Success at JS, 30Jun08

From: "kevin long"
Subject: fishing today, 30Jun08
Date: Monday, 30 June 2008 4:04 PM

Yakkers,

Perfect offshore weather today, and only two starters to enjoy it!

Jaro and I launched on a flat sea just after 0700 under a leaden sky and set off for JS aided by a gentle southerly breeze. It was so pleasant out there that we didn't hit the beach again until 1300, which makes around 6 hours on the water. My GPS indicated 12+km travelled, including drift.

Rather than bore you with the details, I'll just summarise and throw in a couple of items of piscatorial interest:

I got points on the board quite quickly with two reasonable sweetlip in the first half hour.Then we both faced a quiet period of occasional hits and various fish until around 1100 or so when the action picked up, possibly as a result of our relocating on the reef, or a tide change (low tide: 1101, 0.34)? We both caught several snapper, all but one (Jaro's) undersize, and I finished up with four sweetlip and a couple of better fish lost due to unexplained line breakage at the only knot (to the jig). After the second break-off I reduced the drag setting but am still looking for an answer as I'm pretty particular about setting my drag correctly. As well as fishing with the usual light jig and Power Minnow, I also put out a live bait (a small lancer -- first fish caught) under a float, but received no action on it at all. Jaro fished drifting a pilchard bait and also with the jig.

A couple of items of interest:

Above: Is this grinner a winner? One of the biggest grinners I've seen; note that I'm talking about the fish, not Jaro, who caught it. I reckon these beasties are not worth keeping to eat -- they're full of bones. And they don't put up much of a fight when hooked.

Above: Spinefoot: Jaro caught one of these and so did I. Be aware that a sting from those spines results in excruciating pain. It won't kill you, but you might wish you were dead for an hour or so at least. Handle with extreme care and release as quickly as possible -- a kayak footwell is not a good place to share with a spinefoot.

Anyone interested in a trip tomorrow or (possibly) Wednesday mid-morn/arvo? Weather's looking good for tomorrow at least. I can't confirm that I'll be going but I just might if the opportunity arises.

Tight lines,

Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09 or 22 (if alone), Call Sign: sunshiner

Sweetlip bag, 26Jun08

From: "kevin long"
Subject: kayak fishing today
Date: Thursday, 26 June 2008 4:22 PM

Before telling you about today, I need to introduce Ron Maybury, courtesy of Terry Nolan, who reckons Ron's a noosa yakker candidate and a nice bloke also. Hope to see you out with us soon, Ron. Yakkers, please add Ron to your lists.

I did pretty well today and Jim, not so well -- payback for last week I suppose when he was catching and I was enduring wind torture in FNQ.

Perfect launch conditions and superb out at JS. I got eight fish, five different species, on my first eight casts. Only one of those eight was worth keeping, however. We were hoping that the larger snapper had moved in -- they should be here soon -- but only undersized or marginal specimens were encountered, although Jim dropped a good fish (a probable snapper) early on when the hook pulled after a 30-second run.

I reckon I boated around 20 fish of many different species. All fish were taken on soft plastics (see pic of sweetlip below).

Jim and I pushed pretty hard coming back but hit the beach together, just managing to catch a tiny wave. I must be a little out of condition, however for when I went to jump out of the beached yak hoping to avoid the next incoming wave I found my legs woudn't work as well as they normally do and suffered an undignified backward tumble with slight wetting before recovering to haul the yak out of reach of the huge waves. ;-)

Note that a possible opportunity for the next trip is already showing on seabreeze -- Monday. Yee- hah!

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