Nambucca Heads week 2 2013

April 29^th, Another beautiful day, the weather has been fantastic since we arrived here. No crabs in my pot but Alan (new friend we have met in this Park) gave Val a nice muddie. He was putting what he thought were small crabs back in the river, so I told him that they only needed to be 8.5cm, from front to back across the shell, to be legal. He won’t be throwing so many back now. After a lesson of how to kill and cook the muddie, Val thoroughly enjoyed it for dinner and supper. Seeing that I haven’t caught any fish, I went back to the local fish shop and bought another whole sea mullet, to use as bait in the crab pot.

April 30^th, I decided to try another spot for our crab pot, so pulled it up and went down river, still in front of the Park, and put it down with the mullet carcass and a tin of sardines in oil, with a few holes punched in the tin, for bait. I kept the mullet fillets for fishing bait, thought I should try something different. I tried fishing around the oyster leases on the other side of the river and got lots of bites and caught some small bream. The biggest one was 25cm (legal) but I decided to add him to the crab pot, as extra bait.

May 1^st, After breakfast, I went out to check the crab pot and bugger me! I couldn’t find my float, but this time I was immediately suspicious that the trap was still where I had put it but the “Noodle” float had been pulled under water by a bit of driftwood and had absorbed some water and sunk. I motored up and down the area in the tinnie, with my fishing rod in the water, hoping to snag the rope or the trap. No luck! I gave up and just went down river for a fish. I got a perfect drift along the side of some oyster leases and picked up a small flathead and 2 small bream, very enjoyable but they all went back to grow bigger. I decided to do one last drift before going in for Lunch. So I drifted down the other side of the river and caught a 44cm flathead and another throwback. I mentioned to Alan that I couldn’t find my crab pot, and he said he would borrow a boat hook and have a try at finding it in the morning. Val had phoned the local Nursery, as she had been told that they might take her dot paintings, on consignment, and sell them for her and the owner told her to bring them down and she would have a look at them. After lunch we packed up the paintings and drove down to the Nursery. Lyndal (Nursery Owner) was impressed and said they looked very good but she didn’t do consignments but preferred to buy outright and sell them with her mark-up. Her present problem was finding space to hang them, as she did have a large variety of nice things on display. We left with her saying she would see if she could make some space for Val’s paintings and let us know. When we got home our next door neighbours told me that the TV aerial man had been and did a temporary fix to the Parks aerial system. We have been getting the worst TV reception since we first arrived, pretty much unwatchable most of the time. So I quickly connected the Parks cable directly into our TV in the annexe and now we have perfect pictures on all channels except Ch.10. We won’t see it but next week they are going to lay underground cables to the waterfront sites, connected to their best aerial. At least people following us will benefit from the upgrade.

May 2^nd, It was a miserable day, total cloud cover and a cold wind blowing. Alan, true  to his word, came down to let me know that he found my trap, the rope from my trap had got caught up in the Oyster lease anchor rope and It had a huge mud crab in it, missing one claw but WOW! He also had one in his own trap. After preparing the crab for Val to cook, I cleaned up the trap and put it back in the water with a new rubber float and the flathead carcass from yesterday’s catch. I didn’t bother to go out fishing in this miserable weather. Val is now working on a bigger canvas (90 X 35cms) and it is looking good.

May 3^rd, It was another windy day, so I went out to check the crab pot and we had another crab, but this one was without claws. I fished for a couple of hours but no luck today, and it wasn’t totally pleasant fishing weather. Val cooked up the crab and had it for an afternoon snack.

May 4^th, No crabs today but I fished for a while and caught a 30cm Taylor. Val doesn’t like Taylor, so I kept it to use as bait in the crab pot, tomorrow morning. The weather has been gradually getting chillier by the day, so Val said “better get the little heater out”, she didn’t have to tell me twice.

May 6^th, No crabs or fishing yesterday or today and we still have a stiff breeze blowing. I pulled the boat out of the river and packed away all the gear then got the boat back on top of the car. We leave in the morning for Wooli Caravan Park, just a little bit north of Coffs Harbour, on the Wooli River. We packed up all the gear that goes in the car and Van, so that in the morning I only had to pull down the Annexe and pack it away on the bottom bunk.