# South Aussie Sea Food Basket



## OldDood (Nov 6, 2008)

RobC and I set out for our third excursion to Price on Sunday morning.
We had done our homework. 
Good morning and arvo tides, light winds and a partially sunny and a reasonably warm day compared to what we have had lately anyway!
The plan was cast, catch the runout tide at about 9:00am, saves peddling/paddling, check out the mouth of the channel first as we had not been to the mouth before and then back to the channel on the ebb, burley up, bag out and then return to the creek on the incoming to have a fact finding mission among the mangroves.
I love it when a plan comes together  
The day unfolded on time, on schedule and on budget.  
Part 1- The Mouth

I arrived at 09:00 to see that RobC had jumped the gun and had all ready set off up the creek. Good to see he is so keen.
Launched in perfect conditions and got a free ride with the outgoing tide to meet up with Rob about 1 km towards the mouth of the creek.
Still enough water on the mud flats to get out to the mouth.
We took a nice leisurely drift towards the mouth, chucking SP's around and picking up the odd ST.
Beautiful morning calm peaceful and not to much exertion required.
We made it out to the mouth to be joined by a couple of dolphins who were obviously enjoying themselves as well.
Spent about half an hour exploring the mouth with no results, it is quite weedy and murky, no clear patches to speak of.
Have scrubbed the mouth off of the "places to visit" list and now I will not need to die wondering. :lol: 
Mission 1 accomplished successfully.

Part 2- The Channel

The tide was now approaching the ebb. Time to paddle back about 600m to the channel before the tide comes in.
This time we had a good chance to check out the structure of the channel.
The channel consist of a series of holes in the mud flats, nice clear sandy bottom with a steep drop off in some places. 
We found the deepest spot, about 100m long and about 20 metres wide and at least 4m deep.
This channel feeds a vast mud flat of many square KMs of razor fish,crabs mangrove, weed, worms and every other form of fish habitat you could imagine.
We had considerable trouble anchoring in the swift incoming current last time, so the plan was to bury our anchor in the razor fish encrusted weed beds next to a steep drop off ready for the tide. 
Once again the plan worked a treat.  
Every thing is primed for the main event of the day. Burley is out gear is rigged, consisting of light gear and 3" SP's for the snook and ST's and a heavier outfit of a 4/0 to 9/0 hooks with fish fillets in case of some bigger stuff.
The tide is just starting to turn and away we go.
Within seconds we are landing a few decent ST's and something seems to be annoying our bait.
Turns out that there is quite a few decent blue swimmer crabs having a meal on our fillets. We landed a few crabs in between the ST's but let them go for another day. It is pretty early in the season for crabs so it is a good sign of things to come.
Next moment had a decent run on the baited rod, seems a bit active for a crab, nope this is a decent fish, reeled him to the side of the Yak, yippee it is about a 600mm flathead, my first one in the Yak. I grabbed my net and watched the flatty do a loop through the air and throw the hook.  :shock: 
Oh well, nearly my first flathead.
I baited up again determined to catch another flatty.
Within 2 minutes the line screamed.  This is a *big* fish. I am now dreaming of a giant mulloway!
This thing is serious! Unhook the anchor and set off in pursuit, Can't be a ray, it is moving too fast? Followed it around for about 10 minutes, still not sure what it is :? Hmm, it is starting to slow and seems to be hugging the bottom like a big anchor. Is it a ray? The water is too murky and I can't get a good look at it.
Try to put some hurt on it so I can get up close for a look, it had other ideas and took off like a rocket. I am getting excited again. Next minute, 10 metres from the yak, 20 or 30 lb of eagle ray leapt a metre from the water and landed with a big splosh. Oh well mystery solved.  
Dragged him to the side of the Yak and set him free.
I went back to the original spot, rested my weary arms and started pulling in some decent snook to go with the ST's.
We soon both decided that mission 2 was completed succesfully, time to drift back into the creek.

Part 3 - The creek/mangroves
Time to wind down and have a gentlemanly fish.
RobC went off in pursuit of some snook with some success. I saw one leap out of the water within a couple of metre of his Yak. It must of been frustrated at missing Rob's SP by mere inches.  
I trolled a small piece of nuclear chicken worm on a small jig head slowly along the mangroves. I wanted to see if I could catch a few mullet using this technique.
Lots of bites but no hook up. Shortened the worm so that it protruded no more than 5mm from the end of the hook. Yep, that did the trick  
I was rewarded with half a dozen decent mullet within a short time. Smoked mullet for tea tonight. 
I was just about ready to call it a day and landed the first yellowfin whiting for the season using the mullet technique and it is not a bad specimen either. 
I will donate that to the Mr's and get in the good books. She loves Yellowfin.

Now its time to call it a day, wins all round, great company, great weather, great fish, mission accomplished!

Part 4 - Home Time.
All thats left to do is take some piccys, pack up, stop for a coffee on the way home and clean the fish.
All tasks completed and settled in front of the Teli by 8:00 pm!
I love it when a plan comes together.  
And here are some pictures.


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## Ado (Mar 31, 2008)

Great report Dood. Adventure, variety, research and even fish. Those Snook are certainly sizeable. Hard luck on the Flathead, but with effort like yours it won't be long.


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## RobC (Jun 13, 2010)

Nice report OldDood 

Perhaps you can give me some lessons in fish cleaning and filleting though, as I wasn't done anywhere near 8pm...

Then again, Mrs had clean sheets on the bed, so I also have to count the time it took me to have a shower :lol:

Was indeed a top day, and so nice to have a bit of warmth... hardly any wind and pretty flat calm to boot!

Priceless


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## OldDood (Nov 6, 2008)

RobC said:


> Nice report OldDood
> 
> Perhaps you can give me some lessons in fish cleaning and filleting though, as I wasn't done anywhere near 8pm...
> 
> ...


RobC, obviously you need to do more fishing. If your wife still lets you sleep in a bed you haven't obtained that permanent smell of fish pheromones as yet!
Anyway it could have been a bit later than 8:00. I am on holidays and have hidden all clocks for the time being. :lol:


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## solatree (May 30, 2008)

Well done Mark and Rob - for that sea food basket, the price is right ;-)

ps Commiserations on the flatty but Stonker of a snook 


OldDood said:


> I am getting excited again.


not to mention those big flaps that get the OldDood so excited ! :lol:


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## OldDood (Nov 6, 2008)

solatree said:


> not to mention those big flaps that get the OldDood so excited ! :lol:


Hmmmm, I think you need to get a better class of friends Andy! :shock: :twisted: :lol: :lol:


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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QlpoOTFBWSZTWU1KKR0AAA3fgAAQQCMACIKAEAA/a9/AIABIinhRiaB6Jpk9TINUeJMTEZGRppgkIKOpt7fVTkJTZ+LKsHkyqB2ZxgMxJOeErLF4AsNFnIYbcxFCX/fqON2MIrcPIwMbGmRdyRThQkE1KKR0


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## Samboman (Sep 6, 2010)

Good stuff guys, Sunday was a much nicer day then last time  Looks like you 2 had a great day and a feed that makes the drive worth it... 8)

*****


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## RobC (Jun 13, 2010)

> RobC, obviously you need to do more fishing. If your wife still lets you sleep in a bed you haven't obtained that permanent smell of fish pheromones as yet!


Who said anything about sleeping in it ;-)



> Anyway it could have been a bit later than 8:00. I am on holidays and have hidden all clocks for the time being


Good luck with escaping the DIY mate :lol:

Looks like I am in Pt Vincent next weekend...  ...even though the tides are... :twisted:


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## Drewboy (Mar 18, 2008)

Calculating, cunning, well planned and conceived....and with a cracker outcome.
Onya Mark and Rob.
Too bad about the flatty, but some good heart pumping Eagle ray action as compensation.


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## Milky (Feb 7, 2010)

Nice report Mark.

Like the way you had it all worked out - need some lessons


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## kanganoe (Apr 30, 2008)

Nice and calm,plenty of fish.Looked like a top result.


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