No turning back - just look at that concentration!

Yes, I know this post has little to do with fishing but I thought I would give you a rundown of my first ever parachute jump last weekend.

A present from my wife and kids (do they love me that much?) I must admit it’s taken some time for me to use the voucher. In fact, by the time I left the plane I had only four days left on its expiry date.

Now to be fair I wasn’t actually all that nervous over the past six months about jumping. I’ve taken to the air in a glider plane and a hang glider and the most scariest thing I’ve ever done to date was to climb a glacier in New Zealand whilst enormous chunks of ice were hurtling off it’s edges and crevasses appeared that seemed to go on for miles. No I haven’t bungee jumped (yet) but I did do a bunjee experience in New Zealand that allowed me to see everything that a jumper had to go through to prepare for the dive. OK, that can be my next adventure!

I wasn’t really worried about parachuting at all. I even quipped that I was opting for a “tandem spacesuit” rather than the parachute and I intended to do a fly-past the Sea Cliff Bridge before deploying the chute.

That all changed when I woke up on the day I was to jump. Now I don’t know whether or not it had anything to do with the massive hangover I was nursing but all of a sudden I woke up in a bit of a panic. I tossed. I turned. I thought about asking my son to jump for me. It got so bad that I couldn’t handle it anymore and I decided to get up and go for a long walk.

That seemed to do the trick and for the rest of the day I oscillated between a 5 and 6.5 out of 10 on the anxious scale.

Reporting in at the North Beach headquarters of Skydive the Beach I was reminded of the Monte Python scene in the Life of Brian where people were lining up for their crosses. After signing the waiver form I joined the other jumpers outside and spent the next 30 minutes suiting up and sharing nervous laughs and jokes. I remember someone mentioned that the plane above was dropping parachutists and I looked up at the sky and could hardly see the plane let alone the parachutists. Although I did take a peek I had to turn away as the sight of the falling lemmings was all too much. Eventually they landed about 100 yards from where we stood. I can say they did seem to be falling quite fast but the tandem instructors were able to pull them up very quickly for a soft landing.

Soon it was our turn to board the bus but not until after the jovial tandem instructors made an appearance with one quipping that his wife had left him and that his house burnt down the day before and he was through with everything. Thankfully for us he really was joking.

Ok, the equation is this. Albion Park airport is a 15 minute bus ride, the airplane trip is 20 minutes, you climb up to 14,000 feet and free fall for 60 seconds and then float down to earth for 4 minutes. Sweet!

The crew seemed to be all newbies to the parachuting world and only one of us had been parachuting beforehand. You wouldn’t believe it in a team of about 8 jumpers I actually sat in the bus next to one who came from my home town in Sydney – talk about a small world.

Arriving at the airport I had to ask my tandem instructor whether he was pumped and he smiled and assured me that he was ready to go. The operation itself ran like a well oiled machine – the airplane was ready for takeoff as soon as our bus turned up and we squeezed into it facing the back of the plane. The roller shutter door was pulled down and we were off.

The flight to the drop zone was picturesque – Wollongong and its waterways and surrounds are absolutely sensational and there’s probably no better jump site in the world.

With a five minute warning given and our belts tightened to that of our instructors I felt an eerie calm take over the plane. There was no one complaining that they didn’t want to jump. I think we all had resigned ourselves to the fact that it was going to happen no matter what. The roller shutter lifted and a rush of cold air came into the plane and the next thing I knew the first pair had left the plane. Boy – was that bizarre seeing someone leave the confines of a plane. I’ll never forget that.

My instructions were to go to the edge of the door and have my feet curled up under the plane. Well, I’ll tell you there was no time for that because as soon as we were at the door we were on our way out of the plane!

Hmmm… falling was not as I had expected it to be. I don’t know – there wasn’t the feeling like at an amusement ride with your stomach lifting or anything. It was cold, the air (and the ground for that matter) was rushing up at you but I couldn’t help but think with goggles on it looked rather like a movie and the sensation was like it was happening to someone else.

60 seconds of free fall is a long time and because I was at the bottom of the instructor I was wondering whether or not he was still with me and whether or not he was going to bother and pull open the shute – not that I was ever really concerned but it did feel like a long time.

The cord was pulled and again the sensation was not what I expected – there was no terrible wrenching of the body skyward – it was actually quite gentle. I found my ears had “popped” and I was a little hard of hearing but otherwise I was unscathed and quite lucid. We chatted all the way down and I must admit it was a sensational experience. The instructor got me to “stand” on his toes and although we were falling through the air it really felt like I was on solid ground so much so that I could stand up straight with all my weight on his feet. Weird! We practiced our landing technique mid air and we dropped like a pin straight at our target and landed perfectly.

Would I do it again? Probably… and when I did I certainly wouldn’t be as anxious the second time around. I think it’d be best if you share the experience with a friend rather than doing it by yourself. It certainly is one of those rights of passage things that one must cross off their list one day and I’m certainly glad to have done it. I think I’m even a little bit more appreciative of every moment I have above ground because of it.

Sea you later,
Skipper Meggs

Fishing & Reef Tour Specialists complete with Ugly Shirts at Sydney Airport

Greetings all!

Well this week Skipper Meggs had the opportunity to head south to (very!) sunny Melbourne but unfortunately not with rod and reel in tow. Isn’t it terrible when business gets in the way of a good fishing trip?

Anyway, for our past few (major) fishing holidays the Fishing & Reef Tour Specialist crew have packed their bags and rod tubes and made our way out to airports to be flown all around the country to exotic fishing locations in the far north. We’ve been on aircraft small and large and to date have had no issue or major hiccups.

So there I was on Monday around 6am at Sydney airport wondering why there was such a crowd in the place at this time of year. Thankfully I was flying with Virgin and the issue was with Jetstar – their reservation systems were down and as such they had to manually check passengers onto flights.  Although there was a minor delay of half hour with my flight it was probably nothing in comparison to the poor people who (intended) to fly with Jetstar that day.

My wife and I went to Thailand earlier this year and although we could have got a direct flight in and out of Phuket on Jetstar our travel agent recommended a Thai Airways flight. They were concerned that there would be issues with the Jetstar flights and didn’t want to take any risks. We flew Thai.

I was also booked on a Virgin flight on the way back to Sydney from Melbourne. You wouldn’t read about it but on Tuesday the exact same issue (reservation system outage)  happened to Virgin at Melbourne airport. I believe that this was a major problem and perhaps not as easily fixed as the Jetstar issue as some 50 flights had to be canceled on Tuesday as a result. The flow on effect for me on Wednesday was that my flight was delayed for an hour and a half which meant that I was forced to drink my Virgin Lounge membership almost dry before take off. I was lucky enough to be seated in an exit row and I took advantage of the additional leg room to have a well deserved snooze. Every Wednesday night I head down to have a drink at the local club with a few mates and I eventually arrived there at around 9:45pm.

Anyway, there’s very little you can do in these situations. All you can be thankful for is that they happen on business trips and not fishing ones. And as you can see from the video above things could have been much worse!

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs

Our view above the Danny Green tunnel

Greetings all,

What an evening it was last night. Skipper Meggs, his younger brother and dad (an ex boxer himself) went off to the Danny Green fight. Let me tell you the story…

Well it was an early Xmas present for my dad and to be honest apart from a couple of Kick Boxing shows in Phuket I must admit that I had never ever been to a boxing match even though they have regular bouts at my local watering hole. I was always of the belief that there’d be more fights outside the ring than inside it.

We trained it in to Acer Arena and it was a fair walk for a 76 year old so by the time we made it inside the stadium it was right on beer o’clock.

That’s when the fun began.

My brother headed off to find an ATM as the ones outside the stadium weren’t working (that’s right 3 NAB ATM’s down at the same time!) and I lined up for beers whilst dad sat down to catch his breath. When I got to the bar a good 15 minutes later I was told I could only buy 2 beers and if I wanted 3 I had to get dad to come over. I told them (nicely) the poor old bloke was having a rest after the walk from the station but they insisted on not only seeing him but getting him off his chair and standing next to me. Once he was there I asked whether or not he could go back to sit down and the young barman said yes. Off he went and then the supervisor came back and asked for him to get back otherwise she couldn’t serve me. All this for 3 lousy beers – the first ones of the night!

Anyway, time went on and it soon became obvious that Acer Arena wasn’t even broadcasting the boxing matches outside the stadium itself ie if you weren’t seated inside and you wanted to get drinks or food there was no vision of the fights. Plenty of TV screens around telling you what events were coming to Acer but no footage of what was going on inside the venue! Since there was a two beer only rule in place the queues were a mile long. Needless to say I didn’t see much of the under card.

Even the gents was a farce – the toilets consisted of 4 personal urinals  so even the blokes had to queue up to relieve themselves. Any guy with a sheet of corrugated iron and a bit of imagination would have seen this potential problem from a mile away. Someone complained and I pointed out that at 2 beers per person perhaps that’s all they needed.


There was a bloke in front of us that thought he’d beat the queues and got up to buy some beers just after the bell rang for round one of the Danny Green fight. Poor bloke missed the entire fight and couldn’t believe it! Whilst Roy Jones was on the ropes I asked ex-boxer dad whether it was in the rules that he was allowed to fight back but it was all too late and the fight was stopped. I lost a few dollars on the result and my brother has to spend the next couple of weeks making up the money he lost backing Roy Jones Junior.

Now a lot of you at this point would think that I’m having a bit of a moan but on the contrary I found the whole experience very entertaining. After all – who would want a night that goes really smooth with nothing to talk about. When the fight finished I lined up in the gents behind one of the four urinals and stated that we just paid $40 a minute to watch a fight. As quick as a flash one bloke said to us “Mate, what would you have said if you saw Bradman get out for a duck in his last match – that’s history and you would’ve been a part of it!”. Of course he was right. I was actually quite chuffed to have been there to see the 122 second bout.

We were right above the area where Danny Green came out of and the atmosphere was absolutely fantastic. Ok, it was over quicker than Green’s after fight speech but I was proud to be there with both my dad and my brother.

So where’s the connection with fishing holidays? Well sometimes they don’t work out according to plan either.

I remember one we had in South West Rocks for instance. Apparently the week before our charter boat was robbed and so they didn’t have much in the way of fishing gear. The fishing for the week was really quiet with only a couple of reasonable size spotted mackerel saving the day. But off the water there were so many things that made the trip fantastic. We took some surf lessons, had a beach decathlon and at one time sent the local golf pro off with our beer order in a golf buggy and he delivered it back to us by the time we got to the the third hole.

The thing is it’s not about the fight or the fishing in lots of ways it’s all about the journey and the experience.

Robert Louis Stephenson once put it this way… “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”.

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs

The usually sedate Kianinni Bay at Tathra in rough seas

Greetings all,

I don’t have to remind Sydney-siders how damn hot it was over the weekend but one thing is clear that the warmer weather signals the start of the summer holiday season and that can only mean one thing – more fishing on the way!

For a lot of people who haven’t dusted their rods off all year there is a temptation to pack the car and head off to the nearest rock ledge with no preparation apart from pulling into the petrol station for some frozen bait. Once at the chosen red hot rock spot they tend to throw caution to the wind and hug the edge of the rocks with little appreciation of the seas let alone knowing what the tides are likely to do throughout the day.

Now I must admit I didn’t really cut my teeth on rock fishing until my early 20’s but I’m thankful for the people I learned the craft with because we always made sure that safety was a priority. It may come as a surprise to a lot of people but this year in NSW alone between January to mid October 9 people lost their lives as a result of rock fishing. I haven’t got national figures but I can tell you between 1992 and 2000 there were 74 deaths in NSW due to rock fishing whilst Australia wide during the same period only 9 people died as a result of shark attacks!


So how can you play it safe when rock fishing?

The NSW DPI have released the following guidelines for safe rock fishing;

Never fish alone
Inform others of your plans
Wear light clothing and appropriate footwear
Carry safety gear
Observe first and fish later
Stay alert
Plan an escape route

They have also installed Angel Rings at 96 popular rock fishing spots in NSW. Let’s hope the vandals leave them all alone.

Oh, and for those of you that are interested there were actually 122 shark attacks in Australia between 1990 and 2008 but only 19 of those were fatal. When you consider that in less than 10 months in NSW alone we have lost 9 lives this year it’s easy to see why real fisho’s fear rocks more than they do sharks!

Let me know if the Angel Rings installed in your local rock spot are still in tact by clicking on the “no comments” button below. Also let me know if you don’t have any.

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs

Greetings fellow fisherpersons,

Well, if the Pacific Dawn ever makes it back to Sydney I will be making the trip to Vanuatu very soon. Apparently we’ve been delayed a day and so we will miss out on going to Luganville which is a real shame because a mate of mine use to run a plantation there and I was looking forward to catching up with his friends and seeing the local town. Better luck next time I suppose.

I will be away until the 1st November so in the meantime I’ll leave you with the third part of the “Trevor” story. I hope you enjoy it!

But what to do? After chatting to a kind old bloke on the wharf, I decided to pack up the kids and head for the nearest tackle shop for the official weigh in. Two point four kilos on the lie detector later I decided that the next thing to do was to take some photos, capture the scene on video and then display the carcass to as many of my detractors as possible.

Unfortunately there was no film in any of our cameras – except for one belonging to Alisha. Alas I was to find out months later that Alisha had developed a habit of opening the camera many times “to check on the film”. So, after covering more angles of the fish than even a Playboy shoot would allow and after paying extra for one hour development of the prints, the professional opinion of the photography world was that the shots were over exposed.


For weeks after that I was one shattered unit.

The video was a different proposition. Why hell, I could tape over the bits of old holiday footage with shots of me with more hair and less weight (these two things always seem to be diametrically opposed as one gets older) and the newly acquired big screen TV could show the mighty bream in stunning Technicolor. Well that was the theory as I panned in close with the “Battery Low” light glowing red below the eye piece just long enough to get a flick of the tail and a gulp from the struggling bream.

Slightly annoyed I put the fish on ice and headed off to a friend’s house for more photo opportunities and some shameless self indulgence. Receiving same (but only one photo courtesy of the “Oh my gosh, I’ve run out of film syndrome”) I moved onto the next port of call: the brother-in-law’s.  With no one home I decided to display the fish to his next door neighbour Keith – a keen Botany Bay fisho from way back.

“Keith’s not home dear. What sort of fish is that anyway?” enquired Keith’s Mrs with a kind of “Yawn, I could be watching Oprah” tone in her voice.

It was pointless. I was a beaten man. There was a trophy fish in my esky and it seemed I would be banished to a lonely world of self aggrandizement.  However, with renewed video camera batteries Alisha and Grant helped me capture some truly magic moments on tape  including the scaling, gutting and ritual examination of the stomach contents. But this fish was not headed for the freezer. There was only one thing that would justify plucking it from the murky depths of the Georges River.

That evening, Fast Eddie the Fireman and his sweet wife Suzie, joined the kids and I in a celebration of  unbridled gluttony as we ate the tender flesh of the one-wine-and-stubby-bottle-long barbecued bream that in a moment of alcoholic induced inspiration we had come to call Trevor.

“He looks like a Trevor,” announced Fast Eddie convincingly.

Naturally, the Sunday Telegraph that weekend gave away a rod and reel to someone who had sent a photo of a 1.8kg bream and I sighed with disgust at my lack of foresight.

But here’s a checklist for what you can do to make the most of that unexpected catch;

·    Get the fish officially weighed
·    Buy some film, take many photos and hold the fish out in front of you
·    Ring the local newspaper – they may run a story and send a professional photographer because it’s interesting press and good for tourism
·    Video footage is fantastic, if you haven’t got a video camera borrow one
·    A cast of your catch will cost a few hundred dollars but whatever you do, don’t scale or gut your fish. Professional taxidermists are listed in the Yellow Pages
·    Send the fish photos into TV, magazine and newspaper competitions

And if you’re really keen, you could cobble together your own story and shoot it off to some respectable blog like this one…..

Good fishing and good luck to all.

The Bombastic Bream Beater of Bankstown

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs

Greetings!

For those of you following me on www.twitter.com/skippermeggs or watching the twitter feed on the www.skippermeggs.com website you would be well aware that shortly I’ll be off on a slow boat to Vanuatu to celebrate my daughter’s 21st. Funnily enough she features in the continued story below as a sprightly seven year old helping her dad bring in the big ones down at the Georges River in the south west of Sydney. I hope you enjoy the continuation of this story….

The pier was free so we spread out our gear and I sent the kids off to find some crabs (to no avail) whilst I grabbed some water with my bait holder (a trusty plastic half oil container) to thaw out those frozen prawns. I’ve always been a great believer in burley but seldom used it. Call it good luck, good management or call it for what it was (BBQ leftovers) today was the day I chose to combine scrunched up, rock hard bread rolls with sand and a few mashed pillies and prawns for good measure.

“Ooh, yuk, Grose!” commented the ever vigilant Alisha.

A few days earlier I had taken Alisha to a nearby park to teach her the finer points of casting a fishing rod with an egg beater reel. Grant had already mastered this aspect and at least in the past had proved himself proficient in the art of knot tying and line rigging. Naturally when we arrived at Lambeth Park they had forgotten everything. They make it all seem so peaceful and pleasant on TV. You know – kids behaving themselves waiting patiently for the ubiquitous fish whilst dad relaxes with a good book and a bell on the end of his rod.

Not this trip! This was more than just virtual reality fishing….

Grant had seemingly forgotten how to tie and bait hooks and Alisha insisted on winding in her line the instant I handed back her rod after casting for her. There were more snags than in a butcher shop’s front window and I worked like a one arm paper hanger tying hooks and swivels and various rigs whilst settling disagreements between brother and sister.

“The day I chose to fish with the kids some village lost its idiot.” I thought to myself.


It was inevitable that one of the only baits I was able to get wet resulted in a dropped bream at the edge of the wharf courtesy of a decision to lift the fish out of the river rather than to lose both kidrens off the wharf with a landing net that couldn’t quite reach the water. Disgusted in missing the first catch of the day I instructed Grant and Alisha to “walk” the next fish along the edge of the wharf towards the beach rather than risk dropping another one.

We continued to burley up a treat whilst the tide swung back around but still there was no luck to be had. When all hope was just about lost I told the kids that dad would drown just one more prawn. I reached for my trusty old rod with the no frills reel and then into my tackle box for the last 1/0 chemically sharpened hook that I possessed. A running ball sinker down to the hook (as light as the current allowed) rounded off the outfit and it was into the water with a thawed out packet prawn for good measure.

Casting to the left of the wharf I watched the line as the tide dragged it across a patch of weed. A familiar tightening of the line and a sudden dipping of the rod soon indicated the presence of a fish which was quite heavy. I lifted and wound ah la Rex Hunt for the benefit of the kids with the fish taking some line from time to time when I saw a sudden flash of silver.

“A jewfish.” I thought.

But with a few more yards of gained nylon I could see that it was a majestically built snapper-like-bream; a fish I just had to land. With adrenaline pumping I guided the gracious fish along the wharf towards the sandy beach as I shouted hurried instructions to my number one son. But Grant found the fish too large and the water too shallow to slide a net into place and he grabbed the bream (like Tarzan would a crocodile) and literally threw it into the landing net.

I couldn’t believe that a write off of a day had ended in success with just one cast away from abandonment.

Tune in next week to find out what disaster strikes next as Skipper Meggs reveals the stunning conclusion to “The Legend of a Bream called Trevor”.

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs

Greetings Fellow Fisherpersons!

Over the next three weeks I will be bringing you the true story of a huge bream I caught years ago with my two children down the road from where I live in the Georges River in Sydney’s south western suburbs. It’s a touch funny and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it…

You see it’s like that old joke.  You know the one where the adulterous guy goes into the confessional occupied by a cleaner and starts telling him about the amorous adventures he’s been having with the boss’s blonde wife. Finally it all gets too much for the cleaner who explains that he’s just the janitor. The other guy’s reply? “That’s Okay, I’m not a Catholic either – I was just so excited about the situation I had to tell someone.”

And so it is with fishermen, when after years of braving the elements and the jokes of neighbours and close personal friends they finally strike it big and somehow jag that once in a lifetime catch. You see all real fishos dream of classic catches and I’m not referring to World Series Cricket or in-ground pool contracts. Just remember if you keep wetting a line someday, sometime, somewhere and more than likely when you least expect it, along will come that prized catch.

But let’s face it. The moments of glory for the average fisherman are very few and far between so ask yourself this: will you be prepared to make the most mileage out of that monstrous mullet? Indians took scalps, hunters hung moose heads on top of fire places and I’m sure Hugh Heffner kept his own special momentos. But what should the humble, never-come-home-with-anything type of bloke do when he finally makes big? Surely the odd fish photo is not enough?

I must admit that up until that faithful day I was clearly unprepared. Being a professional Marketing Manager my idea of forward planning was booking the restaurant by 11AM. This story is for the benefit of all who have yet to have their moment of glory. So read on…you never know one day you could become the “Living Ling Legend of Lansvale”, the “Cod Curmudgeon of Coogee” or the “Prime Perch Poacher of Pelican Point” if only you’re prepared.


This is the legend of a Bream called Trevor…..

Having spent the equivalent of the national debt of a small third world nation on three rods, reels and fishing line for the wife (who commented appreciatively “Gee thanks Greg, what do I do with this?”) and two kids at Christmas it was finally time (three weeks later) to put them into action. You see I’m a good bloke so I spared no expense in thawing out some old bait from the garage bar fridge and packed each fishing bag as if they were my own for Grant (9) and Alisha (7).

The full moon had pushed the king tides from the upper reaches of Sydney’s Georges  River and we had chosen a lazy 8:00 AM start at Lambeth Park which had already been the scene of many an encounter with plate size bream. The timing wasn’t that bad an option as we intended to fish the hour before and after the top of the tide and could therefore still get away with a minimum of lead.

A basic seamanship’s course some years ago taught me about the “twelthes rule” which has really annoyed the hell out of me ever since because its almost always right. The principle is based on the fact that there is roughly six hours between high and low tides. Generally, according to the rule, if you take the difference between the high tide (eg 2m) and the low tide (eg 0.8M) and divide it by 12 (ie 0.1M) you will find that in the first hour 1/12 of the water (0.1M) will flow in or out, the second hour 2/12 (ie 0.2M), the third hour 3/12 (ie 0.3M), the fourth hour 3/12 (ie0.3M), the fifth hour 2/12 (0.2M) and the sixth hour 1/12 (0.1M).

The moral of the “twelthes rule” (particularly when fishing in estuaries during a full moon)  is to fish the top of the tide when racing waters won’t drag your bait from left to right in the space of seconds.

Be sure to tune in next Friday after 12 noon EST for the next exciting installment of a Legend of a Bream called Trevor!

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs

Greetings all,

Before I forget – congratulations to Lorinda Potter who was lucky enough to catch her first jewfish off the back of a houseboat on the Clyde River at Batemans Bay. Caught on a barra rod loaded with 15kg but with a 1/0 hook, running ball sinker and no trace the most unluckiest 96cm jewie fell to a frozen packet prawn thrown at boil of bait fish. Well done!

Ok, with much anticipation Wazza and I had changed our game plan for the second trip and went with a cheaper hire boat with a 15hp and a crab pot thrown in. Yes, we were worried that the 15hp wouldn’t hack the trip but our friendly host agreed to drop us off at a different ramp in Bridge Creek which was well south of the town of Cardwell. With a high tide at 8am this would put us into prime fishing territory with the afternoon low tide helping us home to the marina.

We managed to put the boat in without being taken by crocs and made our through the dense mangroves out into open fishing territory. A couple of local crabbers gave us some tips on how to navigate from Bridge Creek and about 45 minutes they passed by us holding up a huge muddie – well done to them! We made our way to a likely looking feeder creek and tossed gold bombers at some drowned timber and within a dozen casts finally managed to get some interest from a couple of small barra. They went for my lure first before moving onto Wazza’s. A couple of Boofs! later and they were gone.


We meandered around a few of the creeks and streams before deciding to put our crab pot in a likely area in front of two drains whilst we fished a y junction further downstream. It seemed like we were only there for less than an hour but regardless the 3 meter tide got the better of us and I chose not to risk being bogged in the mud trying to retrieve our crab pot – besides we were always going back that way again the next day and it wasn’t as if the waterway was full of boats and potential crab pot thieves.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful although I did manage to catch the world’s smallest hammerhead shark which was a real buzz. Drifting back towards the Cardwell marina we picked up various rubbish fish and our hopes for redemption from the previous days’ disasters seemed well and truly dashed. There was only one thing left to do – call up the big guns and go on a charter. We got in touch with Mick Radlof, a Cardwell local, and after explaining our plight we arranged a charter for the following day.

Mick was a great bloke and I must admit it was good to have someone who knew the local waters like the back of his hand and he took us to places where we hadn’t even thought of heading. He gathered up some livies with his cast net and we mixed the fishing up a bit with lures as well. Wazza had the first run but unfortunately it was stingray so the gods were still definitely against us. I had a small run on a fish that spat the hook. Mick took us back to the crab pot only to find that we had been baited. He took one look at our crab pot and told us the locals call the one we used a “Take Away” because the crabs come in one end and take away the bait and then work their way out the other! Oh well, no barra and no muddies so far. What the hell are we doing wrong???

Anyway, Mick tried and tried and tried to put us onto some fish. We had a huge run at the junction of a creek but by the time the rod was lifted out of the holder the fish was gone. Time wasn’t on our side and the sun was getting low. Mick pulled the boat into the mouth of a creek and let out the big guns with some jelly prawns and live herring whilst Wazza and I pelted lures around the creek edges. Boof! Swirl! Missed again as one of the livies went off. Lucky me got a run on an estuary cod which we released and then finally Wazza managed a legal size barra which was immediately doomed for the bbq that night. We were about to pack it in when the waters around us started to boil with both baitfish and big boofs and swirls from the menacing barra that were in full attack mode. I had seen nothing like this in my travels – everywhere you looked there were barra boils and the noises of feeding fish.

Mick was good enough to let us try our luck here – I think he felt sorry for the way our whole trip had turned out and this was really a unique situation. He said to us that normally when there are barra feeding like this they aren’t much interested in anything else but the baitfish they’re feeding on. Regardless out of the blue a fish nailed a popper as it blooped its way back to the boat and I was on to my first Cardwell based barramundi which was duly caught and released to fight another day. Success at last!

We followed the boils around for awhile but couldn’t get any interest and as the light began to fade we called it quits and made our way back to port. It was tough going but at least we had a feed for the night.

As for Cardwell as a fishing destination – look we obviously didn’t set the world on fire. Mick also mentioned that the previous wet season had not been good and this has a flow on effect with the barra. The other thing is that we didn’t bother to do any reef fishing and this is generally an easier task to extract fish. We saw enough evidence on our final day to suggest that there were still plenty of barramundi left in and around Cardwell but we couldn’t seem to get any other interest apart from the local sharks and catfish. One great catch can make a big difference to your fishing holiday and I wouldn’t write the area off just based on our experience. A lesson learnt is always use a local guide if you can – this will increase your chances of success dramatically and they know the likely haunts of the local fish. Cardwell itself, and the surrounding areas including Lucinda, is picturesque  and the locals are friendly. There’s some great drinking establishments and cheap accommodation so in summary I’d recommend that you put the town on your must fish list.

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs

Greetings all,

My brother in law Wazza and I headed off to Townsville in March this year with no return plane ticket, a cabin booked for a week in Cardwell and a hire car. For those of you that are unsure as to where Cardwell is it’s basically on the coast half way between Cairns and Townsville across from Hinchinbrook Island. The drive takes just over two hours from Townsville and slightly longer from Cairns.

I had earmarked this area as a potential candidate for a full on F&RTS (Fishing & Reef Tour Specialists) trip with all our mates as there are bareboats and houseboats for hire, easy access to the reef and islands, and the inland creeks and streams were suppose to fish well for barramundi and mangrove jack.

We had brought our own fishing gear up in the plane with plenty of lures and fishing rods for trolling, bottom bouncing and casting lures and live baits. Our real goal was to tackle the famed Hinchinbrook barramundi.

I had booked a dinghy with 40hp and (thankfully) two fuel tanks from a local hire boat place for $140 per day plus petrol and Wazza and I set off from the marina in good weather to fish in a deep hole off Hecate Point on Hinchinbrook Island.  The bites came straight away and after a couple of strikes the first fish (?) was on. Several pump and winds later up came our first shark with a number of others joining it in quick succession. Letting these little toothy things go was a no brainer and once it was proven that this was all we were likely to catch we decided to pack up and move spots only to find that the sharks had either followed us or that was all that we going to catch.


With our tail between our legs plan B came into operation and that was to troll along the edge of the channel that ran between Hinchinbrook Island and the mainland until we reached the second port marker along the so-called transit lane. I forgot to mention that the area surrounding Cardwell is subjected to 3 metre plus tides and trolling in a small dinghy became a touch unpleasant for Wazza who was sitting up the front of the boat for ballast. We weren’t too disappointed to bring the trolling lines in and get the boat up on the plane.

Heading up to the second starboard marker we pulled into Paluma Creek only to have the motor cut out on us. Hmmm… no problem – a lesson I have learnt from Iron Guts Wayne is never panic so I got Wazza to throw the anchor out and I opened the first well earned beer of the day. We took advantage of the disruption to have a few casts toward the mangroves with some gold bomber lures to no avail. Getting back to the motor I picked up the petrol tank and gave it a shake and could swear there was plenty still left in it so I gave the pump a squeeze and the tried to start it all to no avail. I was thinking of opening another beer but I’m a responsible skipper so instead I swapped petrol tanks and hey presto the motor started.
That’s ok, but we had to make our way back to the marina later plus spend time fishing and there were several other spots further on that I would’ve liked to have tried.

Anyway to cut a long story short we tried the Gayundah and Paluma Creek “Y” junctions, mouths and drains with lures and cut baits with no takers apart from some black bream all of which were sent back to fight again. With the tide dropping rapidly (3 metre tides lose 1.5 metres in the bottom two hours alone) and some shallow creek entrances to navigate we decided to head back to the channel and drift with the tide and current line. In the back of my mind was the petrol situation so the drift was an added advantage.

To cut a long story short, the drift was reasonably disastrous with catfish and small sharks the order of the day. With our barramundi dreams shattered we motored back to Port Hinchbrook Marina at Cardwell.

Can Skipper Meggs and Wazza redeem themselves on their next Cardwell outing – stay tuned for Skipper Meggs Adventures in Cardwell Part 2 next week!

Sea you later,
Skipper Meggs

Snapper leads are for fishing not for throwing!

Greetings!

I’ve just returned from a week’s holiday at one of southern NSW’s prettiest towns – Sussex Inlet. The weather was not kind to us but with great company and the help of four local drinking establishments we all managed to have a fantastic trip.

There was one minor moment for some concern.

Whilst we were putting the boat in a certain height disadvantaged individual who I never care to meet again started rabbiting on about how I owe him a beer because he spent all day “fixing up the boat ramp”.  Most people just say hi, how you going? Now I’m the type of guy who doesn’t need to be told who I need to owe a beer to because it’s always self evident. There was no sign on this ramp that said “Must buy small man syndrome individual beer for making himself feel important”.

There are a couple of points to be made here. Those of you who have been to Sussex Inlet would attest to the fact that there are no shortage of boat ramps in and around the town. There is also nothing wrong with the ramp in question that needed to be fixed. This bloke just came along and put down a load of bricks at the end of the ramp for his own use. Our boat and trailer didn’t come close to needing any of it to launch and retrieve the boat safely.

Just as abhorent was the next statement to come out of this blokes mouth that he had spent the last two days finding the best fishing spots in Sussex Inlet and that if our boat was to come within 150m of him he would start to throw snapper leads at us. Can you believe that?

Not only was this guy the saviour of the ramp his boat was one huge fish magnet!


He then described how people use to throw snapper leads at him – this I could understand. Unfortunately mine were back at the unit.

Stupidity is obviously inherited as his son aboard the vessel pointed to the water and declared a 55cm flathead was lying below. Clearly he was his father’s son and not afraid to spin a story.

I’m not prone to violence and I did bite my tongue and walk away. The fact was we weren’t going fishing that night anyway – we just wanted to put the boat in and tie it to our jetty. All this took place in five minutes of us arriving at the ramp.

As the week went on we did get a few laughs out of the thought of tossing snapper leads at passing boats but clearly there was something dangerously wrong with this individual to even think about putting the safety of people on the water at risk in this manner, let alone thinking he had the right to all the fish in Sussex Inlet within a 150m radius of his boat.

As a postscript to this story justice did seem to prevail. It blew a gale, the heavens opened up and God put on a thunder and lightning show like you wouldn’t believe whilst our new friend (the one who I and apparently everyone in Sussex Inlet still owes a beer to) was on the water.

The lesson here is clear. Always be kind and considerate to your fellow fishermen and boaties. You don’t have to be an idiot at the ramp. All you need to do is to say hi, smile and get on your way.

Sea you later,

Skipper Meggs