With cold clear skies 12 fly fishermen met in the dark at Elizabeth Bay shops. There were no hushed tones. If we had to be up at this ungodly hour then why shouldn't everyone else?

It was decided - half to Frazers Beach to cover the north side of The Bung and half (the crazy half) to head down into no-man's land below the ladders. I nominated for the sane half having never tried being sane before.

After much driving to and fro, stopping, looking at the sun rising, trying to climb down a cliff with Bob hobbling behind we finally ended up at Frazers Beach with Sticker and Bunny. We being Steve Tizard, myself, Big Bob, John the vet, Craig and Terry Whitter.

We fished for a bit. I watched the rocks a bit further around and gave the vet a nod. Off we headed with our rods, buckets, bread and berley chuckers to deposit ourselves on a nice little ledge with plenty of white water at our feet. Chuck in a bit of berley and now it was time for some piscatorial action . . . . . . or maybe not.

But, as they say, perserverance pays off and finally John hooked into a fish and landed his first trevally on fly. And it was a thumper too, measuring in around 50cm. And it wasn't long before I managed a similar sized blurter. Mine took me into the weed and I thought I'd lost him. But I gave him some slack and he just swam straight out and he was up on the surface before he knew it.

All this fish catching attracted a bit of attention and some blow flies soon hung around. We didn't mind, we had runs on the board and could afford to relax a little. But it wasn't to be as my line tightened and I was into a second blurter which was soon landed and returned to the briny.

By now the sea had become a little angrier and we were copping a few waves across the ledge which were starting to cause some concern. Finally John, Craig and I decided we'd had enough and headed back around to the rest of the guys. No one else had even had a nibble and watching the sea rise it wasn't long before everyone had decided it was becoming unsafe and time to head for the safety of the Club BBQ.

As we trudged back across the rocks to the beach we were joined by a helicopter. Flying low it gave us a close inspection before heading off. Odd, that's never happened before. We continued on, back to the car park and up to the nearby BBQ and tables. Soon another chopper appeared, and another. We were starting to get a little concerned. Somebody was obviously in trouble. It wasn't long before the Westpac chopper landed in a grassly clearing not far away, so in my official capacity as club sticky beak . . . er secretary I checked with the official-looking officials to let them know where we'd been and that no one was in trouble down that way. At this stage we were told that 3 people had gone in and a full blow search was in progress.