How far can we stretch?

Posted by Michael Hay  on June 26th, 2008

2008 has seen many people ringing the locals at St Helens and around the state before taking to the water to check on fish numbers. With a similar season to 2007 the fish have been small with the big ones only turning up for one weekend and then disappearing. Down south at the Rock this seems to have been the case as well with most anglers only catching small SBT and those who were fortunate enough to be there when it hotted up catching fish around the 100kg mark.

Two years in a row I have been lucky enough to be at St Helens on the right weekend when the big Yellow Fin have shown up in large numbers. With 6 hook ups over the weekend on big fish we were lucky enough to weigh in 2 fish ranging from 50 - 80 kg. The old stories are used to explain the loss of the other fish we had on - gear failure - fish spat the hook - big ones always get away. The largest of the yellows was caught on a star drag reel with a long fight of approx 5 hours. A low drag setting and having to let the fish go for a while when a large seal was eyeing him off resulted in a long patient fight. Experience is starting to teach me with large fish, don't rush and take your time. Most fish are lost at the boat and you cannot dictate to an 80 kg fish that wants to continually circle under the boat until he is nearly completely beat. Our experience with trying to tag marlin over the past two seasons has taught us some hard but important lessons about being a lot more patient.

The pleasure craft is about to turn into a pain in the hip pocket every time we pull in to top her up. With fuel prices set to reach $2.00 a litre by Christmas our local outboard dealers have seen an increase in people looking to upgrade their engines to a more fuel efficient model. A weekend on the water chasing game fish for my family starts with about 180 - 200 ($340) litres in the boat and if I only run the Land Cruiser to St Helens from home approx 50 litres ($95) of diesel. If I had have to tow the boat each time you could add another 20 - 30 litres of diesel to the total. At the moment the fuel budget for a normal weekend at St Helens for fuel alone sets me back $ 450.00 approximately. A trip to South Port and on down to the Rock in the boat is one trip you do not want to add up the dollars.

Setting out with this figure $ in mind, catching edible fish such as Blue-Eye Trevalla and the humble Flathead will need to take up more of our time on the water. A few years back 14 hours trawling over a weekend dreaming of catching the big one was the norm. 20 - 30 Albacore released with none kept and no magical big fish was a top weekend and beat the hell out of being at work. If you landed or even saw the big one it drove you into long sleepless nights from Monday till Friday before we were back chasing them again.

Time for that most important and expensive maintenance to be under taken on the boat and trailer. Motors serviced, filters changed, bearings checked and those **** brakes on the trailer are needing to be looked at again. My wallet and spare time hate those brakes and wish we didn't have to put up with their constant need to be maintained. All flares and the EPIRB will need the dates checking and the stormy sea' s jacket sent in for a service. Rods and reels washed and sprayed and the drags backed off and put away in a dry place.

The end of the club-fishing year is close and all results must be in to our club secretary by the end June 2008. Don't forget it is the angler’s responsibility to make sure these have been received. Our annual dinner is on the 26th of July at the Riverside Golf Club and is shaping up to be a top night. With lucky door prizes, raffle and the announcement of who has won our Trogun Trophy for the year it is a top way to end the season. This is also a night where we can show our sponsors for 2008 just how much we appreciate them backing our club. Our annual general meeting will be held on the 18th of August at the Ball and Chain in Launceston at 7.30pm. If you think you can help on the committee or have some new ideas don't hesitate to come along or contact us.

Thanks to all the committee for 2007- 2008 and to all the volunteers who help at our events. A special thanks once again to Sheryl Turner for keeping an eye on things and I hope to see you all again in 2008-2009.

ARCHIVES

Are You Ready?

Posted by Michael Hay - President  on December 18th, 2007

The 2008 game fishing season is nearly upon us. I hope we have all taken the time to look over our boats and trailers carefully and updated those out of date flares and safety equipment.

This year we have again attracted great sponsorship from our regular sponsors and have enticed a couple of new ones on board as well. These new sponsors should make the prizes for the ladies and gents a lot more luring.

Haines Suzuki and Coastal Marine have put together an outstanding prize for our Easter Competition this year with Three Suzuki Outboards up for grabs. The major prize of a 40hp Suzuki will be raffled at our annual dinner for those who attend the dinner and caught fish at Easter.

Epping Forest Road House have also put their hand up again this year so don’t forget to call in and grab some fuel and a bite to eat. The "Road House" will be sponsoring the prize for our club champions again this year. Lets hope it’s not like last year with two fish of the same weight.

Our Devonport Mountain Designs early bird competition will be run again this year but from a different location. This year the Mersey Yacht Club have offered their facilities to us so we will be launching from the boat ramps in the Mersey river with the weigh in at the Yacht club afterwards. This should help us with the ramp congestion and tide difficulties we had in previous years. The GFCNT would like to thank Mountain Designs Devonport, Deegan Marine and Big Bargain Bottleshop for they’re on going sponsorship of this event.

Hillcrest Caravan Park and Independent Oils will be sponsoring an event again this year. This event will be held over two days with a barbeque on the Saturday afternoon at the weigh in. Our thanks go to Gary and the crew at Hillcrest for their help as weigh masters during the season.

C H Smith's have joined the crew this year and will be sponsoring a weekend event to be held during April. Around this weekend last year I recall the big yellow fin being about. So get your entries in early for this one.

Club scales will again be located at Bicheno, Hillcrest Caravan Park, Coastal Marine and by ringing me. Tasmanian Scale Company has re-calibrated these scales for this season. A special thanks to Bruce for his help with these and his expertises as weigh master at our early bird competition at Devonport.

The GFAA National Junior Tournament is already under way. This event has been sponsored by the TGFA this year. All mums or dads have to do is go to the GFAA web site and follow the prompts or contact me on 0418133388 and I can send you out the forms. Last year our Tassie juniors and small fry caught some awesome fish and the number of tags returned was a top effort. So come on mums & dads enter the up and coming future of our sport.

Our club booklet is now available so if you don’t receive one please phone a committee member and we will post it out. Once again I would like to point out just how important our sponsors are, so make sure we all support them over the coming season.

Everyone have a safe Christmas, keep an eye on the weather and hope to see you all on the water soon. ARCHIVES