From: sunshiner
Date: 9/06/2010 2:02 PM
Weather
Cloud cover: 5/10 in the NE
Wind direction & speed: gentle SW
Sea state: 1.5m swell from SE
Just after dark last night the rain belted down at home for 30 minutes or so after a day in which the wind gradually dropped. Seabreeze and Willy Weather both had forecast a reasonable day for an offshore yak trip today. As usual, Jaro had put out the call to arms. So this morning at 0550 I arrived in the carpark to find only one other car I recognized: that of Ian Tagg. The ocean swell hitting Sunshine Beach was pretty big but from the SE and I half expected that some of it would be rolling into Main Beach so I sauntered down to the beach to find, happily, that very little of the swell had survived the near 180 degree turn. Other than a few rain showers the weather seemed totally benign and the sea almost friendly.
Jaro arrived and soon we were ready to launch.
0616hrs. Jaro was a little late getting there today but here we are, ready to launch.
Ian was out at Little Hall's Reef, as I discovered after contacting him by VHF radio. He reported a light westerly breeze out there and no sign of any pelagics -- he intended to fish the bottom. Because Jew Shoal showed some promise last week, Jaro and I decided to fish there again. Soon we were paddling north, only Jaro trolling as I was already rigged to fish the bottom in the hope of sweetlip or snapper. We'd only been paddling a few minutes when Jaro's lure was taken, just after we'd paddled over a large shoal of fish clearly showing on both of our fish finders. The fish which had taken his lure was not big and Jaro soon had it to the boat.
0641hrs. Tailor, less than the legal minimum of 30cm, returned to the water to grow. Note the very sharp teeth.
And so our journey resumed. It's only a 40 min paddle to Jew Shoal and we were headed for the SW corner, to take advantage of the expected SW breeze which would push us toward the NE, drift fishing right across the best parts of Jew Shoal.
Almost at the chosen mark. I stopped paddling to set up my drift and was slowing down when Jaro yelled that he'd hooked up. This was right on top of one of my registered waypoints. Clearly this was no baby tailor. Jaro's yak had been swung through 180 degrees and was being towed back along the path we'd just travelled, the rod bent satisfyingly, line being stripped from the spool intermittently. I followed at a discreet distance, camera running.
After a few minutes Jaro had the fish under control and as it swept past both of us, a couple of metres down we could clearly see that it was a decent Spaniard. Jaro's previous experience with this highly prized species (probably the most prized fish among kayak fishers) allowed him to stay cool and carefully manoeuvre the fish into the final stage of the fight. Even so there were a few splashy moments.
(Frame from video)
But soon Jaro had neatly placed the gaff into the mackerel's lower jaw. He then followed his tethering procedure to ensure that this fish would not escape.
Jaro inserts the tether securing hook through the Spaniard's lower jaw. The Halco Laser Pro lure can be seen firmly attached to the head of the fish. (Frame from video)
Not a bad start to the morning!
The remainder of our time today at Jew Shoal was punctuated by the occasional catch of a small reefie, no sweetlip at all, and only one snapper, undersize. The weather just got better and better, with the cloud clearing to puffy small cumulus and the wind dropping right out. We left the reef around 1015 and by 1100 were back at our launching point.
Conditions on the way back in...
A lady on the beach happily agreed to have her photo taken with Jaro's fish.
105cm and 7.5kg.
VIDEO and later email
One of the more alert Hookers has found the deliberate error ;-) in my earlier report. Tailor minimum legal size is now 35cm (changed this year). Well done Mr Crawford.
I've done a quick cobble-together of a brief video featuring Jaro's Spaniard capture this morning. There's a great lesson in there about tethering gear and some nice music provided by members of the Far Northern Soul Collective of Cairns, NQ. Here's the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbEQUkrm-v4
Just before I turned off my radio I contacted Ian, still out at LH Reef. He had boated one mackerel tuna but, as I understood him, no snapper or sweetlip. Please update us Ian if that info is wrong.
Well done Jaro, you're on fire at the moment. Thanks for coming along.
I'm off to Sydney for several days and hope the snapper are back on when I return.
Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09 or 22 (if alone), Call Sign: sunshiner
http://www.noosayakkers.blogspot.com/
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