Wind: light ENE
Swell: low NE
Current: at Jew Shoal, none
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: eyetag, jaro, carlo, sunshiner
Eyetag launched first, as usual. Jaro and I agreed that we’d launch together around 0445 and were pleasantly surprised to find carlo setting up in the carpark on our arrival.
Jaro and I were quickly off toward Jew Shoal, deploying our trolled lures once we were safely past the shark net. A few terns headed toward the east but surface action wasn’t evident anywhere around us so the presumption must be made that the bait schools have not yet reached us.
With the forecast and observed breeze from the east, I headed toward the eastern edge of the shoal, planning to drift with the breeze from east to west.
Once clear of the headland I got eyetag on the radio to find out how he was going. His report got me thinking about changing my planned destination, as he’d already bagged a good snapper and also had picked up a sweetlip, both taken on lures (Lucanus jig and SP).
Available time was against a change of plan so I plugged away toward the shoal, noticing during the later stages of this journey that I was running a little slower than I normally would. The reason for this became apparent when I retrieved my HLP on reaching my drift start point. A very weary 40cm bonito had hitched a ride without my knowledge. Having followed richmond’s suggestion to try bonito as food I can confirm that it’s quite tasty so this specimen went immediately into the fish box.
From my drift start point at the NE “corner” of the shoal I could see that carlo had joined jaro and me. As I commonly choose, I opted to fish with only one outfit, my cast SP, as I figured that if there were fish around I’d soon pick one up.
About an hour into the first drift I hadn’t had a touch. Neither had carlo, who was fishing close to me and providing an involuntary burley trail complete with remarkable barfing noises. Worse, jaro, fishing with bait a little further away to the SW had nothing worthwhile. The light NE breeze was pushing us all very slowly toward the SW and the depth where I was vainly trying to attract fish was 15-18m, with only occasional encouraging traces appearing above the bottom on the digital sonar display.
Shortly after jaro joined us I decided, as did he, to try the deeper water to the north. Jaro selected a deeper spot further west than my selection, an old mark i go back to from time to time. Now fishing in 20-22m, carlo and I started to get a bit of action, although only small stuff, until eventually at about 0645, about 75 minutes after I’d started fishing, my SP went off with a screaming run.
This fish had me puzzled. Clearly it was no snapper or sweetlip as its rapid dashes and changes of direction and depth were totally out of character for these usual species. At one stage I called it for a shark because it was changing its depth, up or down, so rapidly that I reasoned that only a fish without a swim bladder could do that comfortably. Meanwhile, the reel was howling when the fish was in charge and I wondered how long all of this could hang together. It took me a good few minutes to subdue the fish and then I could see a brilliant silver flash down below and then identified it as one of the trevally family as it got close to the surface. At first I picked it as a silver trevally because I’ve caught these out here before but once I had it in the boat I could see it more closely resembled a bludger trevally, with extendible mouth and very large pectoral fin. I’ve never seen one of these at Jew Shoal before but between us we’ve caught so many different species out there that I wouldn’t be surprised if we caught a coelacanth one day.
Carlo, meanwhile, in between bouts of barfing, had caught (1) what looked to me, about 20 metres away, like a juvenile tarwhine and (2) a definite bream, just undersized.
About now we started to hear, downwind of us, jaro’s usual “YES”s as he started to get some action too. When jaro radioed and told us he’d caught a sweetlip and a couple of snapper in five minutes I decided to go to his spot as ours was showing no sign of those species.
By now we had little time left but jaro got a couple more fish and I spent an intriguing 30 minutes or so trying to hook something very elusive which time after time hit the soft plastic on the drop, probably at around 15m. Despite all of these definite “takes” I couldn’t get a hookup, except for once when the whole jighead was bitten off. So eventually I had to leave wondering what this fish was.
Carlo was still poorly and, about 15 minutes before jaro and I had agreed to leave, radioed that he was not well and decided to go back to shore. We bade him farewell then, a minute or so later, I looked over and saw his yak was upside down. Although I could see that he was floating next to the yak, I had no idea whether he was OK so immediately jaro and I paddled over to him. By the time we got to him he had righted his yak and was clambering aboard, a little sheepish at the fuss. It seems that he’d fallen asleep in the short time after he’d made the radio call to us.
The reason that I mention this event is firstly to point out that carlo was wearing his PFD, and thus, even if sick or injured, he was not in immediate danger of drowning. Secondly he was able to right his yak and clamber aboard unaided. Thirdly, all his equipment, including his radio (a potential life saver) was tethered and so there were no losses. I assured myself that he seemed OK before bidding him farewell as he headed for shore.
Shortly afterward jaro and I also headed for the beach, accompanied by a gentle tail breeze and riding on the gentlest of NE swells.
As it turned out, eyetag also was heading for the beach and we three got there together to be faced with a huge crowd of bathers at our launch point. I speculated that perhaps they were there to meet the hunters (us) returning from the hunt, but it readily became apparent that this was a delusion as a closer look showed hundreds of little kids, “nippers”, engaged in an end of year surf carnival.
But now we had to thread a path through this throng. Eyetag went first, and was successful in avoiding collisions, but, from my point of view, almost disappeared in the crowd on the beach once he was ashore. I found a small gap wide enough to slide my 60cm wide Stealth through and joined eyetag safely on the beach and then turned back to see jaro going sideways on a small wave and nearly knocking down a couple of pensioners younger than he is.
As often happens, we soon attracted a small crowd, which became larger and, on the average, younger and more female as we started to pull out the fish for measuring, photography and general comparison. Eyetag’s fish were definitely the biggest hit, rightly so, and we had to shoo the ladies away to get a good clear shot.
Another great day, yakkers. Next time I’m heading for eyetag’s spot.
