The fishing trip went fine, lots of fish caught. It was a club tournament, our club size rules for legal fish are more difficult than Queensland Fisheries legal. We had three day’s fishing, a practice day, to find your feet, look for excellent fishing spots and enjoy yourself. The tournament is over two days, in this case we practiced on Tuesday and fishing competition was on Wednesday and Thursday. There are both men and woman streams.

Al and I were teamed up with a guy called Mike. His boat is a 4.8 metre Stessl. Custom-built in the style of a centre console style, with a left and right consol. The two consoles set in the back third of the boat. One on the right with all the controls and a second console on the left with no controls. The second is to keep any fisher dry while motoring about. The arrangement leaves a wide corridor to the front of the boat.

A third fishing position is in the bow. Mike drove the boat; Al was number one deckie, I was the front runner with responsibilities for deploying the electric motor. The electric motor had GPS anchoring so we could essentially hover in one spot.

The week’s weather forecast was terrible, I would go to say it was evil, Tuesday, the practice day looking like the best. Despite not catching any fish, we remained optimistic that we would have a decent day one if the weather stayed favourable.

The forecast was getting steadily worse, back home 150 kms south they were getting smashed with storms heading north, we went out anyway. The morning was calm and glorious, we were at the fishing spot at the appointed time of 6am and started immediately. Our skipper is a good fisher man and within a minute he had pulled in his first fish, marginally undersized but a fish, anyway. A good day with us moving spots a couple of times before finding a significant place where Alison caught two flat head and Mike caught four Bream and I caught a barred grunter. All weigh ins, a very successful start.

While having dinner at the Rainbow Beach surf club, we witnessed a storm approaching with thunder, lightning, and heavy rain moving towards us from the sea. A quick dash home saw us arrive with very heavy rain. It stormed in the evening and rained as we went to bed. Didn’t look like we were going to fish the next day.

As dawn seeped off the horizon, the sound of rain drops were still tapping on our cabin roof, it wasn’t hard but the radar looked bad. Our start delayed until we saw guys heading out so we decided to follow.

After a productive day of fishing, where we all caught weigh in fish, we had to fight against strong winds from the south east on our way back home. The sea was rough, white water crashing over the sides as bashed through the waves. We ended up getting drenched, despite this, Al seemed to enjoy herself.

We got to the ramp and had to weight for one of our club members who name will remain untold was standing by his boat, which was partly in the water. He talked to his deckie and headed back to the car and dragged it out, wandered around the back and placed the bungs in the boat. It’s a boatie’s worst nightmare to launch without those plastic pieces securely screwed in. He started the process again as we watched the clouds scutter past to the east.

Our valuable fishing time being used. Backing in again, the boat refused to let go of the trailer, the tide was dead low the danger was hitting the bottom. He back further in, the wheels touch the water. Still no joy, he pushed it back even further now up to the wheel arches in his tow vehicle. Still no joy, he gets out the car pushes the boat, other people help push the boat. It just would not move.

Cars are queuing at the ramp, angry are being mouthed what’s what is going on, are we going to have the same issues?

Finally, he pulls the boat back in, and wanders around scratching his head, the crowd waiting is getting very touchy now. A quiet bit of work at the back of the boat finds the boat motor travel connection to stop the boat falling off the trailer was working excellently and was perhaps the reason the boat would leave the trailer.

Quickly fixed the boat slide of easily to the relief of everyone we could finally go fishing if the storm didn’t hit us before we even left. The start was a mirror image of yesterday, except for heavy storm clouds to the east and south. Despite the ramp holdups, we were in our fishing spots around the right time

The water still very little breeze and the sound birds all around. We had advice that our first fishing spot was not producing, so we went to chase tailor, an excellent sport fish. Nothing doing so off to another spot to catch bream, only found toad fish and lost lots of line, they bite you trace off the spiteful buggers. Now on to our sure to catch fish, we caught undersized fish nothing doing. Finally, back to the start, everyone was heading home, we were two and half hours from weigh in. We stayed as the last boats battered their way home, the clouds gave us concern and some heavy spots of rain. Then Mike caught fish and Alison caught two

Job done don’t worry about me off we go to tackle the run home in raising waves and wind.

Fishing for the day was hard with very little being caught although Ali successfully caught a bar tailed flat head and a club legal bream. In all a successful fishing trip and despite the threats from Queensland weather people, we didn’t really get wet or caught in a storm.

 A few minor hiccups on the way the ramp, a couple of groundings and two boats having trouble with the electrics, including one losing its sounder, GPS and electric anchor.
To top it off a great four days Al got heaviest bag and second and third heaviest fish for the ladies.