Bust Offs - By David Witham

Everyone who has fished for a while will no doubt have a story of the one(s) that got away. I have a few of my own. It's as frustrating as hell, but it happens to everyone. Here are a few of some friends and mine.

I was fishing with my father-in-law, Rick, on Brisbane Water, near the Rip Bridge at Woy Woy, not catching a hell of a lot. Rick yelled out in frustration that he had got a snag, a regular occurrence when drifting some of the sandbanks in that area. All of a sudden the snag took off! Unfortunately for Rick the fact that he thought he was snagged meant that he had a firm grip on the line to prevent the drag from working whilst pulling his line off the snag. The end result was a very loud SNAP and a few well chosen expletives. Could have been a flathead or a stingray. I think the former as I have pulled a 6 kg flathead out of that same area.

On another occasion, this time in the Brunswick River, north of Byron Bay on one of the first trips I had ever taken up the river, we were fishing the mouth of a small creek that fed into the river. The going was slow with a few small bream boated and not much else. I threw the prawn bait into the mouth of the little creek and let it sit for a few minutes. No action at that point, I started to slowly retrieve the line when - BANG, something grabbed the bait and started running hard into the middle of the river.

The drag on the reel was screaming as this "thing" took off like the old proverbial train! I tightened the drag a little hoping to slow it down, but zzzzzzzzzz the drag just kept on screaming. I watched in horror as this fish took me out into the middle of the river, around the back of the boat and straight for the only fallen tree in sight, about 20 metres behind the boat! You can probably guess what happened next - yep, straight under the tree and snap, no fishy.

At this point I was shaking from the rush and mighty p'd off at losing the fish. I still play back in my mind what I would do differently next time, like driving the boat forward away from the tree, but hindsight is a wonderful thing! I found out afterwards that Mangrove Jack frequent these waters - that'd explain it.

Brunswick River yet again, this time early this year (2000). Fishing up the river on the drift for flathead, but casting in towards the banks hoping for the odd bream, or maybe that MJ from before. Threw in close to the bank into the shade from one of the many mangroves that hang over the banks. A few short slow retrieves to get the line nice and taught and - whoosh, I was on. This was definite flathead I said to Rick & Bill, as it was doing the typical lizard head shake as I reeled it in. Drag started going as this thing said, no way I am coming with you guys. To cut a long story short, this fish bit straight through my trace when I had it almost within sight of the landing net. All uncle Bill could say is along the lines of "you idiot, there goes my breakfast!". I tell you what I said worse than that! The fish would have been between 3 & 5 kg as it had the powertip bent.

Now the most embarrassing. In this case we actually got the fish in the boat and were ready to get a photo before releasing it. Not really a bust off but the frustration was the same, for me anyway! Rick had caught a nice lizard in the 2 - 3 kg range. I got the camera out ready for a pic, and asked him to pick the fish up, but not by putting his fingers in it's mouth. These fish have quite a bite and often draw blood - speaking from experience! Anyway I got the camera ready and go to look through the view finder, when i hear a thud splash and a couple of nice swear words coming from Rick. I look over and he has dropped the fish clean over the side of the boat. I asked what the hell he was doing and he said......, "the bloody thing bit me". Enough said!