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"The
Mansfield Curse”
It had
been a year in planning, but the time had come for us to head to
Missionary Bay, in the house boat we rented from Hinchinbrook Rent a
Yacht. The Crew were myself, my wife Linda, Graeme ”Ace” Wheare, his
wife Pauline and daughter Tanya, Barry (BM) Mansfield and his wife
Susan. All of them from South Australia and counted as some of my best
friends, so it was good to get together again. Ace had been up ten days
all ready catching up on his fishing, salt and fresh, mostly fresh as
the wind has been up. We managed to catch some nice Sooty Grunter but
missed out on some JP”s. It was Ace’s first experience with our crystal
clear “Sweet Water” and found it one of the high-lights of his trip
(apart from the March Flies)
Now Barry is a different kettle of fish! He carry’s with him what is
collectively known as the “Mansfield Curse”, if it can happen or even if
its not supposed to happen, it WILL happen to Barry! I first found this
out when we started fishing together, our basketball playing days were
over and we were mostly coaching. We wanted to keep the group together
and decided as we were all keen fishermen to go on regular trips to the
West Coast of South Australia chasing Salmon and Mulloway.
As usual we were stretched out on the beach fishing the surf, previously
the other guys had suggested to Barry that he fish along side of me. I
soon found out why, eight times out of the ten his line managed to cross
mine! Plus when he did manage to beach a fish it was “Mayhem”, one time
he beached a nice fish of about 3 kilos, it was flopping about on the
beach with a set of 5-0 chemically sharpened ganged hooks in its mouth!
Before I could say “here’s the pliers”, he’s put both hands on the
fish’s head! Ouch! One of the hooks had gone through the fleshy part of
his hand, well I found a use for the pliers, I pushed the barb through
and cut it off quick before he realized it hurt.
By this time I was getting a picture of what fishing with BM was like,
the next time we were right up the Coast near the Western Australia
border fishing the “Dog Fence “beach, this is were this massive fence
line meets the coast. We were up they’re fishing with an acquaintance of
mine in his new 4wd Land-cruiser and it was blowing, maybe 40knts and
gusting! So we are on the beach, its blowing its ring out behind us, we
pull up to fish, BM opens the passenger door, a massive gust appears
just at that moment and blows the door of its hinge’s, the door
finishing up parallel to bonnet! Needless to say things were a bit cool
for the rest of the trip.
So before I start on about the actual fishing I should catalogue “The
Mansfield Curse” incidents (for want of a better word) that Barry did or
is getting the blame for. He managed to break 3 tips of my rods, the
landing net was destroyed beyond repair, I had to strip my “BlackMax”
(BM’s reel) three times due to the over runs getting inside the reel, a
feat that I thought was impossible. I had managed to book the houseboat
in the middle of the neaps, so the fishing was off, I don’t know how
that was BM’s fault but he’s copping the blame.
But worst of all we had some serious storms in early October; one was a
“Doozy”. We were anchored up for the night, right up No 3,Chris Jones
Had Joined us as had Ross Paton and his family. So we had three boats
tied to the “JoyBelle”, the side canvas down, and were partying up big
time watching this massive storm sweep around Cardwell. By this time the
wind has picked up and is rattling the side curtains and swinging the
boat around, I was a bit concerned whether our anchor would hold as it
was blowing an easy 40knts by now. After couple of checks, I was pretty
sure that we were moving, even though” we had 30 mtrs of chain out. So
then it was panic stations, we had the house boat plus three boats (one
was Ross’s cruiser) heading for the mangroves. We decided we had to move
the boat, so Ace stared up the engines hauled in the anchor and we
started to motor out into the creek. WRONG! The wind was blowing 40knts
plus the boat only goes 9knts flat out so we were going back into the
Mangroves faster than if we had left the anchor down! Ross was running
around shouting, My boat! My boat! Unfortunately for him that was the
side that was crashing into the Mangrove, lucky for Chris and myself,
our boats were on the other side. The upshot of it was the houseboat and
Ross’s boat was pushed into the bank by the wind, the wind stopped, the
tide pulled us out, we re-anchored and checked the boats. Not a scratch
anywhere! Not even a bent Ariel, just plenty of mangrove leaves and
branch’s in Ross’s boat, even the kids didn’t wake up, they were a sleep
in the cruiser! Talk about relieved!
So that’s fishing with BM, but with all that he can fish and enjoys it
immensely. Ace due to his ten days of solid fishing (including a trip to
Peter Faust) was having a family trip (that means he wasn’t allowed to
fish!) so it was left to BM and Linda to fish with me. Lin only wanted
to fish in the mornings as sitting around reading a book and making
inroads to our stock of wine was her ideas of fun and it seems Sue was
only to happy to join her.
So BM and I had fun most days catching some nice fish, we would fish the
flats at the top of the tide (such as it was) using B52’s. It can be a
bit difficult fishing the flats in the Bay as the canopy is a lot lower
and the root structure a bit soft but it can be rewarding. Barry had
managed to get the lure in between two roots and was soon “hammered `”
by a good fish, a bit of judicial work with the electric gave BM every
chance with the fish. After some air-borne antics, it was soon at the
boat, pictured and in the esky measuring in at a healthy 65cm.Even
though I fish mostly “Catch and Release”; the guys were adamant that
they weren’t going back to SA with out having a feed of Barra.
We started back working the bank, drifting with the tide; we both had
plenty of lookers but no hookers! I saw a small drain outlined in the
water and worked my lure down it and saw it absolutely smashed by a
really nice fish and that was about as close as I got. It took the lure
way back into the root system and immediately broke me off! Bugger! Not
only lost the fish but a brand new B52!!I looked at Barry, who said, “I
didn’t do anything”!
We had some fun with other types of fish,GT’s, Flathead and even a small
Grunter, I lost a nice Jack who left my lure sitting on a snag, lucky
for me as I was down to my last B52.
We headed back to the boat for Lunch (that’s the beauty of working of a
house-boat, you can come and go as you please) then off to fish the
creeks near the bottom of the tide. We soon had some fun with small
Jacks and Cod but Barra were hard to find, Barry was using a “Flatratz”
in Pink and for myself I had loaded up with a pinkish “Leads”. We had
decided that if we hooked some big Cod we were going to keep a couple as
we had been told that they were excellent on the BBQ. No sooner said
than done. Both Barry and myself were soon into a double header of Cod
both good size and soon in the esky. I had yet to catch a Barra for the
trip and was keen to redeem my self; I spotted a small feeder creek with
a snag out front. We decided to give this a work out to see what we
could pull of it. Only small Jacks and big Cod of which we had plenty, I
flicked my lure down stream it a bit further reasoning that the bigger
fish might be sitting in the current feeding. Sure enough the lure was
grabbed in a big way; I saw the gold flash as the fish headed for the
surface, a nice Barra, whoosh! It left the water a 90mph,desperatley
trying to dislodge the lure, I have found that if the lure is down deep
they tend to spend a lot of the time out of the water. It was a nice
fish, eventually measuring 80cm,it really gave me a work out but it too
was soon at the boat, measured, photographed and released. Yeah Baby!
That’s what I live for, catching Barramundi!
To top a good day of BM has hooked a nice fish working a bunch of twigs,
this one wasn’t as energetic as the last but at 63cm a good fish. As I
said Barry could fish, so it was soon at the boat pictured and this one
also for the table was put on ice. The rule in my boat is Barra of this
size are good for the table, say up to 70cm,anything bigger is released
to breed on. We decided to call it a day as a cold beer was calling and
there was always tomorrow.
So that’s fishing with the “Mansfield Curse”, take every thing as it
comes, it usually only rods and reels that get broken, not arms and
legs! But hey, what are best mates for anyway!
Jim (Jimbo)
Lee - www.un-reel-sportsfishing-adventures.com.au
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