Port Broughton ReportBy Steve Boldog
The Port Broughton venue on the January long weekend was anything but run of the mill. Instead it was a series of events;
· the temperature over the weekend hit the 47 degree mark · Accommodation was at 2 locations · Denis’ trip to Broughton · The black out Saturday night at the local
An event in itself seemed to be shoe horning 10 people into a smallish shack at Fishermans Bay on the Friday night. They were Denis and wife Bev, Steve and wife Helen (friends of ours), James and fiancée Nichole and on Sunday my daughter Renee and fiancée Bren, Jan and I, 10 people in total.
Then there were the club at the scout hall, Twiggy and crew, Martin and crew, John (the late comer) and crew and Paul and crew.
It seems Denis had the first run of “events” even before he got anywhere near Broughton. On the Friday night about 5 k outside of Pt.Wakefield a tyre decided to give up the ghost, all in all this was one of three flat tyresover the weekend.
After all the drama Denis eventually arrived and we prepared his Kevlacat for the water and set off to the scout hall where Martin and Darryl were waiting for John and crew to arrive so we could have a three boat convoy to venture out wide. Apparently John was supposed to arrive late or rather early on the Saturday morning because of the shift he worked on the Friday night, well around 3:30 Saturday saw us on the water.
It was one of those warm summer nights where shorts and “T” shirts were the dress code for the morning, the temperature from memory was in the high twenties to low thirties and there was virtually no wind and the water was calm and flat. We fished far and wide and our result was 5 whiting, and again from memory Twiggy caught the only worth while fish of the morning, a nice snapper.
We, Denis, James, Steve and I returned to the ramp Saturday mid afternoon, about twelve hours on the water and the temperature climbed as we headed into the channel. You could feel the temperature increase the closer we got to land. With the ramp in sight thoughts turned to cold showers and beer once we got back to the shack. Not so, we retrieved the Kevlacat onto the trailer and towed it out of the water to discover another flat tyre, dam! Change the tyre and organize a repair at the local servo, then the showers and beers.
Saturday night saw the Fishermans Bay mob and the scout hall mob at the local, and it’s stinking hot. We were told that the temperature during the day in Adelaide had reached 45 degrees, the locals informed us the temperature at Broughton reached 47 degrees, we’re also told the local publican was the happiest he’d been for years that evening. The pub was to full capacity and any wonder.
So there we all are hot outside but the air conditioning was keeping us cool in the dining room but only just. Twenty minutes or so later Murphy strikes, there was a power loss, almost immediately the dining room became a sauna. It seems there was a power blackout that affected all of Pt. Broughton including Fishermans Bay. Eventually the mob from Fishermans Bay had eaten and decided to head back to the shack. Jan and I had teamed up with Steve and Helen in Steve’s works almost new Commodore for the trip from the pub to shack (another event coming up). As the four of us walked to the Commodore Helen hit the remove to unlock the car, nothing and after lots of presses on the remote unsuccessfully she proceeded to unlock the car manually with the key. As she so did this all hell broke loose.
Now you need to picture this, as we walked out of the pub most if not all the others in the pub that were drinking and eating were standing or sitting on the footpath outside because the heat in the pub was becoming unbearable. As Helen unlocked the doors manually the lights flashed and the horn went ballistic. Now this is all the crowd on the footpath need to incite them, there was hooting, hollering, whistling and yelling and they were having a great time, this continued until a woman appeared and told Steve how to fix the problem, stick the key in the ignition and start the car, presto worked like a charm. As Helen drove off it was to the sounds of cheers, clapping, whistling etc, almost as good as a footy final. Thankfully the trip back to the shack was uneventful.
Sunday morning saw the NDSFC on the water again but only in the Broughton channel, weather conditions had turned sour, the wind had increased overnight to the point where it was just not worth going out wide. I’ve always thought the Broughton channel was a negative and at the same time a big positive. What I mean by this is when the weather conditions are ideal it’s a pain traveling the length of the channel to get out wide and that’s a negative albeit a small one. How ever when it blows a gale it’s still possible to get out and fish the channel quite safely while still being able to catch a reasonable variety of fish, squid and crabs, and that’s a big positive.
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