An air rescue and a few fish - 04/22/2015

[Fish-aholic]

Having been picked up at 12.30pm by my mate Withey, the plan was to fish low water from here, below pic, for a few hours in the hope of a ray or two, then later decide if we had the energy to fish a rock ledge for a few hours close to high tide.



As we made our way down the steps and on to the series of rock ledges, we soon had our feet planted on to the first patch of sand sandwiched between the exposed reefs. Suddenly out of the blue we could hear a series of shouts that stopped us in our tracks, we turn 180 degrees to peer back to where we had climbed down from to see what the commotion was. We soon realised the shouts were actually cries for help.

We could hear the cries but couldn't identify where they were coming from at first until my mate Withey spotted someone laying on the rocks waving a blood stained hand aloft. Registering something bad had happened we quickly dropped our gear to the ground and rushed over to see if we could help. It turns out it was an OAP of 70 years young who's ankle turned over and he had fallen about 12ft+ off a rock ledge on to the jagged rocks below causing a laceration to his head.

As soon as we knew the extent of the situation, Withey was phoning the emergency services. While he was busy calling the incident in, I was trying to comfort and help the poor chap out. With no medical experience I didn't want to move him in case he had a back injury, so I tried to make him as comfortable as he could be, given the situation. I then began gathering the chaps possessions that he was worried about which were sprawled around him. One of those items was his blood stained mobile phone but it was damaged from the fall and he couldn't raise the alarm for himself.

What surprised us though, there were a couple of nudists sunbathing about 20-30ft away from where he fell and were oblivious to his cries for help. They had thought someone was shouting at them to put their clothes back on, but they didn't take much notice (nudist beach). When the couple realised the given situation, the lady - who had dressed by now - also came over to help comfort the chap.

Time was getting on by now and still no help had arrived since raising the alarm. Shock was beginning to set in and laying on the jagged rocks were taking it's toll on the poor chap. It took over an hour and a half before the first ambulance crew had arrived at the scene. Minutes later a sea king helicopter managed to land on to the beach, quickly followed by the air ambulance and it's crew. Thinking about it now, we were all fortunate that the tide was ebbing and at a stage of nearing low water, the scenario could of been even more dire if the alarm was raised with a flooding tide. Luckily the sands of time was on our side and allowed for a greater window for all involved with the rescue.

With the accumulative arrivals of the emergency services, the chap was soon checked over, bandaged up, carefully placed into a stretcher and hoisted into the air by the sea king. It helped transport him a short distance to the sandy area on the beach where he was handed over to the awaiting air ambulance crew. We could now breath a sigh of relief and it was great to finally see him off those jagged rocks and into the safe hands of trained professionals who did an outstanding job.




As the tide waits for no man, it was too late for us to fish the planned low water mark with what is now a hastily flooding spring tide. Here is a short video clip of it's rise to give you folks an idea...




After a quick discussion, we decided to climb the ledges and fish from there for a few hours. We still had to wait an hour for the waterline to reach and surpass the rocks below us before we eventually started casting some meaty morsels out into the drink.



A stiff easterly breeze didn't help with long diastance casting, but it did not put the fish off. As expected the bait robbing dogfish were had on our first casts. On my second cast, I clocked my rod tip arching over and it was fish on. It wasn't long before a golden silhouette appeared below where Withey successfully landed it and brought it up for me...





A couple of pictures later and I climbed down the ledge to set him free and watch it gracefully glide away back into the depths from where it came from.

More pestering dogfish were caught and Withey was having a field day using two rods and catching them on every cast he made. The monotony was eventually broken up with a better bite and the culprit was this little fella that was lifted on to the ledge...



Once returned, our well prepared meaty morsels must of been landing bang smack in the middle of a dogfish festival. I really can't wait until the numbers of the things begin to settle in conjunction with the rising sea temperatures by heading deeper in towards the summer season.

As the sun began edging closer to the horizon, Withey's rod once again broke the monotony of the slight tugs given by the dogfish and he was soon retrieving a better fish. As it surfaced and neared the base of the ledge, a milky white belly from a small ray could be seen. The matured claspers were clearly visible and over proportioned for it's size, a characteristic which told us it was a spotted ray before hauling it out of the drink to be safely landed. This species of ray do not exceed 9lb...





Once again, it was returned to the depths and we're both back to feeding the usual suspects. Watching a beautiful sunset is always worth pausing for and it doesn't last long before a black star lit blanket slowly draws overhead.





Darkness had now set in and the two of us had to share one headlamp between us as I forgot to bring mine, so it was time to call an end to a day that was a lot more eventful than we could ever of imagined. Sea fishing, aye, expect the unexpected.


Steve


Ps/ I had Shark Hunter in mind while I was returning his bait.  

[Marcq]

Cool report  Those rays looks like they have eyelashes, cute 

Thanks for sharing

Marc..

[Dominick]

A new first on the AT site.  Heroes.  You guys did a good job.  Dominick

[Shark Hunter]

Heroes indeed Dominick!
Good job Gents on doing your part. What goes around, comes around.
Its all about doing the right thing. No matter what you are doing.
And you did just that.
Congrats. You will be repaid in some form. Trust Me on that.