Another day at the lake

Went to Newlands on Monday for a night session. Set up on the point, LH swim because I thought saw some fish signs and the bird activity seemed to confirm it.

I set up the rods (we're allowed 3 rods from 1 Nov-31 March), and cast out to the marker float. I baited up with a few freebies and each rod had a PVA bag of pellets and chopped boilies.

Not long after the indicators started beeping on 2 of the rods, showing single knocks.

Hmmmm. This sounds familiar.

I felt the line but couldn't feel any resistance so left them for a bit. The knocks kept occurring and after reeling in I found one rod had no bait and the other had nibble marks all over it. Damn those crayfish!

I changed over to plastic baits and although I still had the odd bleep, the change in bait seemed to keep the crayfish at bay.

Vic was there too and he was also getting crayfished out. He had a kittle run later but it didn't develop into anything. He packed up around 2.30pm

Not long after I had a severe drop back. I looked out the lake to where the rod had been cast and up popped a coot. Blast them things. As I looked away the indicator sounded a run! Damn, it wasn't the coot! So with I'm into a fish at last. It wasn't to be though. The coot had managed to drop my bait but in the process it somehow managed to hook itself in its webbed foot. It is not fully realised how difficult it is to bring in a reluctant coot without hurting it. It took me round the point, under a tree and finally tethered itself onto a branch.

Shit, what was I going to now? Luckily, I managed to snap the branch that it was caught up in, which meant that I could now get at the line. By gently pulling the line and guiding it over some twigs I was able to grab hold of the birds foot and try to take the hook out. But it wasn't having anything to do with that. I got pecked a few times before the line finally snapped and I was able to get the hook out. It flew away well pissed off but not as much as me!

That was it for the rest of the evening, but funnily enough, the bird activity died down to almost nothing after all that commotion.

Evening came and went as did the rest of the night. Beside the odd beep, nothing occurred and I started to pack up at 10am. then the heavens opened and I wasn't able to finish packing up until 12.30 Some of the gear was still damp but hopefully it wont matter as I'll be taking it out again shortly. Maybe!