The Fishing Competetion Weekend, July 2008

Photos from the event

Outing Report for the Fishing Competition Weekend, 12-13 July 2008 by Les Tuton

The weekend of the Grand Inaugural Club Whittley Fishing Competition has finally come and gone, perhaps! Yet may be it was never meant to be! I understand from George and Barb Szczepanski that previously each time a fishing competition was planned, the weather scuttled a successful completion to the event.

Well if you have beautiful weather with barely a ripple on the water and may be just a passing shower (but that was after the weigh-in) and don’t have any fish that meet regulation size to weigh, does that qualify as a successful completion of a fishing comp or not?

I’ll leave you to your own conclusions but effectively that was the outcome according to the nominated adjudicator Viv Rennie, (after George phoned through his apology and nominated Viv in his place).

Of 5 boats on the water, 4 of which were trying to catch fish, only “Olivier”, Judy & Owen even managed to land the smallest winter whiting you’ve ever seen. They really looked like bait but for sure they’d caught them. I know Judy has lots of photos and I hope they’ll get to the website some time soon. Well may be excluding one or two of the evening BBQ.

As mentioned only a few boats turned out for this weekend but a great time was had by all. “Monty” & “Connection” Ian & Viv Rennie had arranged to met at Karragarra Is on Friday and enjoyed a BBQ as the sun set before one of the smoothest nights on the water.

Saturday morning around Canaipa it was fantastic and a group of Riv’s obviously enjoyed the morning as much as we did. However, one motor cruiser apparently didn’t know the area as well as he should and having passed our anchorage at night we saw it high and dry next morning, waiting for the next high tide. But perhaps he just wanted a quieter night than we had. (See the photo.)

But back to the fishing comp, having cruised the area in the morning we anchored up at Karragarra to be joined by “Reel Time”, Kaye & Chris who had also been trying their hand at fishing. You’ll see from the photos that Ian was particularly successful catching at least one water dwelling animal, just may be that’s why there weren’t any fish near by.

As our small group went to shore for our afternoon BBQ we could see clearly the silhouette of a Monterey with an inflatable on the roof in the setting sun. Seeing I knew it wasn’t “Monty” we reckoned it had to be the fishing pros, Judy & Owen in “Olivier”. Just on darkness they came ashore and we were all the beneficiaries of someone else’s 50th birthday party at the public picnic area at Karragarra. All afternoon we’d enjoyed the music of a bongo drum band and as night fell they lit the area with tea-light candles beneath simple brown paper bags. They even shared their kebabs with us as we cooked our dinner.

Back to the boats for more fishing until weigh-in at 11:30am next morning. Well seeing I gave away the punch line about the results in the first few paragraphs now there’s only the rest of Sunday to report on.

If you’ve been following very closely so far you’ll already be saying how come there were 5 boats on the water but you’ve only written about 4. That’s because as Ian & Viv headed back north via the Mainland the other 3 boats headed north via North Stradbroke Is, and just east of Lamb Is we found boat 5, “Lazy Lizard” Betty & Jerry” looking for the Karragarra weigh-in. Being new to the waterways of the area while they may have missed the weigh-in that didn’t really matter because they didn’t have any fish. At least they then joined us and got to trip back up to Peel Is for lunch.

So that’s my version of the fishing comp. However, not really being a fisher person we must comment on the fact that during the weekend we saw what we reckon is a winning trifecta. One large turtle between the Logan R and Russell Is, a couple of dolphins around the boats moored between Karragarra and Macleay Is’ and then the biggest dugong we’ve ever seen at the ferry ramp between Karragarra and Russell Is’.

Les Tuton
23/07/08