Sometimes it's just not your day....

[DougieK]

So....

Having been on student teaching placements, injured, sick, then injured again and landed exactly one fish that wasn't complete ass in the past month I thought I'd take advantage of the good weather and low swell yesterday.

After a week of planning and investigating, searching Navionics and Googlemaps i settled on scouting out a ledge i'm planning to spend an overnight trip on during the summer. The ledge is located on the prom, only seems to be about a 2.5km walk from the carpark (instead of 6!!!) and drops straight into 15m of water. With a good cast and a slide bait that depth is easily accessible, or with balloons 20+ isn't out of the question. The ledge faces both west and south so a NE wind is perfect, with low tide to make it more accessible and low swell so I dont' get myself killed. Thursday looked the absolute goods.

I get up at 3am. Driving by 3.45 and after a petrol/coffee stop on the way i'm finally cruising down through the very promising sounding Fish Creek, enjoying the first slivers of light a touch after 6am as the driving trance i'm in slowly clears into anticipation of a 10 hour session on a ledge i've never fished before. I enjoy the WELCOME TO WILSONS PROM sign and remember the last time I fished here with Carl a solid 4 months ago. God damn this place is cool.

I round the corner to the little booth where they check your tags and there is a car parked in the middle of the lane where you drive through, so thinking someone might need help i pull up behind and jump out. A large, grumpy man that barely fits through the door of the booth comes charging up to me and quite aggressively tells me the park is closed and I have to leave. Now I don't have any issue with the park being closed....but I don't like being approached aggressively and tell him to settle the f^ck down. Not a great start to the day.

So I decide to initiate plan B, an hours drive back through inverloch to check out a ledge near Cape Patterson that both had potential and was recommended to me. Only 4ish metres of water but very safe and easy to access. I had some squid heads and some pillies (yes, i bought bait) so floated out a small paternoster, a Heavy pulley rigged full pilliie and with the NE going nicely manged to get a squid head out under a balloon about 300m.

Two sh!tty wrasse for the session.

I bailed on cape patterson at midday having missed the tide change and bite window that would have been perfect with the sunrise. I headed down towards phillip island, stopping for a quick look from the lookout at Punchbowl. There were a couple of guys just walking back up the ledge that said they didn't get a touch in the 7 hours they were there.

Had a drive down to the knobbies having not been there for years. Checked out Kitty Miller bay, Sunderland Bay and Pyramid rock. Some ideas in my head but i didn't bother fishing them.

It was now approaching high tide at 3pm, ended up spending the next hour or so at the Newhaven jetty casting my new saltist and getting a feel for some different lures. Eventually cruised home, picked up a pizza and spent the night sulking on the couch with the dog and having a whinge on FB to a couple of forum members.

Sometimes it doesnt' matter how much effort you put in, it's just not your day!

[hornet]

How is the prom closed ? wtf is going on ? did lardarse give you an explanation why it's closed ? are they repainting the flora or what ?

[DougieK]

He said "Management Activities" but I looked it up and apparently they are trialling a deer cull or something.

Probably best i'm not wandering around out there.

[DougieK]

Some pics from newhaven jetty and a balloon shot from Cape P

[hornet]

He said "Management Activities" but I looked it up and apparently they are trialling a deer cull or something.

Probably best i'm not wandering around out there.

Still sucks, you drive all the way there only not to throw a line, pays to look up info on the area before you take off I suppose.

Though I would have taken off like you not thinking about a cull or anything, one to remember I guess ..

[wokka1]

I hear ya, you know I do. Good thing petrol is cheap cos clocking up donut km's hurts bad.

[DougieK]

^ Yeah horndog. 3/4 of a tank yesterday on the old Corolla. LadyK just bought a bigass triton diesel with cruise control so I might be taking that in the future long trips i reckon.

And yeah, even if you're up at 4, you're basically committing a whole day and a minimum of $50 to make the trip to the prom. That, combined with precise conditions and me actually having the day to myself means i'm never going to be able to get down there consistently, and finally finding the right conditions on the right day and making the trip down to be turned away sucks.

[hornet]

Douglass, to be honest buddy if your targeting pelagic's IMO Victorian ledges are a slim chance of getting one, lots of petrol money for little result.

Salmon yes but you don't need to travel all over the place for those as you know, the closest ledges you have a chance with is Green cape.

You will need to invest in tackle and a gaff man, you can't do this on your own.

Your giving it a red hot try mate but results is what you want at the end of the day, regardless how good the scenery is.

just my 2 euro's worth.. :thumbsup:

[Nude up]

Bad luck dougie I must be getting grumpy as I get older I can't stand rude officious assholes either and probably would have told him so. I bet you were knackered by the time you got home

[DougieK]

^ You're aware that a 60kg SBT was landed off a Victorian rock ledge this morning right?

I have invested in tackle (962 PE6 saltist with a fin nor lethal 100 AND a 24kg backbone elite with a squall 60) and a Gaff and 99% of the time I have a gaff man with me.

Kingfish get landed ALL the time within 100metres of one of the ledges i'm fishing. Snapper, gummies and much, much bigger sharks frequent the area. The ledge we fish at Red Point is less than a kilometre from where the biggest great white ever hooked was landed.

I absolutely agree about needing a gaffman, I have a 14 foot land based game gaff and very rarely do I genuinely target pelagics solo.

While I agree entirely that Greencape is an excellent choice, I know of several LBG captures within a day trip of Melbourne. To call the chances 'very slim' I think is an bit of an over statement. MrG and I got smoked four times in a 10 hour session at Tongue Point before we were properly equipped to deal with the situation.

LBG is definitely easier farther up the coast, but I believe it to be a more than viable option within a Melb day trip.