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03-03-2007 Night Sharking


werewolf

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Chris E and I met at around 5:30 PM for a spot of sharking. Terry H joined us around 9 PM or so. It turned out to be a rather popular night and there were three or four other groups that stayed well past dark hoping for a shark or two. We fished from just before low until after high tide. Livies (excluding prawns) proved to be rather difficult to obtain and of the two biggest livies that I managed to obtain one got crabbed and the other (a 20 cm bony) didn’t get touched for the hours it was in the water despite kicking strongly the whole time.:pinch:

Despite the lack of interest in the livies, eel was still on the menu:cheer:. Terry had only joined us for about 10-15 minutes before the first eel floater got taken at around 9:15 PM. Chris safely landed his first typical river bully for the night and it went 84 cm and 4.1 kg. We were quite amused to find that this little fella had two tags in its back. They were sequential numbers too! This was the first time I’ve seen a tagged shark.:side:

After the shark excitement, Terry went through the motions of setting up one of his Plesiosaur rated rigs and inflated what got dubbed the “Suicide Boatâ€Â:silly:. You certainly wouldn’t find me paddling around a glorified 6 foot balloon in the dark, against the tide, between all the branches and crap in the water and in a river invested with sharks! That scored Terry some big kudos IMHO! I must say I’ve never actually seen an entire eel fished before! We waited half the night for a Plesiosaur to take the bait but it wasn’t to be:dry:.

It would have been close to 11 PM before the last of the other sharkers gave up and went home fishless. We were a lit bit keener (stupider??) and stayed on for a few more hours.

It was close to midnight when Chris hooked up on an eel floater again. This little fella went 2.7 kg and 74 cm. Caught on 50 pound line, the little pup didn’t stand a chance.:cheer:

About 1 AM, when enthusiasm was hitting record low levels, Chris sung out “I’m on!†He flicked his bait runner into gear and after a torrid 10 seconds it was all over. After winding in his rig he discovered that his 90 pound wire trace had been bitten clean through! :woohoo::sick: About three minutes later, I heard the bells on my rod start jingling and I ran towards it watching the glow stick on my rod bounce around violently. By the time I got to it the mystery creature had let go of the bait and I decided to leave my rod in place for a few moments just in case and walked back over to Terry and Chris who were musing over the bitten off wire. I commented on how funny it would be if I had been bit off as well and regretted it when I checked my bait 5 minutes later.:sick: The last 40 cm of plastic had been shredded from the trace and probably the last foot of wire was gone from my four foot trace!:huh::S

Two wire bite offs in about 3-4 minutes, now that is suspicious! I was starting to think Terry had the right idea with his 2 mm wire!

2 AM came round and I finally hooked up again on the magic eel floater. This little shark was successfully landed and it stretched 80 cm and weighed 3.3 kg.:laugh: By the time the shark was cleaned we cleaned the camp and left at 2:30 AM. Despite pulling three sharks between us it was uncharacteristically slow for the river and I suspect the lack of baitfish and the full moon may not have helped. It was good to meet Terry H and have a chat/fish with him and if we don’t get a chance to do it again this season mate the next one will be here before we know it!

Oh I forget to mention the highlight of the night when Terry accidentally clubbed Chris in the side of the head with the head of my shark as he stood up to wash the shark down:woohoo: . Chris very shakily checked that he still had an ear! Fortunately no harm was done.B)

Pics up next!

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Feral - he bloody well has hooks big enough to do it too!:S

Terry - yeah the river is one snaggy SOAB to fish. Thats why we use decent size sinkers to avoid drifting (into snags) and our float trick, well you saw how well it works:) I would almost bet if I put that bony under a float it would have got eaten as wellB)

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I hope your right Feral, because the next weekend and maybe the one after is going to be a write off for me. I'm hoping that I haven't caught my last shark until next season:sick: I know one thing is for sure is that I will be deliberately targeting bigger sharks next year because I reckon there are a few around:laugh:

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