I WAS driving down to Stuarts Point for our regular fishing outing.

The ABC radio introduced their fishing expert and he tells me that I can expect to catch large flathead for this part of the coast.

Naturally I arrive full of expectations.

I repeat the good news to anyone who will listen.

Being so confident, I adopt a casual approach to fishing for the morning. “

By that I mean I was a little late, I didn’t rush to the water, I took a handful of prawns without carefully selecting each one and I chatted to other fishermen on the bridge as I calmly took my spot.

I got a bite almost instantly, then the fish was hooked. “

The fight was strong, glimpses of silver appeared, ‘Darn’, I thought, ‘It’s a bream not a flathead’. Still, it’s a good start.

Once I hauled the bream up to the bridge deck I realised it was only small and not a keeper. There are a lot of large fish swimming about so maybe next time.

The only problem was that this scenario continued until I landed and threw back five small bream.

I don’t mean to go on about my efforts but it has been a while without catching much.

There were about fourteen of the Nambucca U3A Fishing for Fun team in action that day so quite a few fish were caught.

By the end of the morning the group had caught about 25 fish but sadly that included 20 small bream, one grunter, two small flathead and one pan size flathead.

Who caught the one legal size fish?

Phil of course.

In summary, Gary caught three bream and three flathead, Felicity caught a grunter, a bream and a flathead, Pam caught two bream, Beverly caught three bream, Bruce five bream, Phil one flathead and Valerie a bream.

The U3A Fishing For Fun team is well led by Greg Artlett.

He is a volunteer trainer for Fisheries and works with many organisations.

You can contact Greg on 0427689400.

It has become a bit of a habit lately to finish the morning with a barbeque allowing extra time to embellish our fishing stories before patting each other on the back for a job well done and heading home to prepare our fishing gear for the next event.

Until next time.

By Bruce REDMAN