Well, I haven't been fishing since the Exmouth comp and with a skin full of wine on Friday night over at Greg's place (the next door neighbour's, who was heading off in the morning to Shark Bay to fish for a week....bastard! )  I asked my new neighbour Mark from across the road, who was joining us for a drink, if he would like to go fishing on Sunday.

Mark has NEVER been fishing in his life, let alone on a boat, so it promised to be an interesting day.

I organised a 7-00am start at my place (1 degree celcius was forecast) I had the boat packed and ready to go, so off we trecked to the ramp. We arrived at Mindarie and I proceeded to give Mark the drill on what to do to launch. All good and we had the boat heading out in no time.

The weather was mint, and with a slight chop we headed to my whiting grounds as I had promised Mark's missus that I would definaitly get Mark onto some fish. (A Dhuie I couldn't guarantee, but I could at least guarantee a feed).

I rigged up the rods and showed mark how to bait his hooks and gave a quick lesson on what to do, how to strike, when to strike and how to pump and wind etc. This after all was the kindergarten of fishing, where gumby could catch a fish, but it was an important learning curve before gettinga  fish of a lifetime on and possibly losing it.

True to form Mark grasped the strike, and retreive aspects very quickly and before you know it first drop and he had officially caught his first ever fish.

Happy as Larry for the photo, then I let him know the boat rule of first fish over the side has to go back, no matter what it is, just so we can appease the fish gods. With the smile now wiped from his face he released the fish and rebaited. Back down and before you know it he was pulling them in one and two after the other. We stayed for about an hour and fine tuned his technique before heading off to find bigger fare.

First spot and first drop with the larger gear and Mark was on again. A good fight and a lovely little Queenie was landed before release. Surely this was a good sign and with it being early in the day we had plenty of options to try for something bigger and better.

Despite not having his "sea legs" and having to fish from sitting on the esky, Mark was proving to be a very quick learner. A few drifts later and he was on again. This time a different fight but it had him actually standing up and bracing hmself against the side of the boat whilst he fought the fish. It was so funny to see how he was taking a wind of the reel then grabbing the hand rail to steady himself before turning the reel again. Still not confident on his feet in a bit of choppy sea. Anyway true to form he didnt give up and landed this beauty of a Harlequin.

Mark is a chef by trade and as he chatted about the fish and how he would prepare it etc it had my mouth watering just thinking about it.

Mark was still unsure on his feet and in fact when he went to the other side of the boat at one stage to have a pee, on letting go of the grab rail to zip up his fly, he lost balance and went head over heels backwards smashing into the back of my legs. Hillarious at the time but lucky it didn't end up in tears.

We moved around a bit from lump to lump but didn't stray too far from a patch I have in the 40's. With a few nice fish landed by myself including a couple of sargeant bakers which I immediately filletted for bait, we headed to one of my unamed (just a number) spots. "OK Mark this is one when we can name the spot after you if you get a good fish, so be on your game". Down he drops and "WHAM!" he nearly gets pulled over the side. "Whoah!!" he cried as he settled in to the fight. sure enough the fight subsided a bit and I called if for a dhuie. "Go slow from here" I said, and Mark took the advice onboard, slowing his retrieve and letting the fish have its head if it dove down a bit.

Within a minute or two the tell tale silver shape materialised from the depths and good old Mark had his first ever Dhuie on his first ever fishing trip. What a champ.

Whilst it wasn't a big mama, it was a respectable 60cm and destined for the dinner table as it rounded out our bag limit for the day.

We had fun with some other fish and ended the day at the whiting patch to make sure we had a good feed between us.

We ended up bagging out on cat 1 and released, several pinkies, dhuies and a queenie. About 30 plump sandies and a big flattie topped it off. Mark scrubbed and polished the boat and helped with the filleting. All in all a top day on the water with a great bloke, who thoroughly enjoyed his first day ever fishing.

The pressure is now on for me to get him a 10kg plus Dhuie after he saw a few pics I have in the house.