Caught by the Fuzz in South Australia
On a recent Hook, Line and Sinker shoot, Nick and Andrew travelled to the Eyre Peninsular in search of big fish… they spent two days in the car, stayed at a tiny coastal town with only one pub and had a tangle with a great white shark!
We picked up our Triton from the Mitsubishi head office in Adelaide about 10am. Being a sponsor of the show, Mitsubishi often provide us with a Triton when we travel around. It had less than 1000kms on it, so what we had planned over the next few days would mean we’d take it on it’s longest drive yet.
Leaving Adelaide at 10.30am we drove out along what we think is the most boring road in the world – the Port Wakefield Rd… It takes you all the way to Port Augusta, and it runs straight, through a heap of salty, deserty type land. It’s what you’d call ‘big sky’ country. We had the Triton packed to rafters with three people, a heap of camera gear and a long fishing rod tube.
Once we made it to Port Augusta after a lazy three and half hour drive, we made a refreshments stop and then headed south-west, towards Port Lincoln. Here the road gets more interesting, it’s less deserty and a bit more pretty. Our destination was a little holiday getaway called Arno Bay and we made it there by 6pm. A long day in the car, but we arrived feeling fresh and hopeful of some good fishing to come.
Our home away from home for the next four nights was Hotel Arno. Boff runs it and he’s a bit of legend around town – as soon as we arrived he bought us beer and told us to look at all the fishing photos in the bar.
Arno is only small – a couple of shops, the pub and a working dock where all the fish farmers work out of. They farm bluefin tuna and kingfish these waters – but we were there for snapper.
Our fishing guide for the week was a man known simply as ‘The Fuzz’ – a crazy South Australian man who runs Fuzzlle’s Fishing Adventures and who’s claim to fame is guiding a client to catching the biggest snapper ever caught in the world! It weighs 45 pounds and for anyone who knows anything about snapper – that’s huge!
As well as fishing some locations close to Arno Bay, the highlight of the trip was a long boat ride to a secret spot the Fuzz has. Within no time Nick hooked up in a big snapper and we thought we were going to be in for the snapper session of our lives. But then a visitor turned up at the boat. A great white shark – all 16 foot of her. We got a great look at her, filmed her a bit and got extremely excited as neither Nick or myself had ever seen a Great White!
Needless to say, the snapper went off the bite after the big girl showed up – any way we still managed a great show of Hook, Line and Sinker, which will be on air in only a few weeks time.
The next trip we’ve got planned is to Queensland, to a town called 1770… We can’t wait!
Hook, Line and Sinker goes to air on Southern Cross TEN in Qld, NSW and Vic and on Southern Cross TV in Darwin and Tasmania. It also airs on Central and on Spencer Gulf networks. Check out the show on the web at www.hooklinesinker.tv
