Spanish and squid, 21Feb14

TR by sunshiner

Wind: none, light northerly early
Swell: one metre E
Water temp: 26-27°C
Current: northerly at Middle Groyne
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: tarzan, jaro, jonno, redgreg, tunny, stormin, sunshiner
Keen Angler Program: Possible donation by redgreg

Another launch in darkness. We were all headed for Jew Shoal, with pedro leading the way, about 30 minutes ahead, probably. Glassy conditions, with the faintest northerly and the sky in the east washed with pink as the earth rotated. I never get tired of seeing the dawn from a kayak in the ocean.

No action all the way out to Jew Shoal. But a radio update from pedro just as we arrived revealed that he'd seen a tinny out there bag a fish, probably a Spaniard. Once again, the kayaks outnumbered the stinkies and it wasn't too hard to do your own thing without crossing lines with a chugging aluminium container with up to three people aboard.

As there was no sign of surface action and no densely packed schools of bait on the sounder I headed for the shallows, water 7-12m deep near the Pinnacles. Yes, there were baitfish here, as usual, but apparently nothing harassing them.

Something down there.

I spent quite a lot of time here, prospecting and knew for sure that my SP was swimming around inside the bait shoals. Not a touch, well maybe one half-hearted bump. Meanwhile my colleagues were all trolling lures and baits all around the shoal.

Eventually, tunny came up on the radio and told me that redgreg looked as if he were hooked up. Looking around, I spotted him not far away and paddled straight toward him to get a pic if possible.

Not redgreg's first, but this is about as fresh as they get. Beautiful in the early morning light, eh? Taken on a whole garfish bait.

This capture woke everyone up. The trolling continued. Then stormin drew our attention to terns flocking and dipping about 500m SE of the Pinnacles. Several of us headed down that way just in case there were spotty macs present. Only mac tuna, apparently, as one of the guys in a tinny reckoned. Here tunny's pillie bait got taken but the fish gained its freedom when the line parted for unknown reasons.

Certainly there was no significant surface action that I saw. Pedro broke out of the pattern and decided to try for bottom fish and succeeded quickly, first with a sweetlip which he bagged and secondly with a probable big sweetlip which bricked him. His half pillies were pulling the action but my SP in the same area attracted no attention.

Then redgreg hooked up again, this time to an unusual catch for us.

Tiger squid (as pedro later informed me), which attacked his garfish bait and wouldn't let go. It wasn't hooked and Greg just gaffed it as it lay in the water next to the yak munching on his garfish.

Around 8:00am, with no significant breeze and the burning off of the clouds which had been giving us some protection from the sun, some of us, including me, started to head back in. Part way back we heard pedro report by radio that he'd just been inked by a squid. This one had grabbed a small fish that pedro had hooked and again had refused to let go, so that pedro could easily gaff it next to the yak. I saw pedro's yak when he came back to the beach and it was certainly looking quite mottled. Hope Wendy manages to get the inkspots off, pedro!

A pleasant morning spent in great company. Thanks for coming along guys, see you next week. Please feel free to add your comments and pics by email to steve or me.

Kev Long
Sunshiner
Author Kayak Fishing Manual for iPad and Mac (click linked text to view)
Stealth Supalite X, yellow/orange

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