TR by sunshiner
Wind: gentle SW at first, then calm afterward
Swell: 1.2m SE
Water temp: 20.6°C
Tides: 3:30 am : 0.32 L; 9:30 am : 1.44 H
Current: none detected
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Surface action: none
Participants: eyetag, diesel, tunny, jimbo, sunshiner
My trip distance: 10.6km
Keen Angler Program: Two snapper frames
We're getting some lovely weather at the moment, but unfortunately not on weekends, although next weekend may come up trumps. Last Friday was superb and the forecast for today was also, although DIP had a 20knot SE blowing until midnight last night, when it suddenly dropped away, as forecast.
The earth's now moving into that part of its orbit that delivers us antipodeans our summer and longer days than in winter (in terms of daylight). That was noticeable this morning as we'd called for launch at 05:45, 15 minutes earlier than our regular mid winter launch time.
Eyetag had launched earlier still, but tunny, diesel and I were on the water by around 05:40. Jimbo, launching his new ride (Stealth Supalite, pic later) for the first time had opted for a slightly later launch.
During our routine radio checks straight after launch eyetag announced that he was heading for Sunshine Reef but the rest of us were happy to try Jew Shoal again.
And so the fishing at Jew Shoal started at about 06:30. Very soon diesel announced that he had a 44cm flathead (on bait) and then eyetag let us know that he'd picked up a nice grassy (on a half pillie, first cast) at A-Bay Reef. Note: both within 30 minutes of sunrise.
That was the signal for a shutdown. Dead quiet for a while, but then I had my SP taken about 07:30 and I was on the board (just) with a small snapper. During this time jimbo arrived, showing off his gleaming glass Supalite. Nice colour scheme too.
Beautiful boat on a beautiful morning.
I'd spent my first 30 minutes after arrival working a SP through the shallows and then accepted the breeze's invitation to just drift to the NE of The Pinnacles, where there's deeper water, which was where I got my first snapper mentioned above. There were quite a lot of "fish" showing on the sonar in this area so I decided that several drifts through were probably worth trying. My trailing outfit was deployed with a SP suspended at 10m depth, so around 8-12m off the bottom in this area. The trailing outfit hadn't produced anything much lately but it's little trouble to put out, won't snag, and is out of the way while I cast my SP around. Today, around 08:30, it went off, vigorously.
That woke me up!
The fish proved to be another snapper, not big but larger than the first, and very scrappy.
The SP is presently the same type as the one on my casting outfit, but I use a 1/2 ounce jighead on the trailing outfit to try to maintain depth. Works!
In the next hour after this, on the same drift line I had two other strikes on my cast SP and lost both jigheads and SPs. The first to a possible bite-off (maybe a school mackerel?) and the second to a leader knot or braid failure. Perhaps I should retie my leaders after every trip.
A SE breeze sprang up, eyetag announced that he was baling (still no more decent fish) and then jimbo, having run out of bait and patience and being keen to try his new yak out in the surf at Middle Groyne, let us know he was heading in to try out his rudder skills. The remaining three of us followed close behind.
At Middle Groyne jimbo and I frolicked in the tiny surf to the west of the wall for a while before joining diesel and tunny on the beach.
Jimbo surfing, keeping straight with the rudder.
Best fish of the day, by eyetag. Pic by eyetag.
Hopefully we'll get more opportunities to get out in the next week.
Thanks for reading.
Kev Long
Sunshiner
Author Kayak Fishing Manual for iPhone, iPad and Mac (click linked text to view)
Stealth Supalite X, yellow/orange
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