As the title says, its August !, no shit said the wife its been that for four days !. yea! well, erm, I just noticed and want to know who nicked half the bloody year. It feels like fricking Crimbo was only a few weeks ago and the damn thing is now closer than the last one ! fek, time aint flying some buggers nicking it sheesh!

Right thats out the way, whats going on down on the marina. Over on the WEST they are still chugging away, on last talks with them they are still saying some time in September ….. erm ya mean next month guys ?….. silence .. so there it is. To be fair we have had a fair bit of blowy weather and as we creep towards September.. yea I recon there will be more so expect the “SOMEWHEN” in September to become “end of September” the most likely and perhaps an over run of a week or two. What does bother me a bit though is that the work all seems to be on the extension. I cant say that I have seen anyone working on the main wall section…. unless it is only the extension that is being done this year.. NOTE to self, speak to the crews about whole wall or just ext… Id hate to think they will be back next year ! fek thats a nasty thought ! ergh!

Right, stuff that, whats going on over on the EAST ..(caffeine break..)..ok, well, by time I got my shit together yesterday I could see from the tree tops nr our back garden that the expected breeze had begun and on bombing down the hill at breakneck speed on the quad (8mph) it was clear that things would be a tad choppy on the EAST so decided instead of accessing th wall via side gate I’d roll straight onto the top level. There were surprisingly more fishing than expected but very little was being caught. I decided to hang around and chat with Ali and a few of the others already there trying to pick ppl’s brains so to speak and get a clearer picture of the day and also the last few hrs of yesterdays session on the wall.
And thus we have for the mackerel hunters good news followed by poor news followed oh ok , good news, bad news good news sorta thing, are we sitting comfortably ? yes ? ok shall I begin with the good.~>

Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel, Mackerel, is that good enough or shall I explain it 😉

Yea. yea. yea, you know she loves you and you know you should be glad.. oops off track..
re do the yea thing and change too this.. So did the mackerel happen Saturday evening ? well as posted yes there was an increase in numbers followed by a decent flurry SUNDAY morning which was happening as I was typing up the last posted ramble here yesterday morning. so other than the morning flurry what happened Sunday ? well yes the flurry got a bit larger Sunday morning but then as mentioned 1/2 an hours read ago there was a westerly “breeze” building up that by time I got down there resulted in me taking the quad straight onto the wall to see most of the anglers had condensed below bay 18 as the wind had started too get a bit stronger and the tide was knocking a load of water spouts up, the worst of it above bay 46 but it was also enough to make lower bays from 20-46 unpleasant. With me going straight onto the top level it gave me the chance to find ALI who at the time was parked on his bike around bay 12 which would give me a quick catch up part from the day so far but also what happened after I left Saturday because …..

Well it did look like summat was about to happen Saturday as late afternoon there were a few fat long Mackerel caught while I was there, granted only 4 or 5 but with water colour and general conditions light levels etc, well, yup HERE it comes …………… …………. …….. “IT LOOKED FISHY ” 😉
Yes Ali sorta agreed but was sceptical and a couple of regulars asked if it was worth staying so non commitaly I said well there were the fat ones caught and conditions very much looked promising so stay and see what happens about 7pm.
It turns out that it was fishy, very fishy if you was there for mackerel yes MACKEREL so there ya go thats the good news they were there in numbers and so you now know whats coming dont ya !

The bad news
Saturdays fishing spree started about 7ish when the wall was fairly busy and as most regulars here and on the marina group on the book of face know, through the day we give people plenty of warnings not only about the close gate time but also the reasons why.
Its great to see plenty of fish being caught but if anglers deliberately continue to ignore some of the wardens when they are told too pack up in time things will change for the worse.
I realise people like to have the one more cast thing and I realise the allure of staying when mackerel are running but we have an agreement with the resident association and if the walls are kept open by selfish anglers for a few more mackerel it gets noticed. It only takes one time too many that we fail to close the gates on time and boom we end up losing an hour of fishing time because we have to close the wall at 8pm simply because a few greedy arseholes wanted to catch a couple more fish.

Now from my view point, that aint gonna happen for a few reasons. the first is that some of the wardens are being ignored when it counts most and Im sure Mark will feel the same. If there is a need for either of us to have to be on the wall as extras simply to close because of a few selfish anglers, well then I feel fairly confident in saying neither of us will be in the best of moods to deal with people that think just because they drove for 2-3 hours to get here that they have an entitlement to continue fishing when its close time.

Good news time now ?
Well the good news is for the non mackerel hunters, late staying on the wall wont be tolerated and some of the idiots are now under a closer watch and if needed will be told not to return. For anyone that thinks its ok to delay leaving, think twice, if you dont you will smply be making you last visit too the marina.
Bad news ?
bad news for the mackerel hunters is that the winds did ease very slightly last night but I am sure most people have seen news reports of high winds and storm warnings for big chunks of the country so you will also then realise it impacts the wall. While the wall did open this morning as there would have been a few bays that were ok too fish the front section will rapidly get unfishable as the wind builds and closes the wall this afternoon. the winds will obviously churn the waters today meaning those mackerel will be heading for deeper water until the sea again calms and clears.
Good news again 🙂
the wall will be open Tuesday and the weather for the following week looks quite decent with much lighter and northerly breezes that should push the weed out to sea.

Right, enough about idiots on the wall causing issues, due too the conditions yesterday the catch reports were few and far between other than a flurry of mackerel in the morning and a schoolie bass here n there. It did look sorta decent conditions if there wasnt that westerly cross wind and the sea did say a decent deep green colour. It looked for quite a while like there would be a re run of the mackerel shoals yesterday late afternoon and about 6ish Id said too Ali, yes maybe but if it does start it would be about 7 to 7.30pm. And that as they say was it! …. na not really 🙂 I left just after 7pm and quite honestly have no idea if the mackerel happened.
What did happen was me going down onto the lower level at bay 29 too help a group of new too angling people who were trying too get the hang of swinging the lead so too speak. So down I went and gave them a hand. A few pointers and instruction here & there plus a general chat etc resulted in thier use of the rods was improved and more importantly sorted to a level that their rod and lead swinging was much safer for all of them and for others nearby. If the mackies showed im confident in saying they would have caught some for sure.

And thus we come to the did they or didn’t they :), well at this moment in time 12.50pm I do’nt actually know as I left at 7pm 🙂

Thus we get to the usual close of yarn with…. until the next one I will bid you all ADIEU
F