Breeze, what breeze? 09Sep12

TR by Gemini

Participants:  richmond, gemini, stormin, sunshiner, tarzan, kiwibro, corie, jaro, salty, kahuna, mangrove-mac
Conditions: Perfect, glassy, light breeze...to start with (I'll get to that later)

We all arrived at MG to a picture perfect start to the day. Very little wind, no swell, fantastic. Spaniards were to be the flavour of the day after Baptism's random catch the day before.

Launch time. Pic by sunshiner

A not so dry launch was my reward for jumping the gun, but my official excuse is that I was doing it for the camera...


Wet bum imminent!

Richmond had launched earlier, and after checking his location and status we all opted to head up the North Shore towards Little Halls and Halls reefs. The paddle up was largely uneventful, but we passed a number of dolphins enjoying themselves in the excellent conditions, some of whom had no issue with yak bound humans.


One of the dolphins only metres away.

After arriving at Little Halls, Sunshiner advised us that there was a reasonable amount of bait getting around, so he was going to paddle the area for a while. I opted for a brief bottom bash with some prawns, but turned a nil result.

With no action presenting itself, we then moved on to Halls. Once near Halls, the lack of bait in the water or strikes on trolled lines spooked a portion of our group who opted to move onto Jew Shoal instead. The remainder of us at Halls split again, with some trolling and some bashing the bottom. I opted for a brief bottom bash, pulling in a juvenile (type unknown) who went straight back.

After giving up on bottom bashing, I trolled my way over to Jaro who was pulling live bait from a school he had found. At the time I was only trolling a single line with a laser pro (for pelagics), but after leaving Jaro to his baitfish I dropped my second line. The second line was running a 120mm River 2 Sea downsider in gold...which was smashed within 300m of leaving Jaro.

The fight was brief, but he pulled pretty hard with a lot of head shaking. I thought I had a shark after spotting him circling below, but it turned out to be a healthy cobia.


Come to papa!

In the excitement the cobia had managed to foul hook itself nicely in the gills, so he went into the hold with lure intact. I had then intended to head back to MG via a slow troll in close to shore, but Jaro asked me to wait to assist with his yak, and to get a few photos.


Cobia, with lure intact.

This is where things became interesting. Sunshiner radioed to advise us of a stiff breeze whipping up from the south east which may cause us problems on the return trip. We decided to head back without any further delay, but we were still too slow. Halfway between Halls and Little Halls we saw the breeze stirring the water in our path...then it struck. At 10-15 knots, gusting to 20, we had a hard slog back to MG for the last 4KMs. I will most certainly be feeling that in the morning!

Re-entry was uneventful, although I did have one rogue wave slip under me that required a bit of leaning on my part.


Weeeeeeeeeeee!

Unfortunately the total fish count for the day was a bit slim. Asides from the cobia, Sunshiner bagged a bonito, and Kiwibro bagged a ?? (what did you get? I was too busy paddling to hear the identification on the radio at the time).

Cobia on the mat. 98cm. 5KG (exact, weighed at Davos) Pic by sunshiner

Distance 15.2 km
Max Speed 8.1 km/hour
Avg Speed 3.0 km/hour



Cheers!

Gemini