Poaching snapper in Sydney. 11Apr14

TR by sunshiner

Wind: calm
Swell: 0.5m
Water temp: 24°C
Current: n/a
Launch point: Bilgola Beach, NSW
Participants: sunshiner only
Keen Angler Program: n/a

As some of you are aware, I'm presently in the Sydney area visiting close family. We're staying at our son's residence within sight of the beach on the northern suburbs of Sydney so naturally I've brought my beloved Supalite X, which travels easily on the racks on our family Forester.

Anyway, conditions were looking great for an open ocean launch on Friday, but babysitting and other duties precluded any launch in the morning. By 12:30pm conditions still looked great although the forecast for the weekend showed atrocious weather on the way. Now or never was the time and nearby Bilgola Beach, small and confined between two headlands, looked inviting.

Bilgola Beach, courtesy Google Earth.

Launch time conditions

As you can see, launch was easy and the distant showers and clouds visible in the pic above were harbingers of the foul weather expected to arrive within 12 hours. I'd launched here once before, last November, and had marked as a waypoint on my little Etrex GPS the area I'd fished then and found a large school of yellowtail kingfish, all apparently undersize, and so called by the locals "rat kings".

This waypoint was around 1500m from the launch site and I headed straight for it, trolling a soft plastic as I paddled along on the calm and clear ocean. I'd seen no surface activity as I went along but pretty soon I was hooked up, as the buzzing drag told me.

This fish put up a spirited fight and as soon as it jumped, close to the yak I recognized it as a tailor, which we rarely catch offshore in Noosa.

Tailor, around 45cm. Naturally, the soft plastic was torn to shreds and totally unusable as a lure afterward.

So, this was a good start. A keeper in the yak already. I had some faint hopes of perhaps providing a fresh fish meal for the family group but would need a few more fillets to do the job.

My waypoint was reached a short while later without further action. Depth here was 13-15m and there were plenty of signs of baitfish and other squiggles on the sonar. Hoping for a snapper, I set up my usual Jew Shoal routine and started chucking the SP around and working it back to the yak. Early on I felt some extra weight on the SP and put it down to squid or cuttlefish having a go then dropping off as I started to retrieve.

Then came the hit I was waiting for. A typical, albeit small, snapper take. Sure enough, up popped a small keeper, about 35cm (NSW minimum legal is 30cm) proved that snapper were present.

Small but welcome. Hopefully a sign of more to come.

At this time I was fishing with only one outfit, but I still had a spare spinning outfit, which I'd earlier rigged for trolling a HB lure. Knowing that I was running out of time to catch a feed I decided to re-rig this outfit with a SP and just hang it out the back in mid water. This done, I chucked it out about ten metres and put the rod butt in the port side rod holder.

I'd just turned my attention back to casting and retrieving an SP with outfit number one when I sensed the yak rolling to port. Ahah! I know why, I thought. Sure enough, the number two reel was now beginning to give line against the lightly set drag and the bouncing rod tip was pointing straight down into the depths. A struggling snapper on the end is a very satisfying feeling and soon I knew my goal of a family feed was now within reach as snapper number two joined the tailor and earlier smaller snapper in the fish box.

The weather was starting to look more ominous but I was only 1500m from my launch spot and much closer to the nearest usable beach. Showers were visible out to sea and further south, but I was comfortable and catching fish and the winds still light and variable, right here.

Then a tap on the cast outfit and a hookup, but slightly different from a snapper hit.

Sydneysiders know this species well. Sergeant Baker, not an esteemed eating fish so returned to the sea.

The fishing action now dropped off briefly as a heavy but brief shower came through and I was blown off my mark and had to then paddle back to it. My sonar was showing pretty continuous fish activity in the vicinity of the mark with occasional dense patches of what might have been yakkas or similar so I decided to fish until about 3:30 pm. One more snapper would really be nice, I remember thinking, with about ten minutes to go. Shortly after that the familiar lean to port happened again and sure enough, the trailing outfit had snared another victim. This was the third and largest snapper, albeit at 43cm or so not very big, but a fish which would nevertheless yield tasty and decent sized fillets.

Third snapper. Mission accomplished.

Paddling back in to Bilgola Beach, the landing area in the corner to the right (northern end).

Landing was dead easy, in contrast to conditions just 12 hours later when the swell had increased to dangerous levels at the same beach.

Nice bag for a quick fish in a new (for me) fishing spot.

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