I won't be on World Cup night shift until tomorrow (Sunday) night 9 pm - 3 am. It is going to be tough, as it is now only 7 pm and I'm already feeling sleepy, how will I be able to stay awake until 3 am tomorrow? I guess I will have to try to sleep in the afternoon. Anyway, I have the whole day today to relax a little bit, so I left the family at home and went for a fishing day at The Entrance.
ULOG 014 - 14 days in a row!
It has been challenging for sure but it was fun. If you don't know what a 
Fishing at The Entrance
If you have followed me, you might have already noticed I regularly post photos of my family days out at The Entrance. It is a town in New South Wales, Australia that is by the ocean. The great thing is it also has an estuary/lake connected to the ocean and there are a lot of things to do there. Today, I went there for fishing and try to relax a little bit.
My mate, Marvin, has been fishing and prawning the lake for probably 40 years now. This week, his Facebook page was showing him bagging out on Blackfish (Luderick), so I thought that I should join him today and try to bring some home too.
The gear
I brought a small Iso Tsuri fishing rod (Japanese rock fishing rod), this version is only 3.9 meters long which is better for estuaries than the regular 5.4 meters rods for rock fishing. I'm using a wooden float properly leaded so that it sinks right down leaving only 2 cm above the water.
I also brought a rock fishing landing net (on the right) it is collapsed in the photo but can extend to 5.4 meters long. I also made some seaweed burley to be thrown out with the scoop (bottom center).
The surroundings
Here is a Google Maps satellite view of the fishing spot:
There are some regulars coming for some Blackfish fun, this is John and his wife:
The fishing started
I started fishing, what a great feeling. Fishing for Blackflish is very enjoyable, you cast the float with the seaweed out (yes Blackfish eat seaweed) and wait for the float to sink (a down) then count to about 5 before striking. The reason behind the counting is that the Blackfish would nibble the bait rather than taking it in one go.
I fished for over 2 hours... No fish... That was my luck. I had to come on a day where no fish were around. Marvin who was bagging out (10 fish) and had to throw back the extra fish on Thursday, only caught 1 today...
The interruption
As I was fishing, I noticed someone mentioning me on the office's Slack channel. I'm on-call this week, this means I have to answers calls if there are urgent issues happening with our various apps, 24/7! So I took the laptop out (yep, I have to bring it with me anywhere I go when on call):
So I hooked the Macbook Air to the iPhone's Personal Hotspot and went online to see what's wrong. There was an issue playing back certain type of videos on the iOS SBS On Demand app. Luckily, after a quick investigation, I fixed the issue in few minutes and went back to my fishing duty 😆
The fish
Still slow, no fish. I casted and casted, then I waited and waited, then, I slowly reeled the line back to reposition the bait at another location, that's when he fishing rod bent over!
FISH ON! OMG! It's a big one.
"A Sleeper!" I was yelling as the other fishermen were gathering to see some action going on after hours of boredom. A sleeper is the name we give to Blackfish that takes your bait but then just stay still, they don’t pull your line so your float does not move, it’s only when you get bored waiting and reel in that you feel the fish. As it got closer, we realized it was not a Blackfish but a Flathead. "A Flathead on seaweed?!", that would be my first. Flathead don't eat seaweed, they are carnivorous. The tide was low, so as I brought the bait closer to the shore, it must have been touching the bottom and I was dragging it around, the Flathead must have thought it was a bait fish and attacked it. Well, lucky for me not for him.
It was a good size, around 45-50 cm specimen. Here is a photo of the hook with the weed:
I keep my catches in a keeper bag hanging in the water to keep them alive until it's time to go home. That's when I would kill them in the most humane way possible using a technique called Iki Jime. It is a technique from Japan where the fisherman would instantly kill the fish by spiking its brain. That keeps suffering to the minimum and keep the meat fresh as a stressed and slow dying fish would release some substances that damage the flesh.
The mate
In the early afternoon, my mate Ruoxi, joined me and brought me some lunch too! Thanks bro. No luck for him, he wanted to flick some lures but the area was too weedy. Before we left, I managed to catch my targetted species and got a barely legal Blackfish.
The closing scene
It's not even 5 pm yet but the sun was already setting. The color was marvelous and I needed some material for my #ulog so of course I took my iPhone out and took some photos. Here is a kids playground right by the lake:
Here is a view of where I was standing to fish for Blackfish with my mates:
Mr (or Mrs) Pelican was waiting for people to throw fish remains:
They are very used to the presence of human beings so are not very shy:
What a wonderful place! My wife and I regularly say how lucky we are to be able to live in such a place and enjoy life. 
As I faked throwing something in the water, some other Pelicans came around to see if I have any food for them:
So I took a series of photographs. An iPhone 8 Plus makes great photos, ideal for blogging even if the quality is nowhere near that of a proper DSLR.
Realising that I was a fake, the Pelicans decided to ignore me and swam away. But on the way out, one of them is still looking back to see, you know, just in case 😂
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Credits
- The image at the top has been generated with the Canva app using my own photo.
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