The Comedy of Errors - A Boating Misadventure (Sundays River Edition)

[tyrrell]

The old proverb “It never rains but it pours.” held true this weekend, with things going from bad to worse...and then worse still.

Myself and Tw1tch decided to make the most of the long weekend by taking my newly acquired boat out on the Sundays River for some light-tackle artificial angling, with some trolling and night-time bait fishing thrown in for good measure. Having left work a bit early on Saturday, I headed home, where I was shortly joined by Tw1tch, to pack our gear and hitch up the boat. Everything now done, we hit the N2 to Sundays. Fortunately it wasn’t too long until I realised that I’d left my skipper’s licence, etc. in my kitchen, so we had to turn around and head back into town to collect the paperwork. And so it began.

Finally we made it to the river and launched the boat. All good. We spent the remaining daylight hours trolling, with no success. The fishfinder’s temperature reading of 16°C was not exactly instilling a sense of confidence in our endeavour, yet we persisted. Just before sunset we tried for some livebait. Tw1tch managed to get a nice little river bream in the net after having cast just next to some reeds. Picture snapped, fish released, we carried on, with only one mullet and a few small stompies ending up in the livebait bucket. The sun fell, as did the temperature, and we anchored in our spot for the night, intent on enticing kob, grunter, or anything with gills for that matter, into accepting our ‘pointedly’ deceptive offerings. No such luck. By about 10pm, with not a fish to our names, and the weather taking its toll on us as we were fishing from an open boat, we decided to call it a night and headed back to Tw1tch’s folks, who live on the river, where we spent the remainder of the night...



(Tw1tch’s River Bream caught in the thrownet)

[tyrrell]

...6am came, and we were up and out the house, back on the water, and determined. We spent the morning drifting downriver with the pulling tide, working the banks with leadheads and paddletails. Hours passed, and eventually I hooked into a small river gurnard. This was however lost at the boat. More time went by and 5 minutes after having switched to a surface plug, I cast right into the shallows and onto the head of a passing leery. Instinct took over, and the fish attacked. The tiny leery was quickly brought in, had its picture taken, and released. Shortly afterwards a passing boat told us of some kob coming out in the surf on artificials, so we duly set up our surf spinning outfits and made our way towards the mouth...

 

(The only fish to come out in two days of fishing)

[tyrrell]

...At this point of the morning it was late into the pulling tide, so we were confined to travelling in the channels, close to the bank. This is where things went pear-shaped. As these things go, there had to be a guy on the side fishing his 12ft surf rod in the river at one of its narrowest points. Great, he’s cast across the entire channel, giving us nowhere to go.  Drifting past, keeping as much distance as the channel will allow, we still manage to catch his line, with the hook ending up caught on the skeg of the engine. No problem, I lean over and carefully pull the hook off. BIG problem, the guy’s reel locks up and yanks the hook out of my grasp and sets it in my thumb. At this point I’m standing astern, still drifting out with the tide, with the hook embedded in my thumb and the faint sound of a screaming reel coming from the shore. Fun times! Tw1tch manages to grab the line and cut it off at the hook snoot. Long, and painful story short, I had to force the hook out again after trimming it, as you’ll see in the pics...



(Hook set!)

[tyrrell]

(Trimmed and pushed through)

[tyrrell]

...After “the incident” and some more fishing, it was time to once again call it a day. The wind had picked up considerably by now, with a stiff Westerly making life on the water unpleasant. After having dropped Tw1tch off on the jetty to go fetch the bakkie and trailer, I began making my way upriver towards the slipway in this now pumping headwind. At the instant that I crossed another boat’s wake, a strong gust of wind hit the now elevated bow, resulting in the folded up sun canopy taking on the properties of a sail filled with air. Before I even had time to register what was about to happen, the canopy flew backwards in an arc, slicing through the rods that were standing in the rack on the side of the centre console. Fortunately it didn’t make it all the way back to the rest of the rods, as something got in its way and brought the canopy to an abrupt halt. My head!



(A clean break)

[tyrrell]

(Tw1tch’s 8ft Passion Stick, also now a multi-piece. Incidentally, he only just got it back from being repaired. Go figure!)

[tyrrell]

...While taking the boat out the water, depression was rolling in like fog on a cold winter’s morning, thick and heavy. And so ended a fruitless, and rather expensive pursuit of what we men call angling. Got to love it!

 

FIN

 

(New 9ft HMG Passion Stick, now a five piece!)

[SAfish]

Ouch, I feel for you mate. Sometimes when something goes wrong you just know it is not the last. Hectic.

[REEFMAN]

Sheesh... what a nightmare Tyrrell! Big ups to you for keeping your chin up and writing a report... there's a good side to this story though... it can't get any worse can it? Your next one is going to be a belta!! Cred 2 u.

[F.L.A.S.H]

dude, what a weekend, i feel for you man

[tyrrell]

Thanks guys! Yeah this is pretty much as swak as it gets (knocks on wood), so my next report will hopefully be one of screaming reels, tight lines and big fish!

[strandloper]

Thanks guys! Yeah this is pretty much as swak as it gets (knocks on wood), so my next report will hopefully be one of screaming reels, tight lines and big fish!

Many hours of those!!

Cred to you for sticking it out and giving us the painfull report!!

[WalkersKiller]

Unluck Tyrell, beeter luck next time bud!

[jaenswart]

haha

[Nightfox]

It happens hey, when it rain it pours eish!

[Tsutsuma]

Double Ouch on the hooked finger
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