I just got back from a boys fishing trip, hardcore remote out back cliff fishing.
Was fun, started with a blow out at 110 kilometres an hour, massive sideways, almost jacknifed the boat, had to rip the tire off the rim and change it.
Drive 600K's then over 300K's of stupidly corrugated gravel roads until we got the sand section.
180K's of beach and sand dunes..
One ute and boat gets bogged on a big uphill dune section thats full of big lumps.
So tires down to 10psi and in 4Lo 3rd gear and just feeding the throttle, the fucken boat trailer got airborne over a lump with at least a foot and a half bounce up off the ground, slid the boat across and fucked the rollers.
So out comes the big generator and welder on top of the bloody dune. Fix the mounts and keep pushing on.
Get to camp late, set up swags, few beers, light the fire and get the boats off the trailer into the water.. Ready for the morning but me being the fuckwit I am, no shoes, step straight onto sharp reef then sidestep onto an urchin.. Great start to the trip so far
Few more beers and fix up my foot, an almost inch long bit of spine dug outta my foot and then sat mu foot in super hot water while I had a "medicinal" few rums and joints.
Few more beers and then pretty much bed.
Up early for a run on the boats, lures out and bang.. right onto a spotted mackie. Few hours later and had 3 spotties and a few very nice sized pink snapper
Back to camp for a feed. then into some bait fishing off the rocks.. Managed a heap of the bread and butter species and also doubled as shark bait.
Second day was crazy cliff fishing, mackerel and some type of tuna that were busting up all day. Hooked tons, some huge bastards and a few smaller models. Managed to land a good dozen between us. Lost a shit load to the hungry tigers and bronzies too. Awesome day.
Third day was both off the boats and a bit off the small rock islands. Managed some smaller mackies and juvi snapper and spangled emperor and a few other species that I didn't recognise.. One chunky cod and tons of wrase, all went back to get their fuck on and make more babies for when I'm back next year.
Later that arvo we ballooned out some big baits for sharks. About 25 minutes later had a hook up and a little run, skull dragged it in, small bronzie about 5ft.
Maybe 2 hours later the 50w starts clicking off so fast it was insane.. Took me 3 goes to get the rod out of the holder.
It had me half spooled in about a minute flat.. drag basically locked up.
I start to try get it turned around when it slowed, got a bit of line back.
Then the line goes slack, fuck me I've somehow lost it, I wind as fast as I can and bang I feel massive pressure, it's swimming right at the beach on an angle..
I fight it for about an hour and 25 minutes. Then I feel it.. pop.. the fucking line snapped. Bugger it.
Check the line to see what failed, the shock leader before the wire frayed and busted.. no idea if it reefed me of somehow turned on the line and tail slapped it because it had 15 feet of wire.
Back to camp for a feed and a few rums, beers and joints.
Earlyish night because we had to leave in the moring. Camp broken down by 7am and on the track headed for home.
About 3 hours later, the trailer has a failure on the gravel. Boat again goes sideways, manage to stop and find that the brand new leaf spring had failed, cracked in half. The axle had thrown out the back and smashed into the boat motor, I think stopping the axle from completely being ripped out.
We are maybe 260 K's from the closest town.. zero phone service and no spare axle. Stuck in the sun.
No way to bend the axle back not even a street sign that we could cut down and jerry rig as an axle, then realise the hub is half seized.
Fuck sake, really.
Hang on its okay, have spare bearings so if we manage to somehow get the axle fixed we can re pack the bearings and should be good to go..
That is, is if someone had actually packed the grease.. argh..
Well, short version is, we loaded most our gear into the other ute and boat..
We had to sacrifice a reasonable amount of gear to make it fit. That hurt.
Had no choice but to gut the boat.. Ripped out all the centre console and flooring. right down to bare the metal.
Then lifted and flipped the boat and what's left of the trailer trailer on top of the 2nd boat. Like a bizzare lid with half a trailer on it.
Strapped that fucker down nice and tight and started the slow trek back home.
What a couple of days
