First Crayfish of the Season

Yesterday a howling westerly wind kept the air cold and the ocean flat. After checking a few of the regular spots, I found my first two crays of the season. There is plenty of talk about it being a bumper season for crays, so hopefully they will arrive in larger numbers and size.

Eden - 3 Way State Championships

The Mosman Whalers Skindiving Club had more than our normal contingent of divers make the journey to Eden for this years 3 Way Championship.

We collected Mussels and Abalone to complement our fish, making a big seafood cook up. Gerry made some great pasta with crayfish from Narooma and mussels and fish from Eden. I made some fish cocktails with rice flour beer batter, and Jen made the abalone fritters.

Saturday is the eve of the Championships, and serves as scouting day. We search out the locations where the hard-to-find fish are aggregating. Three species were our targets – Nannygai, Sea Sweep and Boarfish. We travelled an hour south of Eden to launch the boats in Wonboyn Lake, but had to walk next to the boats to float them out to the ocean in a few inches of water! Luckily the tide was running out when we launched, and was running back in just before dark. All three species were found, and locked into the chartplotter as GPS marks.

Sunday is an early start as we all needed to register for the Championships, as well as launch the boat and organise all the gear. With over 40 boats registered, the boat ramp was busy. 130 competitors took to the water at 8am, returning at 2pm.

The race to the first fishing spot is a solid 25 minutes flat-out! Thankfully no other boats wanted to fish this particular spot first, and we managed to get the species we were looking for. Moving on to the other spots, and spearing the other species, the time passes quickly. Unfortunately the spot where I saw a Boarfish on Saturday was already being fished by another crew. As luck would have it — at the last spot — right before we needed to go back, I found a Boarfish to add to my bag of fish :)

Such a big event takes quite some time to process all the divers' fish, and tabulate all the scores. To add to the delays, the scorekeeper's computer had a few failures taking several more hours to overcome. So while we all waited for scores, we had a few drinks and caught up with other competitors. It was great to catch up with Rick, after returning from our South African trip a few weeks earlier.

My point score was 722, putting me in 18th place overall.

Waiting on photos from friends....

NSW State Titles 2009 - Ulladulla

Based around Ulladulla in 2009, the event is run over two days to decide the best spearfishermen for NSW. The format is a shore dive, meaning all fishing is done by leaving the shore and swimming to find fish – no boats allowed! Its a very challenging event, and removes boats and GPS from the equation. Similar to the National Titles, its normal to swim over 4 kilometres each day.

Saturday was held at Berara, close to Sussex Inlet. The day started well, and I had a few good fish in the first half of the allowed time, but I spent the last half looking for fish and only getting two more. I didn't leave much time to get back, and swam very hard pulling all my fish to the shore and scurrying up the beach and path to reach the finish.

My result for Saturday was 68.8% of the best score of the day, Garth Byron on 579 points.

Sunday stayed close, and was held at the Ulladulla boat ramp. I and a few other guys decided to run north over the headland, avoiding some of the swim from the boat ramp out to the main fishing grounds. My fish shot was into a cave to spear a Ling, but the spear bent and jammed! Thankfully the bend wasn't too severe and did not break. I think that managed to get all my bad luck out of the way early, and I speared my first ever Zebra Fish soon after that.

Sunday's result was 61.4%, with an Intermediate age group diver with the best score, Jack Lavender on 820 points.

That put me in 14th place overall, on 130.2%.

Even though I was diving well after South Africa, I was not feeling well from lack of sleep. There were at least a few species each day that I should have had in my catch. Another factor that certainly made things more difficult is having not previously dived in the area, let alone knowing any "spots" for the competition areas. At least in South Africa we had a chance to scout the area, and Graham had a few spots for us to target. There's always next year.

Narooma

Travelled to Narooma for the Far South Coast Championships, my first time diving in the Narooma area.

On the trip down, the conditions were rough and a planned dive with Wilso around Bass Point was canned.

Gerry & I were diving with PC out of his boat, and Gerry bringing a boatie!



Unfortunately the comp was not held... but we still went spearing at Montague Island on both days.

Saturday was too rough to cross the Narooma bar, so we travelled to Bermagui and had a quick run up to Mystery Bay, and then out to Montague. Drifting the boulders on the Western edge, I shot a ~2kg Snapper. Between the three of us we had a few of the normal species, but no Boaries or Blue-Throats were seen.

Missed out on the two-up, and met up with Huffy and Dutchie at the pub.

Sunday was too windy! The bar was completely flat, but there was a wind warning and the organisers can't risk safety of the competitors by holding the comp... so we headed out and came back early before the big wind gusts (~40 knots) fired up after midday. Vis was down, but still good in places. Gerry and PC grabbed a couple of Abalone and Crays each, and I wandered off and found a lone Long-snout Boarfish.

Although I took all my camera gear, I lacked the motivation to drag it out on the water.... so only some phone-photos from the friday evening.