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I needed to get back on the horse that spooked me last weekend, so a leisurely mooch about Ricketts was on the cards. After all, it was a day to celebrate the horsies getting about Caulfield. With SW winds of 15 to 20 knots, I’d rather foolishly chosen to return by entering a bloody steeplechase though…intelligence not being my forte. Anyways, I gathered myself up and paddled about…only working the one Thunderstick behind to avoid tangles. A small puffer came aboard, croaked like a frog and stank up my deck….back in the water Gollum. More time and watery hurdles passed, and then a flock of seagulls (possibly circa 1980) started working so I pushed towards em. Zip Zip, about 50m from em my reel said hello…and produced a nice little salmon of 35cm. I thought he was bigger because he’d also brought along some seaweed…but for me a salmon, is a salmon, is a salmon!! I don’t pick em up much, so Happy Days in a cockney accent. By the time I’d played and netted him though, I ‘d been blown off the school and couldn’t find em again. Not to worry as I’d also realised I hadn’t remembered to get that parking ticket. I went back on the dry to invest $7, have a pee and see if Team Squid had shown. They hadn’t as yet, but neither had the parking inspector who was also apparently off inspecting Tarpons. Geez, a salmon, no ticket, and no bloody sharks….my luck was in!! I went back on the water for some more trolling up and down hills, although they were easing off slightly. I mooched to the north towards some boats for a bit, and hooked into braid thief who peeled me out every time I went to give her some hurt. She eventually gave me the last of her initial run and I started to reel her in…kind of in a battle against the fish and the windy chop putting me into the marine park. The clock ticked on her …I didn’t want to end up netting her inside the park just in case that inspector was sitting there on a Tarpon….and I just managed to hoik her aboard about 20m out. Yippee baby, a 56cm PB, up a coupla notches up. I did the photo shoot, and then searched for some more without joy so went back to my car to be met by Team Squid. They’d decided not to venture out, and I praise that decision. While the Fish‘N’Dive is a fine craft her wide child bearing hips would have been seriously challenged in the conditions. I think it was the great philosopher â€Å"Dirt Harryâ€
