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Okay, so first - the good. Today 9:56am - Counting the whiting as we head back across the bay. Final count 147 whiting, 5 decent squid. Note the slightly ominous rain clouds on the horizon when Alex pans the camera around to the bow. Next, the bad. 10.08am - In just a few minutes the situation has changed totally. Finally, the downright ugly. Photo of what was actually approaching us (courtesy of the Weatherzone site). And what we endured and survived for probably twenty minutes or so. It got worse than this even, but by that stage Alex needed to just hang on, rather than try to film. The huge seas, driving rain and freezing cold paled into insignificance though compared to the lightning strikes happening around us and the deafening booms of thunder that actually shook the boat. In winter! At 10am in the morning! What the ……. IMG_0848.MOV IMG_0844.MOV IMG_0841.MOV

So, on Tuesday @Old Scaleyand I headed out to try some new ground and were nailing the fish one after the other (maybe not). A message came through on my phone with a pic attached from @benno573 asking if I'd seen the radar. There was a line of storms approaching from the west. Hmmm Not 3 minutes later a message came through from @Another Wazza asking if we'd seen the radar. Again with a pic of the radar attached. Hmmm So we assessed the situation and decided to head back in, saying it was "good to have mates looking out for us". It was and we are thankful, as we just finished hitching up the boat when the storm hit. So just wanted to give a shout out to two mates that wouldn't be mates if it wasn't for AFO. They certainly saved us from a bit of anxiety on the water. Thanks fellas.

Hi All I had a welcome surprise pm from @deegee12g(Don) last week, introducing himself and asking if I would like a deckie spot on his boat, with the intention of fishing the GC Broadwater. Apparently he had been quietly reading some posts and realised how keen I was and available weekdays. I would call it obsessed, addicted, sometimes insane - thinking about fish and fishing all the time. Anyway needless to say I took him up on the offer and the weather was looking good for yesterday, Thursday. I wanted to collect some yabbies the avo before but the tide was too high before dark. So I left my bed at 4am on Thursday and headed to the local yabbie beds at 4.30am. The tide was sti a little high so it was hard yakka and I arrived at the agreed boat ramp just in time to wash all the mud off me and change my muddy clothes before meeting Don at 6am. We launched the boat at about 6.30 am and Don said he was bringing some heavier rigs than my 10 lb braid and leader. His plan was to target some Tuskfish. Shortly before heading off Don handed me a rod/reel setup ( what do I call it?). Anyway he handed it to me and asked me how it felt. It felt good so I said so. Don then said it's now yours!!!! Well that made my day (particularly as the rod my brother gave me to handle bigger fish is to be returned - his wife was not consulted apparently ). We headed out and did some drifting, me with the yabbies and Don with his live worms (night wrigglers I think he said - from his worm farm). We were immediately pulling up unders, whiting, bream, tarwhine, and that little pretty whiptail. Don wasn't really looking at it when I asked him what it was - he was on the other side of the boat busy releasing an under of some sort. Anyway Don suggested we move on as everything was small and we didn't want to waist our bait on unders. We moved around to a few different areas but not much was showing on the sounder and the tide current was getting pretty quick so drifting wasn't going to be too successful as it was too fast. We were getting lots of pickers. Don thought we should change tactics and try some squid jigging. Sounded good to me this was one of our plans anyway. I had packed the only squid jig I own called Nemo. We put my jig on another of Don's rods. We found the deepest water we could and while Don kept an eye on us drifting fast and tied on his jig I had my jig in the water, drifting and jigging up and down slowly and gently. Don said to me that if I had a squid I would just feel like a dead weight dragging on my line, as if I had caught a heavy piece of weed. After about 10 min I felt just that but it was really quite heavy. I carefully kept a bit of pressure on and began slowly reeling in and then all if a sudden there was no weight. We wondered if it was a snag of some sort. Anyway we continued to drift. By this point Don was jigging too. After another minute or so I felt a weight on my line again. I kept pressure on and slowly gently wound it. Finally I could see a squid surface. Pretty sure I let out a little whoo hoo then he started squirting black ink. Don got the net under him and just as he did he dropped off the jig. We tried starting again and drifting back but no luck and by this time there were ominous black clouds to the North. The wind had picked up and the current was too strong to drift. We headed back to where we might have less current and more luck. By the time we were back and baiting up again the rain started, thunder and lightening and we couldn't see two feet in front of us. Don had a long drive back home and he was soaked through so we crawled back to where we thought the boat ramp was and called it a day! Don put the heater on in his ute while we covered the boat. Squid was great fried in some butter with salt. Being addicted I also went land fishing after Don drove home - had to use the yabbies! Got unders flounder and tarwhine and one keeper bream. Saved the squid head and offcuts for bait in freezer. Thanks Don your a legend. Cheers Kat