With payments taken for dinner and all boats on the water heading off to all points of the compass I stuck to my usual (some would say boring) plan of anchoring up just west of the bridge. With newcomer Len as my deckie we positioned ourselves on the edge of the channel within a cast of our illustrious President where we had proven results from years before. This had the dual advantage of cover if it stormed on us (it's a club trip - that's always a possibility), and we were close by when Bob did his chicken run.

With Len new to the art of fly fishing we spent the first half and hour or so getting his casting up to scratch. There were a few bumps on the line which kept us enthused although watching Dave with his rod bent on mullett all the time didn't help.

Finally some patches of flathead came on the chew and I hooked a smallish specimen. Following this Len managed 3 fish in nearly as many casts. Maybe I shouldn't have taught him to cast so well. Things went quiet for a bit and as the sun set and we enjoyed the view, boils of tailor surrounded the boat and for a while we occupied ourselves with seeing how many flies we could lose to these small toothy critters.

Around 6 big Bob appeared on the bank under the bridge and called to arrange the KFC delivery. I was glad he had finally arrived as I had been phoned by several hungry people looking for their feed. Browny and Steve generously gave up their fishing time to supply the guys with their sustenance while Bob launched his boat. I sat back and enjoyed my meal with a stunning sunset while I instructed Len on the finer points of fly casting and swimming back to the ramp if he caught too many fish.

With the sun down and dinner partaken of, we decided to move to the other side of the bridge and try our luck there. The decision was a good one as we managed to land a couple of estuary perch and as many flathead.

At about 10 we decided to call it a night. Quite a few of the others had departed so we headed back to the ramp with Mac on our wing.

With weather forecasts looking pretty nasty we were lucky to have such a pleasant evening. But then it's the company that makes the evening not the weather.

by Chris Bannerman