WIRF

WIRF Cara Cummings

In between lockdowns I headed to the Mornington Peninsula and caught up with fellow WIRF Leader Michelle Brittain and she took me on my first squid fishing pier adventure. Geared up with Black Magic gear we braved the freezing conditions and set up jigging.

The persistence paid off and Michelle successfully helped me to land my first ever squid! Given I am a lure fisher, I quickly discovered that this style of fishing is rather addictive, and I am looking forward to heading back over summer in more favourable conditions!

Michelle’s winter squid Lydia, Abby and Michelle during the WIRFINAR.

Michelle Brittain takes author Cara Cummings out for her first pier squid fishing session.

fishing pier tips: • Be aggressive with your jigging as they can be rather lazy in the cooler temps. • Go for darker colour squid snatchers/jigs. • Move spots, try all along the pier, don’t get too comfy in the one spot. NEW WIRF LEADERS 4.0

This year’s Leadership recruit welcomes five new Leaders to the WIRF network. A very warm welcome to, Ruth Beeby, Caitlin Berecry, Amanda Keilar, Lee Spyrou and Catherine Watt. These passionate anglers join our current Leaders, and we look forward to seeing where their WIRF journey takes them while continuing to positively promote women in rec fishing.

ONLINE WIRFINARS

WIRF Leaders Abby Simpson and Niki Duckstien have kicked off a new series of ‘WIRFINARS’. These are an online virtual presentation presented by fellow Leaders and Guest speakers, which feature numerous topics and discussions. These are free to our Facebook WIRF members and registration is essential.

The first of the series was Saltwater Basics, with Michelle Brittain and Lydia Cahill as the guests. Michelle talked us through targeting squid and Colleen Johnstone made use of her isolation and caught this lovely brown trout.

Kayla with her double salmon hook up.

whiting and what tackle and equipment to use, while Lydia focused on top water fishing for tuna and kingfish. It was a great presentation with lots of questions answered. MEMBERS BRAG MAT

Kayla Chappell had a great session at Mornington Pier fishing for salmon and was wrapped with her double hook up, landing a total of seven salmon for the day.

Deborah Johnston and her husband enjoyed a getaway along The Great Ocean Road and tried their luck fishing in Lorne.

“We love fishing at sunrise, it gives us spectacular views and we caught this salmon using blue bait at high tide on Lorne Pier,” said Deborah.

Colleen Johnstone shares her lovely ‘lockdown’ brown trout catch.

“It was a cold but nice day. I tried a few different lures without any luck. Tied on an original Rapala brown trout colour and off I went. First cast a beautiful 40cm brown trout. I have caught this same fish numerous times over the past few years. I am lucky to have a dam that we started stocking 10 years ago. Fishing has been my saviour during five lockdowns, even if it was at home.” • To stay up to date and see what else has been happening within the network and for upcoming events, please head to our Facebook group www. facebook.com/groups/ womenrecfishing/ or via the VFA website/Facebook page. Are you a WIRF member? If not, we’d love to have you on board! Join us on FB today.

4 fillets flake Handful fresh oregano (or 2 tsp dried) 1/4 cup olive oil Pinch salt Juice of 1 lemon 1/2 Iceberg lettuce 2 Tomatoes 1 Cucumber Tartar sauce Souvlaki/Pita wraps

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, lemon juice, salt and oregano to make the marinade. 2. Add the flake to the marinade, coat well and let rest for 10 minutes. 3. Whilst the flake is resting, shred the lettuce, thinly slice the tomato and peel ribbons of cucumber. 4. Heat frypan and place flake into a hot dry pan. Allow the flake to cook approx. 3 minutes each side. 5. Remove fish from pan and heat both sides of the wrap. 6. To build the wraps, start with a drizzle of tartar down the centre and then layer with the lettuce, t omato, flake and cucumber. Fold the bottom of the pita over the ingredients to seal the end and roll into a wrap. Enjoy whilst hot!

As seen weekly on Ch 31’s ‘Talking Fishing’ TV show or catch up via YouTube.

WA Colin Joyce

Fish aside, I’ve caught some unusual things over the years. I’ve caught a bicycle tyre, more fishing gear than you could poke a stick at, and heaps of clothing items, including a shoe.

And then there’s the outright unexpected, the most memorable being a rusty old kerosene lantern in deep water off the rocks at Parrys Beach in Denmark. (That’s Denmark in Southern Western Australia, not the Nordic Country synonymous with rampaging Viking hordes back in the ninth century). And no, in case you’re wondering, the lamp wasn’t still burning.

I even caught a blanket, once, fishing from a tinny in 20m of water in the Swan River at Mosman Bay. It got caught up in the underwater current as I was bringing it in, and for a short while it put up quite a fight. But, for the most part, I guess you could say that it came in like a wet blanket.

I’ve caught strange sea creatures, too. Green sea-urchins in Fremantle Harbour that illuminate when you touch them, and a black slimy thing off the rocks down at Margaret River, that I suspect to this day may have been some kind of an alien species.

Aside from the above, two more of my unusual catches over the years are worth mentioning, mainly because they were just that, unusual.

Firstly, skindivers.

I’ve only ever caught one of these creatures, and that was several years ago from the end of the North Mole in Fremantle. It was nighttime, and I’d taken one of my sons fishing for kingies or whatever else might have been around.

Within an hour, we and the many other fishermen around us noticed lights shining from beneath the water. A number of skindivers had converged directly in front of us.

I dunno...they had the whole ocean to choose from and they decided to dive around right where we were all fishing. They knew we were there, too, because they’d parked nearby and would have seen us. And besides, there were more gas lamps hissing away up on the rocks than there were fish in the water.

I was using an 80lb wire trace rig with a star sinker and a gang of 4-0 tarpons when I caught my first skindiver. It didn’t actually take the bait, but rather my line got tangled up in its wet suit. It surfaced immediately, shining a torch right at me and shouting out obscenities.

Ah yes, those obscenities, I’ll never forget them. However, for the purpose of keeping this article non-offensive, I’ll modify what was actually said and present the PG version instead:

The skindiver shouted: “Gosh! I’m so sorry, friend. I appear to be caught up in your fishing line!” To which, I shouted back: “Yes, I can see that! I’ll tell you what, old fellow, why don’t you just cut my line and set yourself free! Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind, could you and your friends possibly avoid diving in this particular area. The lights, you know, they’re scaring all the fish away!”

To which the skindiver replied: “Oh yes, of course! Sorry about that!” And then all of the skindivers left and the fishing resumed.

The second unusual catch was rats.

Many years ago, I went fishing with a few mates from off the ASI Groyne in Kwinana. We’d generally had good luck at the ASI, but on this particular occasion it was a quiet night, fishing wise. The big lines had sat untouched for many hours. The water was flat calm. It was hot. In fact, it was actually so hot that I saw a couple of seagulls picking up some discarded fish bait with oven mitts.

Anyway, before long we were just bored. It was one of those nights where one tends to resort to stupid little games like seeing how far you can throw rocks.

Thinking back, I’m not sure whose idea it was to cast a fishing line not into the water, but along the road part of the groyne itself. What I do know, however, is that the baits were attacked the moment they hit the ground.

We knew they were rats, of course, because we’d seen them scurrying round earlier, and before long, we were all into it, casting our lines out into the darkness of the road. We didn’t use hooks; we just tied pieces of bait onto the line. The action began with tentative nibbles all round, before one of them grabbed a bait so fiercely that the drag actually engaged on the reel.

Then someone came up with the idea to reel the lines in as close as possible before hitting the hungry rodents with a spotlight to get a better look at them. And there they were, but far more than we had at first envisaged. Dozens of the damn things, scampering around in a wild frenzy.

Sometime afterwards, I was relaying this story to a fisherman I met on the North Mole in Fremantle, which, coincidently, has a resident rat population as well, along with numerous feral cats.

Trust me, keep an eye on your bait when fishing these types of breakwaters. If you doze off, chances are that a lot of your bait will disappear from right next to you. I think the rats and cats have got us fishermen well and truly sussed out. They await our arrival, and watch our every move from their rocky little hideouts, before sneaking up and grabbing the fish bait. Some are more brazen, and run off with the bait when you move away to cast out your line.

Anyway, this fisherman told me one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever heard in my life. To this day, I shudder at the thought of it, and it seems unfair that I should be the only one to suffer in such a way, so I thought I’d share it. (Warning – read on at your own risk!)

This guy told me that late one night he’d been driving around Fremantle, and was feeling a bit crook after eating a whole pizza, which, he said, ‘didn’t taste quite right’. He said that he drove out onto the North Mole to get some fresh sea air, but that this didn’t help, and before long, the inevitable happened, and a good old-fashioned chuck was his body’s way of ridding itself of a contaminated pizza. (Sorry, but it gets worse).

He said that after throwing up about 20m in front of his car, he immediately felt a little better, whereupon he took some deep breaths before climbing back behind the wheel, cranking up the ignition and flicking on the headlights.

And that’s when it happened. That’s when he said that he watched in horror as hundreds of rats began devouring his offering. He said they were like a school of piranhas devouring an animal carcass, frantically fighting among themselves for the tastiest morsels, and that after only about 30 seconds they all disappeared back into the rocks, removing all evidence that the chuck had ever happened.

Rats – nature’s vacuum cleaners of regurgitated pizza supreme. Sorry about that, but like I said, why should I be the only one to suffer this vision?