily hoist it up.

We proceeded down the road and on a particular cast, I snagged my grub and that was it, one fish caught only and it was gone. While I try to rig a new one, Jialiang snagged his SX48! I told him not to twitch out the lure violently in case the leader broke. It was stubbornly lodge in after several attempts to get it out. Shit, I told him there's no choice but to do 'chen' style by cutting the line and tying along the edge. I told him I'll come back and retrieve it for him but definitely requires my boat for the job as it was quite far out, wading seems impossible. So, me and team st mikes will try and help him.. hur hur..

Ronald