Day 413: Mambi Island Boat Ramp

Sunday, 20 July 2014

Another beautiful morning greeted us today. Nath and I sat in our chairs drinking our cuppa looking out over the river. A freshie popped up in the water near the rocks that were visible with the outgoing tide. He sat there for ages waiting for something I’m sure. An eagle flew down to the tree near us so I snuck off to grab my camera. I made it back without him flying off and when the camera made its click noise, he looked right at me. After he flew off, many other birds flew in or past so I sat in my chair taking photos of them all. A lazy Sunday morning.

Nath and Hendrix decided mid-morning that they would go for a fish in the tinny. I had typing to catch up on and Elokin had more school work than Hendrix to do, so we stayed in camp to do our things. I decided to also make a chocolate cake for afternoon tea, but had to clean the Weber first. Elokin helped crack the eggs and mix it with the electric beaters and we had just finished when the boys returned home. They hadn’t caught anything but had seen the big crocodile upstream that we had been told about. He is bigger than our car and not too far away.

In the late afternoon we went for a fish. We went upstream this time as we hadn’t been that way before. We saw another big salty but not as many crocs as we did yesterday. I caught a small catfish near a rocky bank. Finally, a fish, just not what we want at all! Just down from there was a rocky outcrop that we tried both ways to get around only to run out of water on both sides. We gave up in the end and waited for Mr Busman and his wife to come through. We had a chat with them and they suggested going over to the rocky bank and trying there. We told them that was where I had caught a catfish, which they had not caught one yet. We said bye and headed over there again as it was worth another try. We trolled over hitting the bottom with our lures. I did get hit by something, but it got off as quickly as it had come. When we were a little past the rocky bank, Nath stopped the motor and as we drifted back I started to wind in my line. Almost straight away I was on to a Barra as it threw its head out of the water. It was no match for my Daiwa and 30 pound braid as I hauled it in. Nath lent over and scooped it up in the net only to have the kids start screaming at us. They thought they had lost their Uno cards (they had been playing while we were fishing). We looked around the water and couldn’t see any, so Nath and I were a bit confused. Elokin told us that the cards were in the net. That was alright then as they were still in there, just under my Barramundi. Nath pulled him out to measure him and he was a keeper at 57cm. Dinner! He was hooked on my Halco Hamma Purple Haze. With one safely in the boat and the Uno cards found, we continued to fish. I handed my rod over to Hendrix and Elokin to share, although I continued to cast it for them. We figured that was the safer option with 4 of us in the boat, much to Hendrix’s disgust as he loves to cast and is really good at it. Perhaps it would have been best to let the boy do it after all, as the bale arm flicked over on one of my casts and I hooked Nath in the back of his shirt. Luckily it was just his shirt. I gave up at that point and relinquished the rod altogether. The sun was below the horizon so we started to make our way back to camp. I didn’t want to be out in the dark again! At least this time we were only a short distance from camp and arrived well before dark.

Tonight we have enjoyed our Barramundi coated in cornflakes, just the way Elokin likes it, while sitting around the fire.

 

Until next time…. Happy and Safe Travels.

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