Bullet

Went down to Fishing Wholesalers this morning and ended up with the 4000 BG, 5-9kg abu Veritas (which balanced perfectly) and plenty of 20lb braid. My new favourite combo hands down.
 
The customer service was unbelievably good. Best I've ever had by far, would thoroughly recommend fishing Wholesalers to anyone looking to grab some new gear. Not usually one to flog stores but I've not been so impressed with customer service before. Head and shoulders above the rest.
 
Bring it on.

Must look after your reels , right from the day you take it out of the shop ,,, this 1 brand new till moisture got in , no protection from the start ..

Parsons looks great , i would have like to throw out a live trout around the kilo for a Mullie ..

Yesterday (Monday), the weather forecast was for moderate North Easterly winds along the coast, and a reasonably chance of rain.   So I decided to head for Waitpinga and Parsons to lure for Salmon, a bit of warm clothing and wet gear.  Even though the area hadn’t produced for me in a while, neither had metro southern beaches, apart for a few ST’s – so I had nothing to lose.
 
So the car was already parked - from the day befores outing for a couple of flicks around Maslins (for a donut) – and I headed off at 8.45am with intentions to have the line wet before 10am.  A cloudy day both here and all the way to Waits.
 
A high tide of 1.08mts at 12noon would have me there in time for the incoming tide and allowing some good distance of walking the beach until its peak.
 
A quick stop for a photo of Victor area.  It does look so much better when the sun is out.
 

 
 
Almost there.
 

 
 
A view over a water catchment towards Waits.  According to a local, this catchment lost a lot bream recently from heavy rains and apparently the outlet along the beach had dozens of dead bream.
 

 
 
The Waits viewing platform has not changed since the storms (no steps) and the way down is still to walk left onto the dunes.  Whilst I was there some workman just about to put some posts along the dune and had dismantled the remaining 3 steps from the damage.
 

 

 

 
 
Conditions looked great, no wind (so much for the weather forecast), but it started to rain quite steady.
 

 
 
I decided to park at the bottom car park for an easier approach to the beach.
 

 

 
 
Once on the beach I headed to the right where some nice looking gutters were and headed right to the end without any Salmon touching my lure.  I used a 40g Halco chrome lure at first then changed to a $4 cheapie from K-Mart for the walk back.
 
Once back at the platform area, and with the high tide about half an hour away, I could see the waves hitting hard against the sand dunes.  There was no way I could get past without being swamped and I wanted to get up by the reef that has produced well in the past.
 
So decided to get up on to the sand dunes and climb over the top of them until I got past these breaking waves.  Mind you I had second thoughts of doing this as a couple of the dunes did look kind of steep – but nothing ventured, nothing gained, so off I headed.
 
Just repeating this photo as it shows the area of concern just left of the 2 fisherman.  You might think that first sand dune doesn’t look too bad, and it wasn’t, but the next one behind the first was worse, but I soldiered on.
 

 
 
Well effort to get on to the beach from the ‘hazard’ proved to be a waste of time as again there were not hits on my lure.  It’s about 1pm now and from the reef I couldn’t tell if the waves were still smashing the sand dune, so decided to walk right to the end, knowing there was not too many opportunities to flick due to rocks etc.  But thought this will waste a little more time allowing the water to drop a little.  That paid off as the waves had subsided slightly and saving me another dune climb.
 
Now off to Parsons Beach and I wasn’t holding much hope of catching anything.
 

 
 
On my arrival, I took a quick photo of the beach and noticed one fisherman near the exposed rocks.  Mind you, those rocks (once I was done there) were absolutely fantastic in their worn formation.  Parsons doesn’t have too many gutters, but what is there are reasonably good, and I have have generally caught more fish here than Waits.
 

 

 
As I got back to the car to collect mygear, a couple of guys came up from the walkway with a nice 2kg and a couple of 1kg Salmon.  They had been at Waits during the morning with no result, but the mentioned they got these just on the otherside of the rocks.
 
Second before the rocks and watched an ST following the lure in shallows and grabbed it – yah, not a donut day.  He was over legal but released him as wanted bigger (not greedy or anything).  Another couple of casts and another ST and released. 
 
Walked further to try past the rocks (having a quick chat the other fisherman – he had a couple of ST’s only) and now hits were the previous guys got theirs.  So now for the usual walk to the end and about 150mts before the end rocks I get a hit in smallish gutter – which I was not expecting.
 
It felt big, the rod well bent and he started to spool me slightly, so a quick extra tightness on the drag, but he was fighting very well.  Next, out the water he flies – I just love that sight.
Once beached, he was fat and approximately 2.5kg and estimated close to 60cm.  Quickly bled and lure thrown back in.
 
On again, and this one seemed to be fighting harder and flew into the air a couple times and even though I just tightened the drag, this one spooled me for good 10mts – he wasn’t giving up – so tightened the drag even more and slowly got him to the shallows and dragged him with the waves.
This was a big Salmon for me and on first appearance was would a PB.   You can tell in the below photo a cut underneath the tail and I am gathering he cut himself on my line whilst fighting.
 
Again, quickly bled and ready for more.  Another 3 were landed around 2.5– 2.8kg and about 56 – 60cm and kept and all the fish looked healthy and were all plumpish. 
For extra fun, another 4 were landed and released and 3 threw the lure.
 

 

 

 
 
The time was about 3.30 now, so left them on the bite and the long and very heavy walk back to the car.  If the walk didn’t kill me the hill nearly did.  I was stuffed and stopped a few times on the hill to stop from having a heart attack !!
 
But what seemed could be a donut day ended up being some thrilling excitement.

Here's a few photos that  took this morning from a few places where I could get to the Mersey & Dasher Rivers. One dairy farmer who I know very well had 300 dairy cows swept from his property early this morning when the river rose well above what was predicted. He had moved them to higher ground too, but in the end it just wasn't high enough. I was hard seeing them struggling in the flooded water, with most of them not making it. I did see several that had made it out, these were scattered in several paddocks some two kilometers down stream. I reckon he may have lost at least 250 head though which was a shame. It's something I hope not to see again at all, very distressing that's for sure. We were cut off at both ends of Sheffield early this morning from farm dams over flowing big time. A few roads and bridges were also washed away, 216 mms of rain in 9 hours.
 
 I have put a few photos of the same areas to compare the difference from normal river flow to major flooding.
 

From this .. Dasher River.

To this..

Dasher River on a normal day..

Dasher River today..

To think I normally wade up through here, but usually when it's 3.0 meters lower.

The Dasher on another normal day..

 Much different today..

The Mersey River at Merseylea, this was taken early August, the river is still a meter or so higher than normal..

The same area today..

The new bridge well under water, the last bridge was washed away three years ago when they said it was a 100 yr flood, they're saying the same again today.. 
Does this mean we get a 100 yr flood every three yrs now???

This road is where I go and fish above the old wooden bridge at Merseylea.. can't get near it today.

I zoomed in to where the bridge is supposed to be and spotted two survivors which was good to see, they should be okay where they are hopefully.
Note the bridge handrail on the RHS, that's all what's above the water..

 Wattle tree down on the bridge over the Dasher River..

 Pump shed under water as is the farm house on the RHS just out of picture, the owner was with me and I didn't want to take a photo while he was there. 
He was very distressed, poor bugger has had this property on the market for three years now, will be tough selling it after this..

 Mersey River spills into farmland, crops all under water.
 
 

Malcolm Florence and Ron Calcutt did some great vids back in the day was the real deal in early boat / shore based game .. small boats big fish ..

He has them in stock , and he will be open tues from 10am to 6.30pm 

Dog Spring part #14

This should clear it ..

Leatherjackets are very good and a Surprise package is Redmullet ,,try it ... have done Rabbit too is very good ...

Still made in USA ..you can buy or get made here in S.A.

The SS is all Brass Gears main, oscilator gear and pinion as for the SSM main and oscilator are just compound mix ...