Tuna in the bay, 10Apr08

From: "kevin long"
Subject: tuna in the bay
Date: Thursday, 10 April 2008 2:22 PM

G'day yakkers

This is the third Thursday in a row where we've harried the local pelagics.

As agreed, several of us turned up this morning: Jaro, Harvey, his son Tim (in my spare Espri), and I. The wind was 10-15knots from the SE and we could see that it would be pretty uncomfortable out at the reef but we could also see birds working with accompanying splashing just off the beach, where conditions promised to be quite pleasant. So, of course, off we went, launching through a clean, small surf in bright sunshine.

Jaro was the first with runs on the board, announcing that he'd boated (or should I say yakked), a mac tuna. Shortly afterward he paddled over to me, just as a school showed its presence nearby with wheeling birds and copious splashing. We both cast and I hooked up, but my fish managed to cunningly get my taut line in the way of Jaro's lure. It took a tense minute or two for me to bring his lure to the tip of my rod, then disentangle it from where it then became hooked in the second runner from the tip (how DO lures get into such places) while still maintaining sufficient pressure on my fish to keep the hook in place. But it came clear and shortly afterward I boated a mac tuna.

There were clearly more than one species working the bait schools as Tim reported losing a lure to a possible spotty mac (cut off during retrieve after casting to a school) and both Jaro and I caught several Leaping bonito (Cybiosarda elegans) -- see pic below.

We gave it away about 0930-ish having never been further than about 800m from launch, paddling through schools of feeding tuna and bonito as we left the open water for the surf zone, which all four of us transited without incident. I managed a pic of Jaro, but not of the others as they went in before I did.

My mac tuna was 57cm long and weighed 2.5kg.

We're hoping to get out to JS in the next few days -- Seabreeze gives us some hope for that.

Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09, Call Sign: sunshiner

longtails, 03Apr08

From: "JARO CERNY"
Subject: Fishing Expedition 3/4/08
Date: Thursday, 3 April 2008 9:11 PM

Hello Noosa Yakkers,

It has fallen to me to write the report today. Starters were Kevin, Bob, Mal and I. Mal started earlier than the rest of us as he had to finish early.

It was a glorious morning... sunny skies, warm, no winds to speak of and a small swell. It was an easy get out past the almost non existent breakers on the western side of the groyne. I was first out and seeing birds active headed in that direction towards the spit while (and I had not noticed this) Bob and Kevin decided to head straight for JS. It took me a while to get to the fish action but on my second cast the fish struck as soon as the lure hit the water. I then had an exciting fight for about 15 minutes and finally landed a tuna. I knew it wasn't a mack tuna from the last one I had caught and a guy nearby thought it was a yellow fin but later Kevin informed me it was a blue fin (editor: actually a northern bluefin, more commonly known as a longtail tuna). I bled it out before stowing it away. By the way, I was using a 10kg line with a 60kg nylon tracer and a Gillies 40g baitfish blue and white lure.

Noticing the others were out of sight I called Kevin on the VHF to find out that they were at JS. So I set out after them and joined them trying to catch snappers etc but to no avail.

Kevin hooked a nice one and played it for a while but could not get it off the bottom before it reefed him leaving Kevin no alternative but to bust off. Kevin thinks it likely it was a good sized sweetlip. After about 1.5 hours of no activity Mal (fishless) headed for home troubled by a very sore elbow which he thinks will keep him out of the water for a while. I headed back to try my luck inshore and Bob also fishless headed for home. I paddled well west of the spit and found birds diving. I cast many a time without success and slowly found myself near the shark nets and was ready to call it a day when I got a strike. I knew it was a tuna from the way it fought long and hard. After an exciting 20 to 25 minutes I finally gaffed a beautiful blue fin (editor: actually a longtail). I bled this one out also. It was caught on the same lure as the first.

I headed for the shore and learned a valuable lesson. NEVER take the sea for granted. The waves were small and I paddled in without sizing up the sets only to find myself in no man's land between two unexpected huge waves one of which was definitely going to get me. Knowing I had no chance I jumped off and grabbed the back of the kayak to no avail as the wave took it and rolled it even though I managed to keep hold of the paddle. I eventually made a very undignified landing onshore feeling the gaze of all on the beach. But having everything well secured nothing was lost. The looks on the faces changed once I took the tuna out to clean. Soon I had a very interested audience asking the usual questions.

Kevin of course surveyed the scene carefully and made a very successful and professional return to shore.

Tuna one was 83cm long and weighed 5.5kg cleaned. Tuna two was 1 metre long and weighed 7.25kg cleaned.

Cheers

Jaro
A very happy yakker.

Spotty macs, 27Mar08

From: "kevin long"
Subject: You should have been there!
Date: Thursday, 27 March 2008 12:18 PM

Eat your hearts out, yakkers.

Jaro and I decided to go again this morning -- the weather being so good. We launched at 0700-ish on a glassy sea, with gentle swell, with patches of wheeling and diving terns just offshore hinting at the possibility of pelagic predators. Well, hold onto your seats.

We were heading out to JS, about 500m from launch when I decided that the bird action, and accompanying splashing, 200-300m away, was worth investigating. Jaro agreed to go along too and we altered course to intercept the action. I'd anticipated that there might be some action of this sort and was already rigged up with a small "slug", tied directly onto the line. At about 50m range, I could see that there was some serious carnage going on, with swirls, chomphs, splashes and tiny baitfish showering out of the surface like silver beads being sprinkled on the surface.

First cast, I hook up. A quick screaming run, then slack line. Lure gone -- perhaps a weak spot in the line? I hurriedly re-rig with a similar lure and cast again. Meanwhile, Jaro is frantically re-rigging his casting outfit to suit the new situation. My second cast -- immediate hookup and again the line goes slack and the lure is gone. At last the penny drops -- these fish feeding voraciously right next to the yak are mackerel and just then this is confirmed when I eyeball 3-4 fish which shot past the yak close enough so that I could identify the species -- spotties. By now Jaro is ready. He has rigged with a large slug and he has also added a heavy monofilament leader. He casts and his immediate hookup is announced in typical fashion -- a very loud "yahoo". I wait while he plays out the fish and boats his first spottie -- a very nice specimen. He's got a smile as wide as Laguna Bay as I paddle over in the glassy conditions to take a photo:

I'm down to one slug and have no wire or leader but decide to go with what I've got, knowing that there's a fighting chance that I'll hook up a spottie in the outer part of the jaw, where those scissor-like teeth can't get at the 12 pound monofilament. So I cast again, and again hookup, and this time the lure holds while the spottie makes several screaming runs against the light drag I've set to minimise the possibility of a cut line. Meanwhile, Jaro is hooked up again...

I play my fish out, deal with it, leash its tail to prevent unwanted loss over the side, and then Jaro paddles over and I prevail upon him to take my photo with my camera. He obliges:

About now, I remind Jaro of the bag limit on spotties: 5. Remember, he's never caught a spottie mac before. Anyway the aquatic mayhem continues. Occasional small sharks can be seen feeding on the sprats, and once or twice I spot a tuna leap clear of the water. The spotties tend not to do that, being content to stay below the waterline. Jaro's score is up to three, and I've lost my third slug. I chuck a soft plastic into a feeding frenzy and don't even get a chance to start retrieving it before it's eaten and the line severed.

Below: a couple of scenes typical of this morning's activities:

Jaro has four, then releases his fifth ("a little small" he says). I borrow a slug from Jaro and while I'm tying it on, Jaro hooks up and is towed past me by what is obviously a more powerful fish. I suspect a tuna and follow on out of curiosity. Sure enough, after a tough fight of five minutes or so, Jaro has a good sized mack tuna (his first -- another first) under control next to the yak. He consults me on its eating qualities and I advise that it should be released as it's nowhere near as good on the plate as spotty mackerel. Here's the tuna:

It swims away a bit languidly, but turns the right way up and with a beat of that wonderful tail, heads off, hopefully for a long life.

Shortly afterward, Jaro bags out on spotties, I have three, and we agree that we have enough. So we leave them biting. We paddle the 500 or so metres back to the beach and that's it. Take a few pics, answer the beach-goers questions (no, they aren't whiting or bream, they're spotty mackerel), clean the gore off the yaks and head home for brekky. What a morning -- two hours of unceasing action, surface strikes, screaming drags and glassy seas, all 500m from the launch site. Wow -- you've gotta love this kayak fishing!

As I said, you should have been there...

Kev
Red & Yellow Espri liberally sprinkled with spotty mac scales, black paddle,
VHF channel 09, Call Sign: sunshiner

sweetie and snap, 26Mar08

From: "kevin long"
Subject: yak fishing today -- 26mar08
Date: Wednesday, 26 March 2008 3:21pm

The honour of writing this report falls to me, and I do so while my unspectacular but welcome catch gently chills in the fridge in preparation for filleting later.

Starters: Jaro and your correspondent, who arrived at MG at 0630-ish. Shortly thereafter I captured the moment, but not before the wheel fell off Jaro's yak trolley, possibly a portent of his day.

Anyway, this is how it looked at launch time:

The surf crossing was actually a bit meaner than the picture indicates, but J and I were out the back with little hassle a couple of minutes later. Having set up our gear, we set course for JS, although I was flying blind initially as my GPS opted to play the "can't find the satellites" game (which it does in about one in 20-30 startups). To help it, I tell it that it is now hundreds of km from where it previously turned on and it dutifully does a total sky search which successfully locates the desired orbiting objects in a few minutes.

About 1.5km from the beach we started to encounter lots of terns feeding on baitfish being massacred from below by tuna. In a few minutes we were right amongst the carnage. And although I briefly switched to a small slug lure, I was unsuccessful in enticing a predator and anyway my mission was to catch a snapper or two. Here's one pic of the action right next to the yak (note that, in the original pic, the top of the tail fin of a tuna is visible in the splash on the right):

As you can see from the pic above, the water has cleaned up considerably. And so, mindful of our mission, we turned away from the tuna action and headed for the reef, which we found where it usually is, a short while later. As there was a gentle SW breeze I opted to start my drift ~300m SW from the centre. On my second or third cast with the jig I hooked up to a fish which fought differently to our usual quarry. I suspect that it was a small trevally as it darted about all over the place but I can't tell you for sure as it managed to throw the hook at the last stage of the fight -- not an auspicious start on this near perfect (weather) day.

Continuing the drift I was shortly afterward rewarded with a strike which I correctly judged to be a sweetlip, and although not huge, a keeper nevertheless, and my first from the reef in 2008. Here he is:

Shortly after this fish was boated, Jaro, still fishless and looking a little glum, paddled over to compare notes. Just as he arrived I hooked up again to what was apparently a slightly better fish, so I played it for all it was worth, as I'm sure Jaro would have done were the situation reversed. Despite my opinion expressed earlier to Jaro that this was another, slightly larger sweetlip, it turned out to be a snapper -- another keeper!! And here he is:

By around 0930 I caught another slightly smaller snapper, but still a keeper, and also around that time the 5knot SW breeze dropped away to nothing, killing our drift. We persisted until around 1015 when we decided to call it a day. Jaro hates to go home fishless and so he was not a happy chappy to leave, but at least it was a glorious morning to be out there.

We set course for MG and as we travelled it became more and more apparent that we were again going to run the gauntlet of tuna schools, baitfish balls, and wheeling terns. Our few half hearted attempts to hook up on a tuna proved fruitless but at last a brighter spot appeared in Jaro's day: his trolled lure picked up some discarded braid fishing line, which turned out to have a large expensive Rapala (or similar) lure attached to it. So Jaro's lure collection received a free augmentation.

And so we arrived back at our start point. We picked the surf break nicely and one behind the other, cruised onto the beach. Now, the proof of the chick-magnetism of mature kayak fishermen. No sooner were we back on our feet on the beach after a three-four hour sit down (or on-top) when we were mobbed by damsels wanting to have their photos taken with us. Jaro, I think we could start charging for this privilege. Anyway here's one of them:

Weather's looking great for tomorrow. We might just go again. Call me if you're interested.

Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09, Call Sign: sunshiner

sweetlip, 21Mar08

From: "JARO CERNY"
Subject: Report for 21/03/08
Date: Saturday, 22 March 2008 7:13 PM

Hello Noosa Yakkers,

Report Fishing 21/03/08.

Starters Jim, Jaro and Kevin. The beach breakers were a bit challenging and were certainly a great inducer of the required adrenalin rush to get those paddles flaying to get out in time between wave sets. Timing was of the essence and I am proud to report that all made it out in professional style which I know suitably impressed onshore lookers as one guy told me he didn't fancy my chances (we went at different times).

The paddle out was uneventful as there was essentially an offshore breeze with it being calm inshore and more choppy at JS. By the way, I felt that the weather forecast by Seabreeze was spot on with the wind strengthening to the wind speed predicted as the morning wore on. We never felt anxious about the conditions.

We set about our fishing and I joyfully landed a good sized sweetlip at about 8.30am. My first fish in months. Everyone caught a few small fish of various types, which were returned to the sea. Jim left relatively early... sad to say fishless. Just as Kevin and I were contemplating giving up I caught another.... a good sized keeper. This rekindled our enthusiasm for a little while but to no avail.

The journey back was also uneventful with the chop becoming negligible as we came into the shelter of the headland. We had the same fun gunning for the shore. Once again our timing was impeccable and we all landed safely and upright with a huge crowd of Easter holiday makers looking on and as usual coming over to see our rigs and our catch. Kevin, our fishing mentor and guru, also sad to say came back fishless. Both Jim and Kevin of course suggested I share the catch but it would not have been fair to give to one and not the other so I kept both fish.

Cheers

Jaro
The prowler with fish scales on it.

Harvey's day, 28Feb08

From: "kevin long"
Subject: fishing 28feb08 -- Harvey checks in
Date: Thursday, 28 February 2008 3:47 PM

I'll let Harv tell the story but just wanted to send out a couple of pics. Harv scooped the pool and popped his snapper cherry on what was a quiet day for the rest of us, despite near perfect conditions.

Harv, Jaro, Beanie and I went out. Small swell, light winds, but quite strong (~2kph) current from the east at JS. The water was noticeably cleaner than last Friday, but not yet perfect. There were a few small schools of baitfish in the bay and above the reef but no sign of pelagic predators in our vicinity, although lots of terns heading NE indicated carnage out there somewhere.

Pics show Harv with his first keeper sweetlip (sorry didn't get a pic of the snapper) and Beanie battling the swell.

On ya Harv, I knew you'd eventually get there...

Kev
Red & Yellow Espri with fish scales on it
VHF channel 09, Call Sign: sunshiner

Spaniard, 09Feb08

From: "Jim Thompson"
Subject: My First Spaniard!
Date: Sunday, 10 February 2008 4:43 PM

Hi Yakkers,

Last Tuesday when I visited Jew Shoal, I had three big hits when trailing a pilchard on a 3-gang hook/lure. On two of these hits the whole lure was bitten off, with the third hit being so hard it ripped the rod out of my rod holder (made from slotted plastic pipe) - lucky the rod was tethered. I was of the opinion that if I had had a wire trace leader on the lure I would have landed at least one sizeable fish, possibly a mackerel. So I felt I had some unfinished business at JS and was keen to get out there again. That opportunity presented itself yesterday (Sat) with www.seabreeze.com predicting only 4kt light winds and a reasonable ocean swell of ~2m.

The shore break at Middle Groyne at 0640 was quite low, and I was easily through the break, lines threaded and setting out for JS by 0700. The conditions were almost perfect with a bright sunny day, the water now clearer than it has been for weeks, a low swell and with a gentle SW breeze behind me, I made it to JS in 35 mins.

I headed straight for the location where I was bitten off last Tuesday about 80-90m west of "the Pinnacle" (my "Hot Spot #2"), intending to again trail the pilchard/3-gang lure on the heavy gear (35lb line on big Diawa baitcaster reel) but now armed with a steel trace leader, while also casting the 1/4 oz jighead and 10cm brown/white soft plastic on the light gear - admittedly not a good idea but I wanted to increase my chances. Whilst there was likely to be fish at this location, there is also some reef structure because I got snagged twice last Tuesday and had been snagged three times (on both lines) in about four drifts over this location in the first hour, losing the first of my 3-gang lures. Having boated (and thrown back) only one small rock cod, I therefore decided to move to my previous “Hot Spot #1”, about 200m north of the Pinnacle. By this time the breeze had dropped right out, and the only movement over the reef was due to the slow SSE current that seems to exist at JS. With still no reasonable bites after another hour I decided to move back to Hot Spot #2.

This time there was what appeared initially to be reasonable hit on the trailed pilchard so I decided to reel in the light gear to get it out of the way before tending the heavy gear. While reeling in the jighead/soft plastic lure as fast as I could, there was a grey/gold flash only about 5m from the yak and then instantly the little Shimano Sedona reel was screaming as at least 30m of line was peeled off. I guessed this was possibly a mackerel and wanted to keep reasonable pressure on the line because I was concerned a mackerel's sharp teeth would cut through the line (tied directly onto the small jighead), but was limited in the drag I could apply because of the light 6kg line. So the battle continued for about 25mins with this strong fish making 7-8 powerful runs before I could bring him next to the yak for gaffing. Once having pulled the mackerel on board, I realised how lucky I was, as the jighead was just in the back corner of its mouth - dare I say it, almost a jag, but with the line clear of the mackerel's needle sharp teeth. Anyway, by whatever method, I had boated my first spaniard!

Luckily I had been able to keep the mackerel clear of the trailing heavy line which I now reeled in to find a small (just keeper) sweetlip - bonus! I fished for a bit longer, but with my light line now severely twisted as a result of the fight I decided at 1100 to head back to Main Beach, now conveniently pushed along by a gentle but increasing SE breeze.

On arrival back at Middle Groyne I got a beachgoer to take the attached pic.

When in Davos the previous day Greg Lacy mentioned that no-one had caught a spanish mackerel in 2008, so I called in there on my way home to show them my prize. Greg and Cheryl (name ?) were quite impressed, and after the weigh in (4kg and 86cm), Cheryl took a number of photos and said she would try to get them included in the fishing report on Channel 7 Local News ~1825 on Thursday evening.

One of my most satisfying expeditions to JS yet!

Cheers,
Callsign : Jimbo, VHF Ch 09