We arrived in Coffin Bay late on Monday afternoon. It was hot, but the house was cool and so was the water. We're positioned right on the sea front and there are steps down to the beach nearby. The view from the deck is amazing; we've watched the sunrise from the deck every morning so far and each morning, the colours projected onto the clouds have been slightly different.
We've been out in the boat on the three full days we've been here so far; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
On Tuesday, we stayed in the bay and fished the tapeweed. We caught loads of whiting, many of them were undersized and had to be thrown back, but we still had a good number of keepers. There were lots of other fish too and I had fun float fishing for garfish. I love gar. I think they're such beautiful fish and they're pretty tasty if you can be bothered dealing with hundreds of tiny bones.
It was on the Tuesday, that Paulie continued his battle with the stingray. He lost. But Paulie only lost one of his rigs. I managed to lose two of mine due to a dodgy swivel that kept popping open and a hook to what I can only assume was a stingray. I'd like to say that it was pure skill that meant that I didn't lose the entire rig, but it was probably just that I'd hooked a smaller ray.
On Wednesday as it was flat calm, we went out of the bay. It was at this particular spot, the last time we were in Coffin Bay, that we caught 20 or so squid. We had no such luck yesterday and only managed to pick up two. We caught considerably fewer whiting too, and were innundated with baby trumpeters (known in fishing circles as s***ties). We did however pick up a bit of a mixed bag of other fish - salmon trout, garfish, tommies and red mullet.
On the way home, we decided to stop in at a spot that was more sheltered as the wind was starting to pick up and with it, the size of the waves. It was at this spot that Paul's adventures continued. First sign of the adventure was that you could hear Paul's line being taken out - and fast. We all assumed that Paul's ray was back. Dad decided that he wanted to see Paulie's ray once and for all, so he grabbed the rod and fought admirably with it for quite some time. A short while in, Dad said that it might be a fish after all. We were all wondering what type of fish could cause this kind of pull on the line. When Mum had netted the fish and her and Dad had brought it into the boat, we were still left wondering. We have a picture of it, but we are still none the wiser as to what it is. Dad says that its colloquial name is a Strongie (creative bunch these fisherpeople), but we're still left not knowing exactly what it is. After this adventure, we called it quits for the day, knowing that we couldn't top that.
Today we went out in the boat again, sans Mum, who had been spending most of the time reading in the cabin anyway. We decided to go back to the tapeweed where we'd had the success on Tuesday. We were much less successful and the weather was awful, which made us feel a little on the flat side about the day. We caught far too many S***ties and undersized whiting and had got pretty wet in the process. When the water was clear, we saw a few large stingrays. We told Paulie to turn off his ray beacon, for goodness sake. He's now earned himself title of the Ray Whisperer.
At the end of a day of fishing, you have to scale and fillet your catch. It's a tedious job and unfortunately the more successful you are, the longer and more tedious the task. The bonus for me is at the end, you feed the fish heads and bones to the pelicans who have just spent the last half hour eyeing you off (and sometimes trying to get close enough to steal from your bucket). They are so beautiful and very appreciative of all that you give them. I just love this part of the day and it makes all of the hard filletting and scaling work worthwhile.
Tomorrow is a rest day. Dad will be sorting tackle and we'll be washing manky towels and stinky clothes. But then we'll chill out for the rest of the day.
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