Saturday 3rd December - Fishing at last!

Saturday 3rd December Fishing at last! 
Today was the day when I finally got my birthday present from Will and Tash. They had bought me a day on a fishing charter boat with "Central Coast Charters", but the company only ran the trips on Saturdays and today was the first availibility since my birthday at the end of October. We were up at the crack of dawn to get down to Ettalong jetty by 6 am. We duly did and we were motoring off by 6.30. There were about 12 people fishing from the boat which was easily able to take them. And I was so pleased that the seats faced the sea, being used to the boats back home which generally had a bench around the side so that you sat facing inwards and in order to fish you either had to stand or twist uncomfortably to drop your line over the side.
The weather was reasonable. It didn't rain, it wasn't too hot, or cold, or windy, there was a slight swell, but even so, the fishing was very slow. It was encouraging to see others catch something and very soon, a young man pulled up a large blue morwong or deep sea bream, known locally as a "mowie".  Another man landed a "Sergeant Baker" which they threw back as apparently, they make poor eating. I watched as others brought in the occasional fish, including Will who landed a snapper which was just about large enough to bag.
We had been fishing for four hours before I finally connected and reeled in a mowie of my own.  Will had another snapper on and I put down my rod to film the landing. Just as Will's fish was coming aboard I had to grab my rod which leapt towards the side. I really believe that it would have gone in had I been any slower!  Over the next two hours I followed it with a Sergeant Baker and a small snapper, both of which went back. Bird wise, I saw lots of shearwaters, almost certainly wedge-tailed, and two or three pomarine jaegers, some crested terns and silver gulls. We were not far enough offshore to get anything else. So that was it. Not much of a tally - 3 for me and 2 for Will. In my limited experience of boat fishing (2 Lundy Trips and 2 Skipness trips), this was a very poor day's fishing.  Ah well it was fun. We returned to shore at about 1.30pm and I had an afternoon's baby sitting whilst Will and Tash went round to the new house to get on with some painting. Whilst we were fishing Di and Tash had taken the children to Nararra where, much to Ollie's delight, they all went for a ride on a miniature railway. Di did some shopping in the late afternoon and I made dinner. What did we eat? Why delicious fresh caught fish, of course! My mowie wouldn't fit under the grill so I used the barbecue. Di bought a couple of smoked trout to make up the quantity which we probably didn't need as the mowie was very meaty and gave us all a generous helping along with Will's snapper. We had steamed vegetables, including asparagus and broccoli as accompaniment.