Karen’s BIG Fish! (aka The Beast)

The scene where it all unfolded; from my seat in the sun, to fishing right in front of camp, the rocks I run up and down, and finally the beach where The Beast was slayed.

Finally!!

Karen's Big Fish on YouTube

As much as I’ve enjoyed the last two months of catching shit loads of little Trevalley, Queenies and Salmon, it was getting to the stage of obviousness that I hadn’t caught anything worth writing home about, or in this case writing a blog about.  I was contemplating changing my blog from ‘Fishing Letters’ to ‘Twitcher Letters’.

I got very excited when we decided to leave Willie Creek, as beautiful as it is there, my fishing results were not what I had planned for this ‘fishing’ holiday.  Two days of packing/shopping/unpacking were spent with us planning our assault on the fish of James Price Point.  With much anticipation we headed straight to ‘The rock’ first thing day one, full of recipe idea’s for tonight’s dinner, once we had caught it.

As is often the case with over excited fisho’s, we sat on The Rock the full duration of the incoming, and out going tide, only get sunburnt and dehydrated.  I’m sure you have all had such fishing adventures?  When all hopes and dreams are smashed to piece’s, and you wonder your reasoning for such initial excitement anyway?  We had sausage’s for dinner, and re-evaluated our fishing plan for day two.

Johnno was up early fly fishing the incoming tide.  By hide tide, still fishless, he was hiding from the sun in the tent.  With nothing better to do and the tide so high it was almost in the tent, I figured it was time to drop a line in from where I was sitting.

My seat I could almost fish from.

I took one leg of octty out of the fridge, dangling it in front of Johnno’s nose on the way past, only enticed a tired little laugh.  I baited my already set up rod and reel, walked 20m’s to the waters edge, cast out gently to where I guest-a-mated the rocks where, then sat on the black rocks to bake in the sun and contemplate my next twitcher blog.

Within minutes I got my first bite.  Ever hopefully for a Mangrove Jack, Bluebone, or Cod, I took up the slack and waited for the next nibble….no more nibbles, my line just started pulling tight.  I struck and held tight, still hopeful for a bluebone, and thinking if it was, it would try to head straight into the rocks.  It didn’t, which I had mixed emotions about, I didn’t want it to swim into the rocks, but I had wanted a bluebone.  Once realising it was hooked, the line pointed straight out to sea and started peeling off my reel.  OH the excitement!!!  Finally a BIG FISH!!!  It felt like forever ago that I’d caught a fish the took line from me (I like a tight drag).

‘Johnno Johnno, I’ve got a big fish’  I shouted back to the tent, and started laughing to myself.  After a short stop, when I thought I was about to get line back, it took off again.  OH Boy, this is a proper big fish!!  Thumps on spool to slow it some more because if I didn’t it was going to just keep going, out to sea with all my line.  I managed to turn it’s head and felt it’s powerful tail kick back at me.  Thankful, realising it was not a stingray, but now a little intimidated by the power of The Beast pulling against me.  It was defiantly a pulling game; Tag Of War!   I had my drag hard the whole time, and had to many time’s jam thumps in reel to try and slow her down.  I would turn The Beast, running down the rocks to recover some line, only to have her turn and run off with my line screaming again.  This went on for a long time!  Time is very hard to judge when playing a fish, what feels like forever is often only moments/minutes.  When my arms started shaking I kept telling myself, ‘If you are getting tired Karen, then so is The Beast!’.  But I was fooling myself, The Beast was not getting tired.

Start of The Battle with The Beast

After 12 minutes of running up and down the same rocks, recovering line, only to have it turn and take it all (my line) back again, I was still…running up and down the same rocks!

By this time I had to face the fact that I was most likely playing a big shark, not a huge bluebone, but the chance is always there…what if it’s a huge cod, you do get them here.  I took as much strain as I dared, just to pull The Beast closer to the rocks, I just had to see it, to get an idea of what it was.  The long dark shape got dragged in, dragged so much that at one stage I called ‘log’; could I have lost The Beast and got snagged on a log, because that is what it felt like at that moment.  Once we could see the shape better I called shark…maybe with a few extra words not necessary for this blog chucked in there as well.  Johnno, ever hopeful, called Cobia, I was excited again.  One kick of the powerful tail turned The Beast and my line moved, it had been wrapped around a fin, now with The Beast moving more naturally we both recognised it straight away as a Large Shovel-nose Ray.  Not so bad I thought, not a shark or a ray, but both, and hence why I was having trouble working out what it was until then.

With 15 minutes of fighting behind us, I was feeling a connection with my Beast of a fish opponent, and thought it would be nice to get a photo, not just break the line, which at this rate was looking like what would have to happen anyway. Lets see if I can get it to the beach I called, thinking surely The Beast was getting as tired as me by now?

NO it was not getting tired!  We fought on again, line in, line out, recover line, loose line.  It got worse when I got to the beach.  I must have been thinking I’d just pull her up onto the sand, easy.  Not so!  Stale Mate, she was going no where near that beach, but I wasn’t giving her enough line to run back out to sea.  I could see her just sitting there behind the waves, laying in wait, getting her strength back, planning her escape run!  No time to loose, I pleaded with Johnno to get in the water and help me pull her onto shore.  Those of you who know Johnno, will know that it didn’t take much ‘pleading’!  I could read Johnno’s mind: ‘what you want me to wrestle with The Beast from the bottom of the ocean?  Hell Yes!!’  He was running into the waves before I had time to think about what we were going to do next.  As soon as Johnno grabbed The Beast’s tail, she realised she had recovered enough, and was going to make a break for her freedom.  Thrashing powerfully she pushed Johnno backwards as she run off, my line was screaming out of the reel again!  So the game of Tug Of War started all over again, a couple more times back and forth.  It was all good fun, but I now really wanted a photo of this beauty/beast, before she got too tired to return in a safe and healthy state.

Using the waves to get the beautiful Beast onto the beach.

Obviously the tail grabbing was not going to work, I had to just nose her straight into the beach and use the waves to keep her in close.  One big wave, she was on beach side, Johnno run out and grabbed her before she could get back into the surf.  She kicked, Johnno fell, same as the other times, but I couldn’t do it all again. ‘Hold her Johnno Hold her’ I shouted knowing, it was now or not at all.  Johnno must have realised as well, he was back on her tail before she had time for a second kick.  Up onto the beach she came, but with the waves still trying to help her back into the safety they offered, and knowing how tired she would be after such a mammoth fight, it was a case of quick photos, so we could release her unharmed to recover in the comfort of the supportive waves.

What a beautiful creature she was.  My first reaction of ‘oh it’s just a shovelnose ray’ was quickly replaced when I got to run my hand over her leathery grey skin. She was magnificent!  Not only as a powerful fighter, but as a stunner to look at.  I was in awe.  Then the next wave came over, Johnno lifted her head off the sand just enough for the water to flow underneath, nek minit, she was gone.  I was left awestruck and laughing on the beach, with muscles trembling from half an hour of continual pressure.  Man I love that feeling.

A very beautiful creature indeed!

Battle of The Beast on YouTube.