Commodore’s Notes

With our current situation there’s not a real lot to report so this will be pretty brief.
At the time of writing we are closed again and waiting for the lock down to end so we are keeping our fingers crossed. As soon as it does we will reopen in the blink of an eye and get back into serving up our famous cold handles of Carlton Draught, firing up our heaters, getting stuck into having a lot of serious fun and get everyone smiling again.

RECENT EVENTS

Just before this last lock down we raffled the last two crayfish for the season caught by our local cray fishermen Stephen and Kaide Love. The response to our Friday Night raffles has been sensational and the generosity of our members is very much appreciated.
We will now start raffling seafood trays until the cray season gets going again. All the profits go to local charities.

 

WINTER CUP COMPETITION NUMBER TWO 
Sponsored By Gary Keane Brick, Block and Scaffolding.

This comp was held on Sunday the 4th of July and the weather was terrible. I’ve been running the comps for 5 or 6 years now and this was the worst day weather wise I’ve seen.
It didn’t worry our fishing stalwarts one bit, with over 20 of us having a go.
Only one boat braved the elements with Coil and Clarkey getting vey wet and cold but coming in with a nice fish each.
The rest fished off the pier, rocks, beaches and rivers with a surprising amount of fish being caught and weighed in.
Our garfish specialists, Dick, Harley and Tony have been having a lot of success lately which is very impressive because gars are a difficult fish to find and catch in our neck of the woods and Coil who can catch whiting in a bathtub also did well.
As usual we were served up a magnificent mixed grill and salad free to all competitors. A special thanks to Flea for his cooking skills and also to Ange and Brigette for running the bar.
Hutch had a well earned weekend away in Melbourne and went to see his beloved Demons play. Unfortunately they got flogged.

UPCOMING EVENTS

WINTER CUP FISHING COMPETITION NUMBER THREE. Sponsored By Steve Hill of Hillec Electrical Services.
This comp is being held on Sunday the 1st of August with the weigh in starting at midday and the cut off 12.30pm. A mixed grill will be served up free to all competitors and only $10 to members. All members are welcome and to all you parents and grandparents out there. Get the kids away from the screens and out into the outdoors to have a crack at fishing. Australia’s number one pastime.

WORLD SAUSAGE ROLL CHAMPIONSHIPS Sponsored by LORNE CENTRAL

We will now be holding it on Saturday the 30th of October which is on the unofficial Melbourne Cup Long Weekend. This gives everyone plenty of time to practice their cooking skills.
If anyone out there would like to test run their product we have plenty of hungry sausage roll connoisseurs at the club most nights who will help you out. We have a panel of local celebrity judges lined up and huge prizes for several different categories.

PENINSULA KINGSWOOD COUNTRY GOLF CLUB RAFFLE donated by Heath Wilson.

We were going to sell tickets and draw the raffle at the Sausage Roll night but because that has been postponed we will now draw it on the new date. If anyone who purchased tickets wants a refund just tell Hutch or myself and we will happily oblige.

HUMPBACK WHALES

Every year we see more and more humpback whales while we are out fishing in my boat.
Recently we had a juvenile swimming a kilometre or more from us and suddenly it turned and swam straight at us and the went under our anchored boat.
It obviously wanted to check us out. We also saw several pairs of adults swimming in different directions.
Most of the whales we see here are Southern Right Whales and Humpbacks.
The Southern Rights don’t travel any further north because their newborn can cope with our cold water. The Humpbacks have to give birth in the warmer tropical waters.
The easiest way to pick the difference between the two at a distance is that Humpbacks have a small dorsal fin in the middle of their back. Southern Rights don’t have one at all.
I read recently that it’s now estimated that the Humpback population is now back to pre whaling numbers and their population is increasing by 10 to 12% every year. I hope the Japanese don’t start killing them again.
About 25,000 migrate north up the east coast of Australia and 35,000 up the west coast each year then back to Antarctica for the summer.
I can’t find any studies on why we get a small percentage of these travelling through Bass Strait but it seems logical to me that they have come up on the wrong side of Tasmania and then turn east or west to get back to their preferred destination.

SCHOOL SHARK ISSUE

I recently posted the photo below on Facebook of Jason our coffee boy, holding a school shark he caught while out fishing with me.
I then got into trouble with a few members on our Lorne Community Page.
It appears that the vast majority of people on this page aren’t people who are part of our community at all but I don’t have a problem with this until they start telling us how we should live our lives and what we should or shouldn’t do.
The problem started when I told a couple of them that we had eaten the school shark instead of letting it go.
They told me that they were ‘critically endangered’ and I was irresponsible.
Now I’m not a scientist but for the last 60 years I have spent half my life in, on or under the waters of Bass Strait.
I have released many hundreds of fish I believe to be rare or endangered.
In my experience I have seen School Sharks come and go in large numbers. Sometimes hardly catching any at all for a number of years then they appear in huge numbers as they have at the moment.
In my opinion this is related to them following their food source and I don’t believe that they are endangered at all.
I’ve seen the same cycle with Gummy Sharks. Over the last 10 years gummies have been around in large numbers but I can remember times when they were as scarce as hens teeth.
If I believed for one minute that School Sharks or Gummy Sharks were endangered I would release every one of them but I don’t so we will continue to enjoy them. Especially deep fried in batter washed down with a cold beer.

POINT GREY UPDATE

There has been some developments since our last posting.

During the VCAT hearing one of the lawyers representing one of the other objectors, identified an issue as to who had control of a section of a land title that was to be built on and asked both the SCS and GORCAPA who had control of it.Neither of the parties could confirm who at the time and were given time to resolve the matter.

It has been confirmed that it is under the control of the SCS and GORCAPA need the SCS to grant them consent for GORCAPA to proceed with the project as it is currently proposed.

We have been told that VCAT will bring down its decision on 4th August but are unsure of what the VCAT decision will have if the SCS grant consent.

There has been an enormous amount of concern in the local community which is not being recognised by some members of GORCAPA regarding the proposed demolition of the existing CO OP building and dislike of the current Beacon design that there has been others lobbying the SCS not to give consent but delay a decision for further discussion on the matter.

There is no concern with any party regarding the LAAC building design.

Our objections to VCAT were to the traffic circulation, parking and boat wash locations which we are hopeful of being recognised in the VCAT decision on 4th August.

Our Secretary John Higgins has recently met with GORCAPA’s new CEO Jodie Sizer and expressed the above views within the community and received a good hearing and we hope that our concerns get passed on to the remaining councillors before their 25th July decision meeting.

Following Johns meeting with Jodie Sizer, the LAAC committee met and voted on supporting our local council member in advising by email all SCS councillors of our decision to not support them granting consent to GORCAPA .

Ric Addison.

Vice Commodore

FISHING REPORT

The water is now sitting around 13 degrees which is normal for this time of year. The flathead are back in big numbers with plenty of good sized ones amongst them. Snapper numbers have increased with quite a few between 40 and 50cm.
Still a few King George coming in which is great because they usually go off the bite in winter.
As mentioned School Sharks are everywhere at the moment and also plenty of gummies.
We haven’t seen the big schools of salmon busting up lately but there’s plenty of mid sized Couta about. Teraki or Jackass Morwong are being caught in increasing numbers.

MERCHANDISE

We have new stock of top quality navy blue hoodies along with our range of different colours of short and long sleeve tshirts. Also caps, stubby holders, stickers and gift vouchers. Contact keith.miller@live.com.au if you’d like to arrange for anything to be sent by post.

 

COURTESY BUS

Our bus will be running on Friday’s and Saturdays. If anyone out there can help us out driving it please let Hutch know. Please be generous with your gold coin donations. Phone 0408 041234.

 

Cheers,

Commodore

Thanks to our sponsors:

KEANE CONTRACTING BRICK/BLOCK and SCAFFOLDING – Gary Keane
SURFCOAST GARDENING – Kerry Webster & Rob Dalziel