President Clubs Latest Outing

Here we are home again cleaning up gear and reflecting upon the President clubs latest outing.
Thursday morning saw 5 Presidents head to Tooms Lake early to ensure our usual camping spot, thank goodness they did as car after car came in on the Friday morning with the same idea. The shorelines soon turned into “little cities” of makeshift campers and tents.

The bulk of our group arrived Friday afternoon with a few more arriving on the Saturday, pushing our attendance to between 25 and thirty.
Inland Fisheries director (John Diggle) and marketing and communications consultant (Sarah Graham) also called in for a coffee and egg ‘n’ bacon which was great to see, their visit was appreciated by all and shows how accessible these people are to the public, (indeed are rare but welcome trait in “government departments” now days!!)
Up to this point in time we had been spoilt in regards to the weather, with a calm/ warm Friday evening and Saturday morning, overseeing a “Spanish armada” of boats out on the water as daylight broke,.. whilst in search of the first trout of the season.
Bait fishers seemed to be doing the best, with a couple caught in front of John and Sarah whilst we were standing overlooking the lake enjoying the view.
At 9am most of our group had come in for breakfast and the first of our fish were displayed, Kevin Wilkinson from Melbourne fairing the best to this point in time with two nice rainbow trout caught on soft plastics.
Plans were quickly being made as to "how to attack them again", but “then” the weather turned and progressively got worse and worse. (we knew it was coming but hoped it wouldn't be that bad!), ......unfortunately it was.
With no end in sight, the decision was made around three o'clock, that as soon as the webered lunch was cooked and eaten, we would all chip in and within an hour, we could be packed up and on the road home. This was really disappointing for us, as up to this point in time the weekend had been a resounding success and everyone was “as usual” having a ball.....but you can’t argue with mother nature.
President Kevin Wilkinson was declared our winner for the weekend, taking the $160 prize money (from the $10 entry fees) and 10 packets of YEP lures donated by the Howard family, being for the biggest fish..(it weighed in at 2.14 pounds).
Well done Kevin!!
That’s about it in a nutshell, a great weekend, unfortunately cut short, ....but there is always next time.
My thanks to all that made the weekend so enjoyable and for the spirit in which it was held.
Also a special thank you to Presidents Rose and Vic for the donation of the marquee and for arriving on the Friday afternoon to show us “dumb bums” how it all fits together, President Brian Allan for all the firewood, President Mike Fry for the additional Webber, Presidents Jim and Virginia for their help with the breakfasts and cooking and last but not least my wife President Janet for the salads.
Our next outing ( date to be announced later after it warms up a bit !!) will be at Lake Leake, where hopefully the weather gods will be a bit kinder to us.
Until then, we look forward to the President reports that hopefully will once again start to flow in as we start to put our 2011/2012 book together and the season fires up.
Until then, as Rex say’s...good fishing to you all!!
President Todd.