Bunbury Fishing Trip

We celebrated Mother's day this year with a fishing weekend in Bunbury with my parents, brother and sister.

Bunbury is so beautiful.  Its one of the few places in Perth where you can wake up and watch the sun rise.

On this fishing trip, I didn't get much fishing time.  Nor did I catch any fish.

But you know what, being with my Dad and Mom, and watching them catch those small herrings,

 made me the happiest man alive.

There's this one thing thats so much more important than all the little things in life.

Salmon Run 2009

Around this time every year, I head south of Perth with friends and family to Bunker Bay to try my luck with the elusive West Australian Salmon!

Fishing road trips are the best!  

The fat bream... and the fish

Fresh air, blue skies and the glory of catching a salmon!  Hehehehe.  

Schools of WA salmon move around the coast of Dunsborough during this time of the year.  It's very exciting stuff because it's not often you get big fishies so close to shore.

But after four hours of fishing, no salmons :(  

Locals say its too early. Maybe if we went next week or the week after.

  

I caught this salmon on my breakfast plate.  It came with toast and poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. :P

Nonetheless, we caught lots of other fishies and had a great time.

Anh, the herring queen. She caught so many herrings, I spent more time unhooking and cleaning her catch than actually fishing :P

My brother caught many weird and wonderful fish.  None we took home coz they all looked scary 

We spent the next day driving around checking the attractions and wineries around Margaret River.  

Canal rocks never cease to impress me. Watching big waves smash into big rocks is hypnotising 

We had lunch at Voyager estate, where I had the best meal ever!!  Pork cutlets with crumbed feta served with fried apples.  My mouth waters just thinking about it!

Voyager estate has an awesome garden, but the white house and the huge flag pole reminds me of Camp Biggest Loser for some reason

Then we followed it up with a short trip to Margaret River town centre and Mango ice cream from Simmo's.  Sweet indulgence - so good!

My only regret was having to drive back home.  

*sighs*  

Until next year then. :)

Third Time Lucky

You know when you say you're going out fishing I don't actually expect you to catch anything

:P

I've finally done it!!!

The capture of a monster! It took five mintues of intense reeling in and nearly broke my rod in half.

Watta fish!

Mission accomplished!!

And even though I paid $10 for bait, it was well worth it. :)

****

I haven't always been a fishing fan. When I was a kid, I've gone fishing many times and I didn't get excited about it.

That was until around four years ago when I worked with Hoang.

Hoang was this small guy at work who helped me heaps during my time as a test engineer. He's a small Vietnamese technician with a friendly easy going attitude to everything.

In between testing circuit boards, he would talk to me about fishing, fishing, fishing, chickies (our code name for porn) and then more fishing. We spent countless hours a day talking about fishing.

Every morning he'd sip coffee from his blue mug that had a marlin picture. He'd dream to me of catching a giant marlin one day.

Giant Marlin.

Marlin Marlin Marlin.

When you hang around someone long enough, you end up picking their interests, manners and habits. And maybe even their dreams.

I think its important to never lost track of your own dreams. It might put you in different territory to everyone else, but then thats why its called your dream, your goal.

Hoang's asked me many times to go north with him to catch Marlins.

I went south to catch salmon.

*****

we organised this trip. we dealt with all the drama. we did the hard mile.
how come the one who least deserves it, gets it always?

Life is horribly cruel sometimes.

Especially when the bad guy gets the prize.

Most often, the one who's doing it right, who's sacrificing and doing it hard, goes un-rewarded.

When I saw the sad look in her eyes I badly wanted to catch a salmon.

She wanted to be with someone who she can be proud of, not one who was making sure everyone was alright.