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Surf Casting and Angling Club Logo Surf Casting and Angling Club of W.A. (Inc.)

February 2002 Fishing Field Day, Moore River / Local.
 


Knocking off work early, I headed for the delightful Guilderton Caravan Park and set up camp in anticipation of fellow club members joining me. Sure enough, Ali Barber and Terry Ring arrived, and set up their mobile motel alongside me. The Stoeckel mob arrived just on dusk and we settled in for the night.

Slaving over a hot gas burner, Hendo's heavenly spaghetti bog was produced and woofed down. Even my two sons turned up and were game to eat my cooking. My visitors, (the Tomlinson family), arrived later, and a sigh of relief was heard when they were told what they had missed.

Saturday morning saw Chas, Nick, Spencer, that noisy sod Kade call in to sign on. George, Alphonsus and Terry arrived and all ventured off to their various secret spots. With gusty winds and lots of weed around the prospects looked grim.

The Club owns an air conditioned holiday house at Kalbarri which is available for rent to the public and club members at competitive rates

That evening many disillusioned faces sat under the tarpaulin. But after getting the kitchen in full flow, a great barbecue was enjoyed by one and all. It was only after cleaning up was completed that the following true tale was exposed.

It appears that Chas and Kade had no luck in the salt water so decided to venture into the river and chase bream. It was stated that a couple of bream had been caught but were released as they were not over the minimum size.

While wading the shallows our gallant "Antonio Buggerus Riegert" came across a mud crab. No ordinary crab, but a "big bugger" in Antonio's description. So big that both ends of his claws were out of sight, so no width could be gauged. Our fearless fisho decided it was too big to grab hold of, so why not scribe his initials on its back and leave it to frighten some other fisho.

Flashing his magic wand, "El Antonio" stroked the crab's shell, annoying said crab, who whipped his humungous claw around and grasped said magic wand (actually an expensive fishing rod) and quickly snipped off a couple of inches of the tip. "El Antonio" leapt back to parry this vicious response, startling the crab who then brought his other claw into display.

Our brave fisho leapt to the bank, stuttering about humungous foes within the depths of the briny. Cries for reinforcements went unheeded and "Antonio Buggerus Riegert" retreated to fight another day.

It took some time for the laughter to subside and many throats needed moistening due to the dryness. It was a short while later that the Scrabble game started. What a devious and dubious lot tried to play this game and tried to score properly. Shifty fishos some of them may be, but when it comes Scrabble --- say no more.

Good planning had Ali Barber sleeping on the far side of his motel, and slumber time was "oh so peaceful". By the way, said vehicle does not carry "everything" because a simple request for some alfoil could not be fulfilled.

With the 10 pm and 10 am weigh in done it was time to leave, so I take this opportunity to say thanks to all who attended and made it another enjoyable weekend. My visitors were impressed with the comradery and enjoyed themselves immensely.

Bob Henderson, acting Field Day Officer.

John Jardine fished local for a 2.22kg Mulloway.
John Jardine fished local for a 2.22kg Mulloway.

=================

For weeks, beaches have been calm with gin clear water. On Thursday, when the wind came up and blew strongly all day, I thought - mmmm - it's stirring up the water and getting a good load of weed to spread along the beaches to give us something to play with while we catch the fish. And it was so.

Arrived at the Guilderton Caravan Park to sign on to find the boys all set up in a cosy camp with visitors Barry Tomlinson, his dad, and his son busy making rigs under the able direction of Peter Stoeckel, Bob Henderson and Derry Barber, with new member Terry Ring looking on and getting a repeat of the rig making session. Bob's sons Matt and Jamie were also there, but didn't enter the field day.

Rig making session for the visitors, with Derry's wondrous machine in the background.
Rig making session for the visitors, with Derry's wondrous machine in the background.

George Holman was heading off to have a look at the area around Seabird, so I followed him there and down the tracks heading back towards Moore River. Lots of reef to fish from, with a few nice holes, but the water was stirred up with quite a lot of weed in some of the best holes.

The stirred up water and seaweed at Seabird.
The stirred up water and seaweed at Seabird.

Some parts were fishable, but looked like it could be hard work bait casting or lure fishing to miss the weed - George said that most of it wasn't the sort of country to use sinkers and get many of them back again. George went further south looking for somewhere to fish, and I decided to go back to Moore River to fish with the rest of the boys - after all fishing together was one of the reasons for having the Field Day there.

There were a couple of successful fishers at Seabird who were skiting about the fish they had caught. They had it on display and kept coming near to show us - or so it seemed. The leading one had the back part of what looked like a dart in his claws.

Ospreys soaring on the wind at Seabird.
Ospreys soaring on the wind at Seabird.

Back at the river mouth, the boys were on the beach hoping for an early run of tailor. For most of the afternoon, the weed was more of a nuisance than a real problem. The drift wasn't very strong, and the weed came past slowly and in patches, and you just needed to watch where you were casting. If you waited for the patches to drift past, and cast into a relatively clear stretch of beach, there was no problem with the rig staying in the water. The weed you would get could be handled easily with the beach rods and Alvey reels. Some of the guys with lighter rods and threadline reels were finding the going a lot tougher.

The Tomlinson boys on the beach at Moore River.
The Tomlinson boys on the beach at Moore River.

Derry Barber geared up for battle at Moore River.
Derry Barber geared up for battle at Moore River.

The real problem were the hordes of small fish. I reckon the mulies were lasting about five seconds. There was rarely any bait left when you wound in, and if there was, it was just a skeleton. The fish were too small even for a whitebait - and they could get the bait off in a flash. So if there were tailor out there, it was hard to keep a bait out long enough for them to find it. Lures were the go, but didn't produce much.

We were treated to the sight of schools of mullet surfing towards the beach. Schools of 50 to 100 fish kept coming through all afternoon.

We were hoping for some tailor at dusk, but towards evening, the weed thickened and by dark it was getting hard to avoid. The wind swung around towards the south east, and for a while was blowing straight up the beach and that caused the weed to really get a move on. Spencer said he thought his luck had changed when he had a good powerful run that took him nearly 100 metres up the beach - until the lack of action told him it was just a lively lump of weed. Spencer and Nick caught some tailor up past the groyne, and Tony got a good catch further up the beach. George caught nice tailor near Seabird. But everyone had to work hard for their fish, and Bob Henderson paid the price with a sore back from hauling in all the weed.

In the morning, the wind was down and the weed had settled so it was easy fishing. Unfortunately, the hordes of small fish had increased and were nearly impossible to get past, and only a few tailor and herring were caught near the river mouth.

Morning on the beach at Moore River.
Morning on the beach at Moore River.

Once again, I was impressed by the club spirit shown. George had parked outside the caravan park because of the hassles in getting past the boom gate, and had walked in with his catch to weigh on Saturday night. He was heading back to Perth and was going to have a quick meal before setting off. Nick, Spencer, Chas and Kade were also heading back, and went out to talk to George while he was having his meal and waited until he was ready so that he didn't need to drive back to Perth alone. We'll all big boys and capable of looking after ourselves, but little things like that are really appreciated. Terry Fuller.

Results.

Attendance (listing the people who signed on for the competition):- Seniors 12, Juniors 1, Mini-Juniors 2, Total 15

AnglerWeightSpeciesFishTotal Points
Tony D'Alonzo9.64 kg530196
George Holman3.7 kg39117
John Jardine2.9 kg4489
Spencer King1.4 kg2484
Terry Fuller0.55 kg2376
Nick Allsworth1.85 kg1569
Kade Ross0.3 kg1163
Bob Henderson0 kg0050
Chas Riegert0 kg0050
Peter Stoeckel0 kg0050
Andrew Stoeckel0 kg0040
Daniel Stoeckel0 kg0040
Dave Maxted0 kg0040
Damian D'Mello0.1 kg1131

Sportsperson of the Year Section Winners and Field Day Prizes for February.

Best Scale Fish John Jardine, Mulloway 2.22 kg
Best Bag of Scale Fish Tony D'Alonzo, Mixed 9.64 kg

Field Day Top Ten up to February.


Position Angler Total Points
1. Tony D'Alonzo 2056.8
2. John Jardine 1216
3. Damian D'Mello 809.5
4. George Holman 794.1
5. Spencer King 426.5
6. Andy Woodford 314
7.} Ian Cook 307
7.} Eric Parker 307
9. Ken Black 270.5
10. Ian Taggart 255.5

Copyright © 2002 Surf Casting and Angling Club of W.A. (Inc.)

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This page last updated 9 April, 2002.

Display of this page was updated on 21 January 2013. Contents updated as above.

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