Wind: calm
Swell: 1.6m E
Water temp: 27°C
Current: at Jew Shoal, about 1.5kph, toward the north east
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: jimbo, scater, soren, carlo, sunshiner
Keen Angler Program: n/a
The swell was up and the tide was still dropping at launch time, around 5:20am. In the pre-dawn darkness we could see white water at the end of the groyne and decided to hang about until there was a little more light; it looked a bit flaky. Carlo, who had arrived from Gympie at about 11:00 pm and slept in his car at Middle Groyne, reckoned that all night he was imagining six footers crashing into the wall, judging by the noise.
Yes, there were some big waves but everyone picked the gaps, usually after holding in the hole at the end of the groyne before charging out. Even though it was still dark as we assembled out the back the white eyeballs could be seen clearly.
Jew Shoal was the agreed fishing location and we paddled out to it in windless conditions with that swell rolling underneath us.
My progress was interrupted, however, as I had three hookups in the first few minutes after starting paddling toward the north.
Two of the strikes, and probably all three were from small sharks. The second one spat the hooks. No one else was bothered by them.
Soren was in the lead and started reporting surface activity the closer he got to Jew Shoal. Certainly we could see lots of terns, all seemingly heading west, towards Little Halls Reef. Carlo quickly hooked up to what turned out to be a small tuna, species unknown, but it is carrying around one of carlo's lures right now.
Jimbo and I were keen to target the bottom fish, he with bait, I with SPs. He won in what turned out again to be very slow activity. All I could attract with my SP was a beautifully patterned wire netting cod which I released. Jimbo finished up bringing home two sweetlip and a snapper, all taken on prawns and all just over keeper size. His pillies attracted no attention at all.
Meantime, soren and scater were busy chasing bustups which gradually became more common as the sun got higher in the sky. I joined them after spending a couple of hours trying every trick I knew on the SPs. The main activity was around 500m SE of The Pinnacles but bustups tended to be very short in duration, especially with a certain tinny charging through the middle of them at high speed. Scater took the initiative and diplomatically pointed out to this tinny operator that his actions were not considered good manners in Laguna Bay. Apparently his advice was well accepted, which is a good result.
Around 9:00 am I pulled the pin, following carlo who had left about 30 minutes earlier. The remainder of the gang opted to follow me soon afterward. There were still bustups happening and some of the fish were pretty big, judging by the size of the splashes but only scater managed to get a hookup on a big tuna and that came to nothing when the hook pulled.
Middle Groyne was now scary. The tide was lower and the waves seemingly bigger than when we'd launched. In our usual return path the waves were now breaking a good 40 metres out from the wall and stark evidence of this was the half dozen or so boardriders sitting out there. I was first among the final four to arrive back and took one look at the break and decided to avoid it if possible. Picking a good run would have been difficult to say the least as we could not hold any closer than about 60 metres from the wall and that meant using that option we were totally exposed for at least 45 seconds before reaching comparative safety, close to the wall. To the east, however, there were no board riders and this is the option I went for, the first time in a year or so at least.
I went through first followed closely by scater and then I got out the camera to shoot some movie of jimbo and soren as they ran the same path. Some frames from the movie:
Jimbo solves the problem with a spectacular brace
Soren came hooting in at top speed (wave assisted), amazing the beachgoers
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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