First at the Gunn, First in the Surf
Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 8:54 pm
After months of checking the forecast for a time that would work, Thursday morning finally landed me the perfect trifecta of conditions to finally head down to Gunnamatta for the first time: NNE wind, swell under 1m, and the kid at his grandparents! With a late confirmation on Wednesday night from the 38 week pregnant wife that she wasn't going to pop in the next 12 hours and a mate who's been a keen baito most of his fishing life keen to see what all the fuss was about, we headed down for a first light session.
Hit the beach at around 6:30am, and very quickly realised we had the place to ourselves. We started working our way left of the stairs, and enjoyed a pretty fantastic sunrise coming up over our shoulders.
With the sun in the air, I managed to lose a lure and birdsnest my braid in one hell of a messed up cast, before my mate starts hollering that he's finally on. With some decent bend in his rod, he began to bring his fish in, only to have it jump and spit the hooks quite spectacularly. I madly finished tying a fresh lure back on, raced down to next to where he was, and flung what will go down in in my memory as one of my greatest casts ever: lure flashing in the sunrise as it flew a perfect arc, a few quick rotations of the reel and bang!
Having only ever had one hit in the surf before, in a rushed session at off the beach Killarney near Warranambool, where something took me for a screaming run for 10 sec before spitting the hooks and disappearing without a trace, I was pretty set on landing this one. Massive grin on my face, managed to bring in my first ever salmon, and first ever fish in the surf!
Numnuts here managed to not grab any better photos than a quick snap against my foot, even strapped with a gopro, but as a pretty fresh newbie to all of this, any evidence is good evidence. My foot goes 32cm in that shoe, so proud newbie me is estimating 40cm for his first. Grin firmly stuck in place, we had nothing else for the next 1.5hrs before we both had to call it a day and make the trek back to our respective jobs, but it didn't really matter!
Even with no more dawn sessions on the immediate horizon, looking forward to the day when this baby is born and settled in routine, and we can hit it up again. Until then, we'll have to try the other end of the day, and see what evening/sunset sessions can get us as the year rolls on. And as for the bait-only mate...he texted this morning asking about surf spinning set ups!
Hit the beach at around 6:30am, and very quickly realised we had the place to ourselves. We started working our way left of the stairs, and enjoyed a pretty fantastic sunrise coming up over our shoulders.
With the sun in the air, I managed to lose a lure and birdsnest my braid in one hell of a messed up cast, before my mate starts hollering that he's finally on. With some decent bend in his rod, he began to bring his fish in, only to have it jump and spit the hooks quite spectacularly. I madly finished tying a fresh lure back on, raced down to next to where he was, and flung what will go down in in my memory as one of my greatest casts ever: lure flashing in the sunrise as it flew a perfect arc, a few quick rotations of the reel and bang!
Having only ever had one hit in the surf before, in a rushed session at off the beach Killarney near Warranambool, where something took me for a screaming run for 10 sec before spitting the hooks and disappearing without a trace, I was pretty set on landing this one. Massive grin on my face, managed to bring in my first ever salmon, and first ever fish in the surf!
Numnuts here managed to not grab any better photos than a quick snap against my foot, even strapped with a gopro, but as a pretty fresh newbie to all of this, any evidence is good evidence. My foot goes 32cm in that shoe, so proud newbie me is estimating 40cm for his first. Grin firmly stuck in place, we had nothing else for the next 1.5hrs before we both had to call it a day and make the trek back to our respective jobs, but it didn't really matter!
Even with no more dawn sessions on the immediate horizon, looking forward to the day when this baby is born and settled in routine, and we can hit it up again. Until then, we'll have to try the other end of the day, and see what evening/sunset sessions can get us as the year rolls on. And as for the bait-only mate...he texted this morning asking about surf spinning set ups!