Report compliments of Pete Thompson. Cheers.
The Brighton Boat Comp was run on Sunday last, with a reasonable turn-out given short notice and the fact that not many members often dive that end of the Bay. Four boats, 2 jetskis and one shore diver for a total of 12 competitors took part. For once, my 70hp wasn’t much of a disadvantage, with low winds and glassy conditions. Jetskis were probably the vehicle of choice, being the fastest in these conditions. Local knowledge as usual proved to be quite valuable, with fish concentrated in very specific spots.
Probably due to the rain during the week, visibility was poor in most locations (1-4m) and points which reported several species during mid-week dives had very little. The sort of conditions that when you do a social dive, you take one look, go home to watch the footie and hope the missus doesn’t count it as a day’s diving. I had Joseph and Kim on the boat with me, and we tried a few spots including Williamstown, Anonyma Reef, Brighton reef and a few attempts at baitfish with diving gulls. Fish were scarce, and for the first time ever I felt a 1m gun was too long, missing a couple of duskies at point blank, and a nice pinkie sunbaking on the weed. I was surprised by the amount of mussels, abalone and urchins on some of the reefs, and Joe took home a feed of mussels. A school of good salmon passed through on one dive, and Kim lost a couple, Joe got a smaller one. Kim got a garfish on the last dive, with 4 fish to weigh.
Everyone got back in time for the 3pm weighin, Bob thought it was at 2pm so penalised himself… Chris and Andrew ran the weighin, and Andrew and Alex had the BBQ cranking. Duskies were common, various LJs, wrasse were rare, Kiwi and Bob had black bream, Alex had some pinkies, some snook, and Geoff had two fine flathead, with much discussion on whether they were different species. To my untrained eye they looked very close (or male and female) but the final decision was they were 2 species, Rock and Sand flathead, and Geoff took top spot with 7 species, followed by Paul on 6.
The venue is good, with ample boat parking ($16.80 owch) and grassy area, and not too far to drive for most members, and it’s probably a safe choice for a boat comp when the swell is up. All part of the learning experience, and some new reefs to go back to in better viz conditions. Thanks to Andrew and the team for organising, and to everyone who turned up.
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. And the heavy rain the day before didn't help the Vis making it very patchy. I had some areas that were 3-4m Vis and other locations south between 6 and 10m. And as Pete said some areas you could count 7 species on a given day but that's comps for ya. You never know what the actual day is going to be like. Kitty Miller comp 2 in the start of the season with same amount of divers was a similar flat day with 7 species winning the day.