The eagle has landed!

Got out for the first real crack this season over last weekend (Cup weekend). Fished hard in Mosquito Channel and surrounding areas and there were quite a few fish about. We arrived friday night ready for a session but it was blowing a gale and lightning was lighting up the skies. Dad was still keen to go out! We held off until saturday morning and arrived at Corinella ramp at 3.30am to find a sunken boat. A guy had tied his boat up to the ramp (Too tightly, and with the stern facing all of the incoming waves mind you) and it had been swamped. He probably would have been able to rescue it had he not been sleeping in his car at the time! There was a big groupd of guys milling around, all concerned from the massive storm and wind that had hit about 30 minutes prior to our arrival. Nothing would stop Dad from getting out on the reds so we launched on the one remaining ramp (The other was blocked by the now half submerged boat!). Conditions that greeted us were calm, in contrast to the storm that had hit earlier. We sat in our 'Mosquito channel calm' spot and didn't turn a reel until daybreak. I hooked a reasonable gummy then Dad's rods went nuts. In the next hour he boated 3 nice pinkies, missing many more. My rods were oddly quiet, apart from 3 nice size salmon that were kept for bait.


We decided to hit the water saturday night to upgrade to a bigger model and we went out just before dark, and were passed but 15-20 boats all coming in. Turns out there had been a storm warning that we hadn't heard. We went across increasingly choppy conditions to as close to French Island as possible (To get out of the wind and chop!), but couldn't hold anchor in those conditions. We finally found a spot in 6m of water and tried to sit it out. Lightning then lit up the sky, then came the torrential rain. We decided it would be too dangerous to cross back to Corinella so stayed at anchor. 15 minutes later the anchor failed to hold and we were slowly being dragged towards French Island, so were forced to motor back. It was a rough trip, very wet but we finally made it back. After this we had a sleep in sunday morning, which looked like pristine conditions again!

Sunday afternoon came and we launched about 12. Very busy, a lot of boat traffic and the fishing was queit. At 1pm my rod went off in our spot next to Snapper Rock and I pulled in an unexpected 1m gummy. It did not really fight at all until it was thrashing around the bottom of the boat. Stayed without a bite for the next 2 and a half hours then headed to a 10m reef where we made use of the salmon fillets for bait. Every half hour or so we had a run or two (Obviously the fish were schooling), and we pulled in mumerous pinkies. Then came the big run and after a very nervous (He was very worried about losing it!), a 52cm, 1.75kg red was brought aboard. Finally has caught one! We kept fishing for an hour or so but much of the same followed.


Monday morning we went out at 4.30 and had the port almost to ourselves. We burleyed hard in our 10m reef and just before the sun came up the action started. All before 7am and we had 7 pinkies to 51cm, 3 trevally to 44cm and a few salmon. We headed to Mosquito Channel and used the salmon for bait again, and it was slow. Dad pulled in a massive skate (Pictured) and we both got bitten off, which I think was by a 7 gill. I almost got it to the boat once before it turned and bit me off. Came home monday afternoon after a fun, successful trip on Westernport.