Archive for boat
Karumba 2010 – day 2
Posted by: | CommentsDay two started off at what I describe as “Gentlemans Hours” of a 9:00am launch at the ramp, and the first time that the boat had been in the water for close to 4 months; a testimony to the conflicts of weather and time to actually get out fishing.
The boat took a bit of time to get started, but not long after, the motor kicked in and there were no troubles with motoring up the river. The wind was at 15 to 20 knots blowing SSE making the trip upstream a bumpy one, but eventually I worked my way upstream into calmer waters and a nice big hole at 12m which was close to the bank.
12m hole in Norman River
This place showed up some good fish on the sounder but only were interested in mullet fillets; prawns were ignored and whole mullet was likewise ignored as well. The fishing we were told the previous day was not good at present, but I still had confidence that fish could be found if I looked hard enough and the sounder was giving good shows regularly. Still, it was time to head back to the ramp as the wind was picking up bit.
Back at the ramp, I beached the tinny and then went and grabbed the truck and trailer; on arrival back at the ramp, there was a queue up and the beach where the tinny was beached, was clear, so as it’s a 4×4 onto the sand we went. There’s just something special about a photo of a 4×4 with boat on trailer on the sand on a North Queensland beach, so check this out:
Ranger on the beach at Karumba Point
Once the boat was back, we found that we’d forgotten to lift any food out of the freezer; so it was over to the Sunset Tavern for dinner of roast beef and veges 
Roast Beef dinner at the Sunset Tavern
Oh, did I mention that there were a few beers consumed as well while watching the famous Karumba sunset go down ?
A Sunset Tavern beer and Karumba sunset - does it get any better?
And just to top the day off; a photo of the Sunset Tavern bar with the Barra mural:
The bar at the Sunset Tavern Karumba
Get your buzz on…
Posted by: | CommentsDamn it, just under 1 and a quarter hours now till we leave for Kaurmba, and I’ve been awake since just before 2:00am as I can’t sleep – too damn excited and pumped…
I made some coffee last night so as i didn’t wake the rest of the house up when we get up, but the bloody stuff if damn cold 
Although the process of drinking cold coffee repulses me, at 2:40am I strangely enjoyed it – God knows with a 9.x hour drive to the Gulf ahead of me from 4:30am, I can’t afford to not have some coffee.
Yesterday I made the comment that we would run out of time to get everything done, and I was pretty much right. We went to the butchers on the way home yesterday and noticed that it was 3:30pm; with still the following things to get completed:
- Prep the boat
- Get two jerry cans of fuel and another of diesel (hey, may as well save where possible on the cost of fuel, cheaper here than in Karumba)
- Sort out where in the Ute tray everything is going to go and tie it down
- Prep fishing gear and sort out the disaster I call a tackle box
Think that we got all that done by 6:00pm and then had to start on dinner with Jacinda home from work wrecked. Managed to get into bed by 9:00pm and then woke up again at 1:19am, tried to get back to sleep and gave up at 1:45am.
It’s probably a death wish but I’m seriously looking forward to this trip amongst other things; but the main one is that I am hoping to see some really big crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks of the Norman River. Being Winter here, they will be more prevalent to sunning themselves at low tide, so I’m hopeful that I will have some really good pictures to post here and on Facebook as well.
Was stoked to note that the Ranger handled towing the boat last night with ease and I hardly knew that it was there which is a big change from the Falcon as you could “feel” the trailer when you were driving; the ride in the Ranger is much better in this regard but then again it is a truck so better performance is to be expected in that regard.
Ah well, just under an hour to go now until my alarm goes off at 4:00am and then will pack up the fridge and bait esky then head off. Should make Karumba at around 3:30pm give or take, will be interesting to see how the fuel economy in the Ranger goes towing the boat behind it.
Fishing trip
Posted by: | CommentsMatt and I had our fishing trip yesterday morning and it was a bit of a disaster to be honest and not a great one.
I wanted Matt that he should go to bed reasonably early or he wouldn’t be able to get up in the morning; we planned to be leaving at 6:00am so I wanted him in bed by 7:30 the previous night at the latest. Come 8:30 he was still wandering around being silly and not going to bed.
Come 6:00am Saturday morning, I went in and tried to wake him and it took some 10 minutes to rouse him; asking him if he wanted to go fishing got a nod and then he would roll over. Finally when I woke him enough he said that he was tired. This was not what I wanted to hear after spending nearly two hours the previous night getting the boat ready and parked outside ready to go the next morning. Still, he got up and all ready in his new little fishing shirt that I bought for him on Thursday night; he looks the part in it to say the least and the “Minister for Finance, Misery and Social Activities” suggested that we look like twins.
So we launched at Bluewater boat ramp by 6:30am and headed out to the front to the Yorkys Knob rock wall where I had had success years ago quite regularly. The place is a good spot where you can catch any of the following species:
- Barramundi
- Blue Salmon
- Mangrove Jack
- Shark
I Want to go home Dad…
Given all the work that I had done the previous night, I was a bit pissed off that within 20 minutes he was saying that he wanted to go home. Matt does enjoy fishing and he’s only recently started to enjoy the boat, but he has a lot of work to do in terms of patience if there are no bites happening. I explained that sometimes you just have to wait and sitting somewhere for 15 – 20 minutes can be what it takes for fish to find your bait.
I managed to con him into waiting for another 15 minutes but there seemed to be nothing around. There was no fish showing on the sounder, the spot can be frustrating sometimes with the amount of little black tip reef sharks that hang around but it can be a really good producer as well when it fires. Sadly, today there wasn’t even any sharks to keep us entertained; so we packed up and went for a run over towards Double Island for a bit but with the running out tide and the slight wind, it made the ride a bit bumpy for Matt. He doesn’t like any large rocking of the boat and when it gets a bit bumpy so we headed back and the ride was a lot smoother and he had a smile back on his face again.
We then went to check the crab pot that we had put in an hour and a half ago, the pot was empty and still had an untouched mullet in it, so I decided that I’d put the pot in another spot and come back later in the afternoon and retrieve it then.
So with all said and done, I had spent about $40.00 to get the boat ready with fuel and crab bait, 2 hours the previous night for an hours fishing at most Still, in two more weeks I have a night time trip to Barron River for Barra lined up – I will spend about 4 hours that night from about 4:00pm to 8:00pm; hopefully that will be a bit better in terms of results
