Have recently been off the water for a month waiting for the birth of my son. Hunter James was born on friday 23/4 at an impressive 9lb 3 1/2 oz. As it is my first child I now have new appreciation of being born male, any pain I have gone through fighting a fish or manual labor is nothing compared to what I witnessed on friday.
Todays weather was unbelievable on the forecast and after organising my mother inlaw to spend the day with my wife (very understanding) and Hunter I planned a quick last minute trip.
I got a mate of mine Matty to come along, the goal was some shallow reef popping and plastics and then some jigging. Was on the water by 6 and was welcomed by a glassed out bay and hopes where high, the bar was not to bad and then off to our first spot. One drift in and already had four other boats in the area so gave up on plastics and tried popping. 3rd cast and SMASH, my first GT as a dad, as much pain as I was in already I just remembered back to friday and told my self to SUCK IT UP.
20kg Gt to welcome me back, then next drift matty decides to change to popping. I was taking a breather and he gets smashed 3 times by the one GT had him on for about 5 seconds and was totally done over, (braid broke at the rod tip:undecided: ). Matty is now hooked on popping and now appreciates how brutal it is. On the same drift matty hooks a nice yellowfin tuna on the popper, he is stoked as not only is it his first tuna but to get it on a popper he was pretty pumped.
A few more drifts and matty got another YFT on the popper. A few of the boats started to troll the area so we decided to try plastics, matty got yet another YFT and a nice size morwong. Next thing I get smashed on the bottom, the Steez Hotdog buckling under the pressure as well as the angler. Twenty minutes later with my legs and arms no longer responding to what I wanted them to do I had a nice 25 + kg GT in the boat. Not bad for 35lb main line and 30lb leader.
By now I am totally shattered so we decided to go and have a look at a few new areas, picked up a couple of alright squire and decided to call it a day. Was welcomed back to bay to even better conditions than in the morning.
Had a great day out (thanks to the wife and mother in law).
Andrew
PS. First photo is of Hunter with his first rod, a mate gave him (1 day old)
