THE BACK UP PLAN

We all know how important the weather forecast plays to any planned fishing trip; especially for extended trips away. A couple of mates and myself had recently planned four days fishing the remote beaches along SA’s Bight region. It is a wild coastline with hundreds of kilometres of sand and surf to explore, but it’s not the ideal place to be grounded when the weather isn’t on your side.

I prefer the drop-of-the-hat type trip when visiting these beaches; throwing camping and fishing gear together at the last minute when a good window of weather rolls around. And by picking favourable weather it helps to improve your chances of success in the surf, and also makes the whole beach-camping scene more enjoyable. Being stuck on a beach in a 20 to 30 knot onshore southerly isn’t a whole lot of fun – we’ve been there and done that, and it’s hard work.

This past season however, we didn’t have the flexibility to head west on the spur of the moment, we had to pick a block of time in advance to coincide with a mate from Adelaide. So with four days cherry-picked on the calendar to coincide with good