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Got a fishing story you'd like to share?
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 Respect the sea, a lesson learnt the hard wayFrom: Dave It all began on the night of the 2002 Tea Tree Snapper comp. We had prepared for weeks to get onto some big snapper, enough bait purchased to feed the entire fish population in the Pacific Ocean and more hardware than a battleship... WE WERE SET. The weather was a magic night 5-10 knot winds and a fine night ahead. We arrived at Linley Point at low tide only to fill the back of the HZ ute with Port Phillip's finest H2O, eventually the boat was launched to the amusment of all onlookers and the ute was now clean. The night was off to a great start with plenty of gars caught for live bait just to add to the mountain of frozen stuff we had already bought. Anyway after about 20 minutes Gazza hooked into a 4.5kg snapper (as seen in the gallery pics). It was a dream start only to end as soon as it started, no more big reds caught. It was about 11pm when we saw a flare go off and we thought 'gee some people are unlucky'. At about 0130 most people started to head in but we were in for the long haul and were not going to give it up before we had our catch of big reds. At about 0230 I got up to answer the call of nature and noticed that the wind was getting up and after a bit of discussion we decided to call it a night. In the time it took us to reel in our lines and pack up our gear the wind had turned the bay into an absolute nightmare the waves were slamming down on the bow and the anchor was pulling so hard that the front of the boat was in submarine mode. The old Johnson started first time thank God and forward we went to lift anchor and just when things couldn't get any worse the anchor was stuck solid... we circled but it wasn't going to budge. At this stage it was panic stations as the perfect storm rolled in, I then decided to cut the anchor rope if we were going to have any chance of getting to dry land. No sooner had I cut the rope and the push pull pulley steering system decided it wanted to fall to bits so now we were filling up the jocks as well as the boat. There we were no anchor, no steering doing circles in the bay at 3 o'clock in the morning, we gathered our thoughts and we decided it was time put on the life jackets which were packed right up the front behind all the crap we thought we would need first (yeah, I know, what a pair of d*ckh*ads). Well things were going from bad to worse the life jackets were stuck fast. I grabbed the motor and Gazza held onto the front with white knuckles guiding me which way to turn and warning me when the next wave was going to break over us. We were in total darkness due to the spotlight also deciding to malfunction so we saw a light on shore and headed for it. We eventually got our bearings and found the markers for Linley Point, although any where would have done just so long as we got back. We were about 30 metres from shore when Gazza decided enough was enough and could see the sand under us and jumped ship only to be greeted by 5 foot of water though I suppose we were wet already so it didn't really matter. He managed to find one dry smoke which was finished before he got it out of the packet, of all nights I wished I wasn't a non-smoker. We headed off to the comp the next day with Gazza's snapper but didn't win anything, still we got to live another day and learnt a lot of valuable lessons and gained a higher respect for the Bay. I outlayed $400 dollars for decent steering and repairs and I always make sure that my jackets and flares are right next to me on every voyage now. All the best Dave. (11 June 2003) |
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