Baitfish aplenty, LB 14Nov12

TR by sunshiner

Wind: Westerly, to 2 knots, picking up to northerly, 5-10 knots
Swell: 1.5 metre easterly
Current: at Little Halls Reef, none
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: jaro, richmond, pedro, jimbo, daveyG, doctor dog, kayakone, sunshiner

Glassy conditions in close to Main Beach today at launch time were a change from the last few days which had been characterized by howling winds and big swells.

By the time I got to the carpark at 04:50, somewhat later than I intended, pedro, richmond, jaro and jimbo had already launched. Kayakone was in the last stage of readying his Adventure and in fact got it down to the beach just before I did.

Yaks belonging to Kayakone and me, ready for launch. Spot the difference?

A couple of minutes later I was out the back and a couple more minutes after that I was off, paddling toward Halls Reef, via Little Halls Reef, where the earlier launchers had gone.

The reasons for choosing that area were two: firstly that we had information from recent TR that schools of baitfish were present; and secondly that the wind was forecast to blow quite stiffly from the north. The five km journey from Halls Reef with the wind up our tails is quite a more pleasant experience than having it in our faces which does happen sometimes.

Soon after I set off pedro came up on the radio and let us all know that he was hooked up. Whatever was on the end of his trolled line had taken a whole bonito bait and was putting up a hard fight. It turned out to be a shark, estimated by pedro at over 1.5m long. Somehow pedro managed to retrieve his gear from the shark’s mouth and set it free, without losing his fingers.

By now we had the western part of Laguna Bay covered, with several boats scattered over the distance between Little Halls Reef and Halls Reef. Also about to enter this space were the remaining three of our group who had just embarked at Middle Groyne.

The partial eclipse of the sun early today occupied our attention for a while out there, with the light and heat from the sun decreasing noticeably as the moon partially masked its rays. A quick glance at the sun while wearing sunglasses revealed a moon shaped bite out of its left face. It would have been really interesting to experience at sea in north Queensland where a total eclipse occurred at the same time.

Jaro was the first to announce success with a small snapper and later he got another, both on bait. Then pedro, with another, a bit larger, taken on a half pilchard. We were all keeping each other informed by radio, but the info was mainly that there were no obvious pelagics around even though there were many schools of baitfish.

Kayakone paddles past, on his first fishing trip with us.

Pedro and I shadowed several of these schools, visible on the surface and on the fishfinder, dragging lures deep and shallow through the fish without result, a strong indication that no pelagics or other predators were present. One or two terns hung around these patches of bait, but generally they were ignored by the few terns we saw today. It seemed that a couple of pics might be worthwhile so I pulled out the camera.

The rippled surface indicating the moving baitfish.

Underwater shot of the fish, 40-50mm long, as they moved past my yak.

Clearly there's quite a bit of Laguna Bay fresh food awaiting the predators, so it's probably worth visiting the area whenever you get a chance as sooner or later the razor gang will show up and put on an unforgettable display of brutal carnage. That's when you need to have the slugs ready, and a suitable casting outfit.

I'd planned to get back to Middle Groyne by 09:30 so started the slow haul back in company with Doctor Dog about 08:15. We both trolled HBs all the way back in lovely tail wind conditions and even encountered a few more patches of bait but got no action.

Richmond and daveyG were back at Middle Groyne when we got there, the latter going in and out several times just for the fun of riding the nicely shaped waves rolling in to Main Beach. I decided to have a go too and was going well surfing the wave until at the end I ran out of water while bracing and was promptly spilled out onto the sand as the starboard side of the yak hit the sand while the port side was still in knee deep water. This was a case where I should have gone nose first into the beach instead of bracing and showing off to richmond and turtleboy who stood on the beach with wide grins as I tumbled out.

Braced on the wave. Should have kept going straight and skidded to a halt (frame from video).

Video (47 secs) of return to beach added 1945hrs. Voice over explaining what's happening.


At the time of writing I'm unsure of final results but richmond, daveyG, doc dog, jimbo and I all scored donuts. Hopefully the others will let us know how they went.

Kev
sunshiner