Since mid 2007, members of Noosa Yakkers have been writing and illustrating kayak fishing Trip Reports and publishing them by whatever means available. This blog collects all of our early reports (sent out by email) plus the later TR published here on Blogger, and more recently, Monthly Summaries of the reports published on our Facebook Group.
Had some spare time in the arvo so decided having two weeks away fishing wasn't enough so hit BPD for my Bass fix.
Started off around the dam wall exclusion zone for one hit and lost fish before heading up the creek about 30 minutes later. The wind and surface conditions were not the best so it was hard going with no hits on the way.
First trip up the creek was uninspiring with no hits, the wind was being a right pain every time I'd stop for a flick, just couldn't seem to find somewhere protected.
Headed up as far as practical before turning around and slowly flowing back with the wind. Stopped to have a flick at a couple of good looking snags I hadn't targeted on the way up and was rewarded with a great fish.
He was returned and a little further down the creek another fish was on.
It was time to make a move with the sun going down so I started the paddle back across the dam going with the wind and swell this time and was rewarded with another screaming reel resulting in another nice sized fish
One last fish caught on the troll before heading across the basin came in at 35cm...
Session started off slow but picked up as the arvo went on...glorious time on the water by myself again
Wind: 0-10 knot S/SE then S/SW
Current: last of run out and start of run in tides
Launch Point: Noosa Heads Lions Park
Participants: Eyetag
I'd just installed a new sounder on the Hobie and couldn't wait to give it a trial. Launching around 8.30pm I headed up to Rickys then down to the river mouth. I decided to fish back upstream with the mouth running out too hard for comfort, even on the Hobie. Half way back to Rickys I had a good strike on a trolled Gold Bomber and managed to land a nice Jack. There was fish busting up all over the place, mostly small Bigeye Trevally.
I decided to cast a small Gladiator prawn and slowly retrieve it on the light gear. This was very productive and on the Hobie as I was able to maintain my position while fighting fish, landing several small Trevally a Barred Grunter or Javelin fish and another Jack. Then once the tide had stopped so did all the action and I decided to peddle back, nothing much happened except one missed strike on the way home in the Inner Woods bay.
Wind: SE to 5 knots
Swell: 1.5m SE
Water temp: 27.2°C
Tides: 3:55 am : 0.45 L; 10:01 am : 1.63 H
Current: at Jew Shoal, no significant
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Surface action: heaps (tuna) near Granite Bay, sporadic in near Middle Groyne, later
Participants: tunny, diesel, Alan O'Leary (newest new member, no nickname yet), sunshiner
Keen Angler Program: they don't take tuna!
The tension had been building. Wardy and eyetag's reports over the last two days had told us that big predators were present in Laguna Bay and the trip on Saturday was full of tanatalising snippets of info which indicated the fish were at least there. I donutted on Saturday, took Sunday off and today it was do or curl up and die, for me! As I wrote this I'm not too curled up and very much alive.
Thinking I'd be among the first to arrive at the car park, I found that in fact I was last. Tunny had in tow Alan, our newest member, who seemed particularly keen, an impression later proven to be accurate.
Easy launch, although diesel picked the set of the day and got a bit damp, but made a path through for me. Valuable addition to Noosa Yakkers, is diesel. I wondered how Alan would go, but he seemed to get his Espri through without getting wet. Maybe he's an experienced surf zone transiter.
I moped all through the trip on Saturday because I'd left my radio behind (a VHF radio is SO useful, if only to keep you in the loop as to fish presence or otherwise) but today it was where it usually can be found at set-up time, in my dry bag.
And so I followed diesel out to Jew Shoal. The waning moon was still pretty big and, as you'd expect, not yet set. Conditions were superb, and having launched around 5:00 am, we still had around 45 minutes before sunrise, and there was a cloud bank ready to mask it when it occurred.
Today I didn't bother putting my Halco LP out until about one kilometre from The Pinnacles. and as I deployed it, its blue back almost glowing in the half light, I could see that diesel was already there. The easterly breeze was setting up a tiny chop and the water seemed clearer than on Saturday. Here's hoping. No fish so far in 2015! Fingers crossed!
Intent on setting up a drift for snapper, sweetlip or cobia (as ordered by Mary) I paddled up wind from The Pinnacles, watching the sonar for signs of bottom fish and keeping an eye out for pelagic predators. Crucially, the HLP was still thrumming away 40 paddle strokes behind and about one metre down.
On the port side about 50m away my eye caught a small splash and, unmistakeably, a single longtail tuna briefly leaving the water. This was a promising sign so I immediately paused to let my fellow Noosa Yakkers know what I'd seen. Diesel, bait fishing, asked me to tell the fish that he had some juicy baits available but I told him I thought this fish was looking for a moving bait, like my lure. I paddled on, for about 30 seconds…
The moment of the strike, as seen by the GoPro
Holy crap, the line was pouring off the reel. The ratchet was screaming wonderfully so I held the radio transmit button down briefly to let my fishing mates know that someone was hooked up.
I really wanted this fish, which I mentally called for a longtail part way through the initial screaming run. Soon, I had it more or less under control, with the rod pointing over the bow straight at the rampaging fish and the satisfying sound of water gurgling past under the keel as we embarked on a Noosa Sleigh Ride.
In the low light levels it took about 10 minutes before I'd retrieved enough line to be able to spot the fish, about five metres down. Sure enough, a longtail. As they do, it started to swim in a steady circle and gradually planed up to the surface under the pressure of the line. This is the final stage of the fight but is no time to increase the drag. Patience is better. Within a few minutes the gaff went in and I slid the magnificent, conquered beast over my lap and into the hatch. Whoopee!
Pity about the spot of water on the lens, but difficult to avoid sometimes. GoPro.
Video: 2 min added 11Mar15
My day was now made, and it was just past 6:00am.
Diesel by now had spotted terns wheeling around near Granite Bay, and set out to find out whether he could get some action there, as he so far had seen none. He disappeared over the SE horizon, followed shortly afterward by tunny. Alan stayed at Jew Shoal as he was interested in trying his hand at throwing SPs around, and this is what I had reverted to. I felt my chances were better if I deployed a SP on my trailing rig, which doubles as a slug chucker and until now had a 20gm Halco slug on it, which had not got a guernsey today. So the slug was exchanged for a small white SP on a 1/8 ounce 4/0 hook jighead and out it went, trailing behind me and up to 10m down, depending on drift rate. Alan reported that he'd got a massive hookup on his SP but had been busted. I noticed that he had only one outfit with him, but at least he'd had a strike. The others reported no action.
I wasn't getting any more action either so slowly came to the conclusion that Little Halls Reef, near which eyetag found fish yesterday afternoon, might be worth a try. Besides, both stormin and weeksie had pulled decent sized sweeties from there in the last few days, so why not. Only a 3km paddle and it's a lovely morning. Diesel appeared from the north east, still fishless and he decided to head for Halls Reef. So we left together, on diverging paths, heading west.
Nope, no surface action at Little Halls Reef. Never mind, I was here to catch a snapper or sweetlip. I set up a drift toward the north, past a couple of anchored stinkies catching nothing, with my trailing outfit trailing the white SP mid water and my casting outfit prospecting the waters at various depths with a different SP. It's only 13-15m deep at Little Halls Reef but it has produced some nice fish and it's only a gentle 3.5km paddle back to Middle Groyne. Nice! I resolved to give it 30 minutes then head home with my prize.
Tunny and Alan were having another go at the tuna around Granite Bay, with more success this time, as Alan was hooked up to a decent tuna taken on a SP. This was relayed to me by radio and I half jokingly suggested by radio that tunny should perhaps try a white SP drifted in the area. The GoPro shows that I still had the radio in my left hand when my trailing outfit, in the rod holder went off.
The moment I realized that the trailing outfit was making a loud buzzing noise. GoPro.
My hopes for a snapper or sweetlip dived when this fish took a screaming run to the south. Typical tuna run, accompanied by twitching feelings, as the tail hits the leader.
This fish came a little easier than the earlier one. In fact it seemed to give up completely after about ten minutes and then I saw that the leader was slightly wrapped around the pectoral fin and tail. It came to the side of the yak tail first and I took the opportunity of the easiest tail grab ever and lifted it aboard.
Easy tail grab. GoPro.
Nice fish, taken for my fellow fishos.
Video, added 11Mar15
While all this was going on, Alan had been spooled completely. Yep, Ping! Bare spool. Tunny had hooked, boated and returned a decent sized mac tuna, then loaned Alan one of his outfits. Alan hooked up again but apparently the fish spat the hook, although he did see it, I understand. Diesel was, well, heading home. As was I, now that I had a pretty full hatch. So I turned off the GoPro and paddled back to Middle Groyne without a lure out, but I did hava a slug casting option if the opportunity had arisen.
Diesel and I hit the beach together while tunny and Alan came in a little later. Some beach pics:
Longtail #1
Longtail #2
On the front deck
Tunny picking up a tiny shorey while manboobs guy looks on jealously.
With my two longtails which broke my duck for 2015.
A couple of videos to come, when time allows.
Kev Long Sunshiner
Author Kayak Fishing Manual for iPad and Mac (click linked text to view)
Stealth Supalite X, yellow/orangeu
Well after my donut yesterday I decided to head back to familiar territory...
Hit BPD around 8.30am after a much needed sleep in. Looked like there was not another soul on the water when I launched 10 minutes later. Within 10 paddle strokes of tossing the lure out the back I was on, a nice 30 something to start the day, looked promising...
No more touches as I worked my way up towards the creek and was starting to think this may be 'one of those days' when BANG I was on and this thing was pulling line like a freight train, before I'd reached the rod he was gone and so was my brand new lure....I think the township of Maleny heard me curse!
Rigged the rod up again and continued my way up the creek, wasn't much further along when the rod bent over double, line peeling off as I grabbed the rod and started winding...very tentatively I wound the line in, the fish played me well and for a time I didn't think I would win this one but before long he was yak side...a bloody nice fish
A quick pic and he was released. A few more lost fish, a couple landed before I had another stonker on board...another pic and back he went
I'd made my way up the creek as about as far as I could go so turned around and headed back. A few more 30 somethings on the way back, a couple more lost as well before coming around the same bend I'd got the 45cm Bass earlier I was on again, line peeled off as the fish did the bolt, a short but good fight later I had another good fish landed, a quick pic and he was released.
It was now 11.30am and time to head in, all up 17 fish were caught, 11 ended up in my lap for a picture...some of the escapees wouldn't have appreciated the language directed towards them
Was a great morning on the water, great to see the Dam returning to it's pre cyclone glory even if though it has a sh1tload more water in it...
Wind: 6-12 knot E/SE
Current: Run out tide
Launch Point: Middle Groyne Noosa
Participants: Eyetag
Hi guys,
I launched Sunday afternoon at 3 and went toward LH there was fish everywhere. The first hour was all paddling. I kept it up, conditions were pretty average but good for the Tuna. I ended up with a small Mack Tuna and a Longtail around 6kg they were on a 40g slug retrieved as fast as possible, I dropped a few on slugs. On hard bodies I got busted off once by very violent head shakes, I think big shark and bitten off by a Spaniard I saw after a 10 minute battle, he was around 15kg.
Scater and I arrived at the MG car park around 5.30 and were behind the surf zone by 6am with an easy launch. The others were already out there, most at Jew Shoal.
Scater and I decided to head out past the point to Sunshine Reef. When we arrived at Granite Bay the birds where going mad and the long tail bust-ups were everywhere. We chased them down and threw slugs in but they were having none if it. Tunny reported that a guy in a stinky had been doing some aggressive spinning into the bust-ups with no luck. Maybe they were not in the mood for slugs. At one point I was right in the middle of a boil with tuna jumping beside the boat--perhaps I should have stuck a net out, may have been the best play of the day. Besides the slugs, most of were also trolling dead bait; Scater with a slimey on a safa rig, Tunny with a pillie on a Tunny special and myself with a saury on an easy troll with a stinger much like jimbos successful one a few days earlier. I also tried a HBL for a while, but nada.
Sunshiner had left his radio behind so we'd not heard form him. Everyone else seemed to be chasing birds. Scater headed of in the direction of Sunshine Reef, Tunny to Abay Reef, Weeksy was out Little Halls way and I was making my way north of JS following a school.
I've certainly never seen so many bust-ups, never mind long tail bust-ups. The fussy fudgers where everywhere. I continued heading north following the elusive pot of tuna gold at the end of the rainbow, but just like the fable, as soon as you got there the birds and fish disappeared.
By now I was 2.5km north of JS, so I decided to keep going to Halls Reef, which I did. I had a quick bottom fish with a softie but there was nothing on the sounder. Just then Weeksie came over the radio announcing he'd caught a nice snapper (anecdotally I heard it was around 50cm, Weeksie will need to confirm). I thought that was my cue to head to Little Halls, so off I went on the last leg of my trek.
I arrived at Little Halls and just caught the back of Weeksie heading back to the beach. I decided to try my luck with a softie and got a couple of little nibbles, but I was not in the mood for little nibbles, I was in the mood for tuna and the day was not over yet. I decide to keep trolling back to MG.
About 800m-1km south of LH I saw a small boil surface about 50m in front of me. While I was deciding how to attack it, my saury rig went off. Yes please! I had pretty heavy gear so managed to get it in very quickly and obviously it wasn't a monster, but it was a fish and after what must be a 25Km paddle I was glad for it. I got it within 3m of the boat at which point went airborne, then I'm not sure how it happened but the line went slack and I was bitten off. I can only assume as the long tail came down it somehow managed to cut the leader. Bugger. There went my sashimi and my easy troll rig.
I had a spare Tunny special, so I put another saury on that and trolled back to MG without any further action.
So Weeksie landed up being the only yakker who caught landed anything today--we'll done Weeksie. Let us know if it was a snapper or sweetie and what size.
Tomorrow looks good; weather favourable, bay packed with bait fish and tuna about, so better luck to those going.
Redwood
Supplementary report by weeksie
04:30. In the car park there were several weirdos (even weirder than we are), sitting or standing on the road, obviously bombed out of their brains while they sang, played guitar and drum, or just sat there stupefied. Sunshiner almost ran over them as he headed for his favourite car park and they barely flinched.
pic by sunshiner
Launching from MG about 0510 with sunshiner and Tunny, I made my way to Jew Shoal and fished there for a short while without much activity showing.
The boys closer to Granite Bay could be heard over the radio, surrounded by birds and the surface activity of marauding longtails they reported.
This was enough for me to head back into the bay and south west from Jew Shoal.
The bird activity they reported could be seen close in around Granite Bay but I was a fair distance from there so meandered my way west towards the tin shed and Halls with a trailing, lightly weighted SP rig and a casting SP rig with a heavier jig head.
Plenty of casts proved fruitless so I decided to make the 1.5 km paddle NNW to Little Halls reef. I proceeded to bottom fish as the wind dropped out to dead calm with a slight drift to NW.
A 1/8oz. 1/0 jig head rigged with a 2.5" grubz in motor oil was productive and a lovely 50cm sweetie came to the boat after a good tussle. This was good news as it has been a bit of a drought and Linda can see that I really have been going fishing.
The Nor' Easter kicked in a little and it was time to go, although Redwood reported he was at Halls heading my way. Redwood was keen for a fish at LH so I kept going on.
200m from MG, Redwood radioed through from LH that after 20km he did what none of us could do this morning and hooked up to a longtail only to lose it yak side… I could feel his pain through my radio and yes pain is a four letter word… or two.
Wind: Less than 5k initially, then increasing 8-12k by 0830
Swell: 1.0m ESE
Tides: High 1.8m 0610; Low 0.6m 1235
Current: None detected (paddling or being towed continuously)
Launch Point: Middle Groyne.
Conditions: Clear initially, then partly clowdy.
Keen Angler Program: no contribution.
Participants: Jimbo.
I was keen to try some bottom fishing for sweetlip at Jew Sh following the recent big influx of fresh water into the bay, but delayed this until the next available opportunity after last Friday when Diesel reported a lot of weed in the water. Late Sunday afternoon, the BOM site (that I think is the most accurate) indicated there would be a small window of opportunity on Monday morning, but more importantly, the light winds predicted by Seabreeze for Wednesday and Thursday would not eventuate. So Sunday evening I made the late decision to launch on Monday morning.
The launch conditions at Middle Groyne at 0540 were ideal and I was soon on my way towards JS trolling a sauri on a 4-gang lure ...
on the odd chance it might attract the attention of a pelagic along the way ... Be careful what you wish for ...
When still about 800m SW of JS the trolled sauri got hit bigtime. This would have to have been the most continuous, hardest and fastest runs I have ever experienced. With about 50m of mono 30LB line out when the run started, this fish took at least another 100m out against a ~10LB drag setting in about 20-25 seconds before I had to tighten the drag even further to prevent the rapidly looming possibility of being spooled. This initial run eventually stopped and I was able to recover ~75m fairly quickly as the fish turned partially towards me. But from this point on I had a ding-dong battle for every metre gained for about 90 minutes with the rod bent at 90 deg or more for nearly all this time.
This fish clearly wasn't a shark given the erratic nature of its runs and at first I was thinking it could be a sizeable cobia or spaniard, or maybe a longtail tuna, but whatever it was it towed me around like an uncontrolled sled dog Team. It initially made at least four full 360 deg circles, sometimes turning the yak in little more than its length, always in a clockwise direction, over an area of about 250m diameter. It also became apparent this fish was probably foul hooked because of the tell-tale "buzzing" and "singing" sound coming from the nylon mono line under tension, and the fact that I was not gaining much line back, even after 20-30 minutes.
After the initial circling manoeuvres the fish headed first east, then north, then east and north again, to be fairly close to the Pinnacles, before heading generally in a NE direction. After about one and a quarter hours, apart from starting to feel pretty tired in the arms, I was starting to become a little concerned as Main Beach had now started to dip beyond the horizon, and the forecast southerly was starting to increase. A quick check on the GPS indicated I was now more than 2km NE of JS and on a steady course for New Caledonia at a steady speed of about 2.5 kph. Time to put some serious pressure on this fish, which I still had not sighted since I was generally being towed into the morning sun, and hoping my terminal knot would hold.
After another 15 mins of slow pumping and applying near maximum tension to the line and rod, my quarry eventually came into view in the slightly cloudy water ... a very thick longtail about a metre long, and sure enough, foul hooked with the leading hook buried into its boney underside behind the gills and the fourth hook in behind its eye. This fish effectively WAS harnessed up just like a sled dog ... no wonder I couldn't turn the bugger around!
It took yet a further 10 mins as the tuna did its customary circling alongside the yak until I eventually got it close enough to sink the gaff into its side and heave it on board. We were both pretty stuffed, luckily the tuna a bit more than me!
After securing the longtail with a tail rope and stuffing it into the rear compartment in the yak, a check of the GPS revealed I was 2.25 km NE of the Pinnacles. The fish had towed me about 3.0 km in a straight line from where I had first hooked up, but in reality a total distance of at least 3.5 km given the very circuitous route it had taken to get there.
All I had to do now was paddle the 6.0 km back to Middle Groyne. Although I had to paddle back over Jew Sh to get there, I quickly dismissed the idea of stopping off to do some bottom bashing along the way, given the tiredness of my arms, the increasing southerly cross-headwind I had to paddle against to get back, and the reality that I would already have to spend most of the afternoon cleaning and filleting the longtail I already had. I didn't even bother trolling my one remaining sauri bait on the way back.
The southerly cross-headwind abated slightly as I moved into the lee of the National Park, and I was back on the beach at 0915 having avoided the intermittent swell now rising over the swollen sand bank now in place out from the rock groyne, as evidenced by a swimmer wading in only waist deep water adjacent to the end of the rocks.
Once at home I took the following pics, the first using the brag mat borrowed from Sunshiner. A side note for those of you who have ordered one of our own NY brag mats, these should be available within the next couple of weeks.
The longtail measured 106 cm and weighed a solid 12 kg.
