Hurricane – that’s the superstitious nickname beginning to stick to me whenever one of our monthly or public competitions are held. The weather once again was not ideal for our 48-hour competition for the month of November, the wind was bellowing from the Nor-East and swell rolling from the south creating a delightful sloppy ocean.
However, we live in 2018 an age of information that demonstrates the reasons why we have less than ideal weather conditions during a competition rather than the pseudoscience bunkum some believe, such as, you had done something wrong before going fishing and the weather gods frowned upon it or the age old ‘banana on a boat’ tail.
Aside from the weather our members that participated in the 48-hour competition did not disappoint. Plenty of fish were submitted with a healthy ratio of fish kept for the table and others released to fight another day.
One of the highlights of the competition was the serendipitous effort from Jem Abbott, reeling in a superb Mulloway measuring 132cm long and weighing approximately 17 kilograms from the beach. Jem had only been fishing for 3 minutes before the rod loaded up and line peeling off at an unearthly rate of knots.
The highly competitive estuary division of the club was won by Daniel Dowley with his modest Mulloway of 84cm closely trailed by Jorge Richardson’s 32cm Yellowfin Bream. Some ask how can a Mulloway only beat a Bream by such a small margin? It’s simple, we use a sportfishing point scale system based from ANSA trophy lengths and merit of the catch. This way it’s not always the biggest and meanest fish that wins. It awards merit where merit is due.
Above: Daniel Dowley and Bianca Dowley
The same can be said for our Juniors division, Cortnae-Jane Fish (above) coming out on top with her 64cm Dusky Flathead on 3 kg closely trailed by Jake’O Beissner with his 34.3cm Red Pigfish from the deep.
Those who braved the ocean conditions appeared to of got a feed for the table, with numerous smaller models of Snapper and Nannygai on the chew. Diehard ocean fisherman Dennis Beissner took out the top position in the Ocean division with a coveted Butterfly Gurnard measuring 49.6cm, while seasoned ocean fisherman Stephen Roberts nabbed the random species draw with the only Blue Morwong submitted for the 48 hours.
Above: Everyone's a winner !!! Mishell Fish with a released Flounder
It truly is encouraging to see all walks of life and ethnicity joining the EFA, we recently ticked over 100 active members mark. We are becoming the U.N. fishing club of the NSW south coast with nationalities such as Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Japanese, First Nation, Irish, English, Croatian, Aussie and bogan like myself. All these people searching for a sense of community and friendship while enjoying their preferred recreational activity of fishing.
Above: Jorge Richardson with a Luderick
I must point out too my amazement of how active our juniors are. We have lots of juniors, but 30 juniors are actively participating in some shape or form with events and programs the EFA is running. It really is heartening to see parents and guardians taking the quality time to get outdoors, spending time with the kids fishing and teaching them a life skill.
I always say to anyone wanting to gain sponsorship is to keep it local. Without our local sponsors none of what we do would get off the ground. I cannot state enough our appreciation to our sponsors who stick with us through the good and not so good times of trading on the south coast. The best thing you can do as a reader is support those businesses when you are in the market for a product or service they offer. It is not hard to tell who supports us as we fit their logos on just about every bit of advertisement we produce.
Hopefully next month’s 48-hour competition the weather is better. The competition and social meet is scheduled for 30th Nov – 2nd Dec. We really hope to see you there.
To catch you up on what we have been doing for the public and our members here a few updates on work being done behind the scenes.
1. Working on next year’s South Coast Mighty Bonanza – to be held in Batemans Bay.
2. Securing new sponsors and connecting with our loyal existing sponsors. One of our new sponsors that have come on board is Rapala Australia. Rapala has a long history of supporting ANSA clubs and is operated by actual fishermen passionate about supporting clubs that produce the future leaders of the recreational sector, spearheading the much-needed advocacy to preserve and protect our sport.
3. Our new website construction has advanced to a critical stage where all the technical coding has been completed and now the arduous task of loading the website with photos and content. We plan to have the website as a huge resource for our members and the public.
4. The live scoreboard and mobile app is being worked on from multiple angles and we hope to have some kind of outcome before the SCMB 2019. More on that as info comes to light.
5. Several new public events are being designed and scrutinized scheduled for 2019, 2020 and 2021. We are looking forward to rolling these out for the public.
6. We are making slow but steady progress on one of our very long-term goals – a club house. In the end it all comes down to who will be our local state member at the time when we eventual go to campaign for it.
7. Development on the first Eurobodalla ocean artificial reef is moving forward with environmental, cultural and hydraulic surveys potentially to be conducted first half of next year.
8. Steady progress is being made on stocking Deep Creek Dam and the new dam project with Australian Bass, we are just waiting on an important report from the state government to help support our proposal.
9. Much of our time is tied up with the Batemans Marine Park now, pursing the goal to gain access to ground we lost through draconian decisions. What is the point of locking areas up when the 13 highest threat levels to our park are pollution based? Pollution knows no barriers and lines on maps, much of which is the primary source to our depleting fish stocks.
10. We are working on finalising a location for the end of year party and hope to have notification out to our members and guests soon.
So, as you can see we are busy beavers plugging away on many projects not just for our members but the community also.
If you would like to become a member of the Euro Fishing Association, it really is simple. All you need to do is drop into Compleat Angler Batemans Bay, speak to Anthony and get yourself signed up.
Tight Lines and Sharp Spears.
Adam Martin | President Euro Fishing Association
