Subject: fishing today -- 28Apr10
Date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010 2:42 PM
Isn't it great when a plan comes together...
For the last several days Rod, an old mate from Army days many years ago, and his wife have been visiting and staying with us. Their home is near Perth WA so we see each other rarely but whenever we do get together we usually fit in a fishing trip for fishing is a passion for both of us. Fortunately his brief visit this time coincided with a great kayak fishing weather day so an offshore kayak fishing trip, his first, was on the cards.
And so it was this morning. My Sierra trundled into our usual beach parking area before 0530 this morning with Rod and me aboard plus my two Espris on the roof. On arrival we could see WayneD, Bigkev, and madkeenfishman (all AKFF members from Brisbane) plus Noosa Yakker regular, whalebait all prepping their yaks. Another NY stalwart, Ian, had earlier parked his car in its usual spot and presumably was by now somewhere out there. Then jimbo arrived -- the place was getting crowded.
Before long we were assembling on the beach facing a flat sea with no breeze -- great conditions. But it was still pretty dark, certainly too dark for me to tie a knot in the ambient light so we hung around a bit waiting for the sun to provide a little more visibility.
0548hrs. Rod, ready to launch, waits for improved launch light.
Soon we judged that the light was adequate and off we went, no trouble on such a calm morning. While I was floating off the groyne setting up Ian called me on the radio and gave me some useful information which led me to decide to paddle over to the river mouth area initially. I was keen to put Rod onto his first ever kayak-caught fish on his first ever proper kayak fishing trip and that was my main mission today. Thanks for the info, Ian.
And so it happened that Rod and I, alone of all the yakkers present, headed NW once we were set up. We were both trolling Halco Laser lures of the same size but different patterns and were also rigged up ready to cast slugs into feeding masses of tuna or mackerel should the opportunity present itself. As the darkness gradually diminished we could see terns searching and occasional surface splashes indicating the presence of fishy predators.
As we travelled gently WNW I spotted more intense bird activity closer to the river mouth so Rod and I turned toward it.
Then came the satisfying buzz of the ratchet on my Penn overhead trolling reel.
0626hrs. A feisty spotty mac comes to my gaff. (Still from video)
My spotty mac.
Rod was nearby and on seeing my fish immediately adopted a trolling pattern around the area where I'd hooked it. While dealing with my fish I was hoping that he'd get a strike and was engrossed with securing my fish when I heard that unmistakeable howling buzz in the otherwise almost silent environment. I looked up and saw that Rod was only 30 metres or so away and clearly hooked up to a pretty good fish. After a couple of minutes he identified the fish, unsurprisingly, as another spotty mac and soon brought it to gaff.
0633hrs. Rod gaffs his spotty mac.
This being his first yak caught fish, his next action was an understandable mistake. He dropped the spotty, complete with lure in its jaw, between his legs into the footwell of the yak, but with the head end closest to his groin. Ouch! The spotty thrashed around and the unembedded second hook penetrated Rod's board shorts and then his upper, inner leg. And the thrashing spotty was still attached. Some time later Rod managed to extricate himself with the help of a knife and pliers as fortunately the hook had not penetrated his leg past the barb. But for a while the situation looked decidedly tricky.
Rod with his first yak-caught fish on his first kayak fishing trip.
So now we had a keeper each. We hung around the same area for a while without further action and eventually I suggested that we move to the eastern side of the bay to see what was happening over there.
Here we found some schools of mac tuna massacring scattered pods of baitfish. Rod opted to cast a slug into the feeding mass and came up trumps with a hookup while I couldn't elicit a strike at all despite several attempts. So I concentrated on the camera.
Here's his mac tuna as it passed near my yak while I was shooting video. (Still from video)
Before long Rod had his second yak-caught fish in hand.
This mackerel tuna was released.
With that we decided to head for home as we had domestic obligations and we'd already had a great morning. We hit the beach almost exactly at 9am, coming across NY LeRoux on his way out just before we hit the beach. Waiting on the beach was Bill Barnett, another Noosa Yakker, who had launched later than we had but had also decided to call it a day and was fishless.
As per usual, we found a couple of ladies keen to be photographed holding our fish.
Rod and I with our yaks and fish
Rod's fish, top, and mine. Yep, his was bigger.
Another great morning in Laguna Bay... How'd the rest of you go? (See three further reports below)
Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09 or 22 (if alone), Call Sign: sunshiner
http://www.noosayakkers.blogspot.com/
From Brian (whalebait)
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Subject: fishing today -- 28Apr10 - the others
Date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010 3:23 PM
I paddled and paddled and paddled and drifted and drifted and drifted today MG to sunshine, sunshine to Jew Shoal jew shoal back to MG where I hooked a 80cm spotty 400m from the beach!
Ian scored a few nice grassies & a squire, Le Roux - I'm not sure.
May have a quick go close in tomorrow.
- cheers brian
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From Stu (maverick)
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Subject: Fishing today
Date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010 5:25 PM
I launched at 06:00hrs just after seeing 6 kayaks disappearing off in the distance towards SR. I started out for Jew Shoal but saw 4 yakkers paddling towards Laguna Bay - I thought either there was too much swell or there were fish there so I opted to follow which turned out to be a fun morning!
I saw a heap of fish jumping and decided to investigate - never have I seen so many spotties! I was using light line and a light graphite rod with a small halco twister, a Spotty took it on the first cast and gave me a good fight and landed him after about fifteen minutes. I was then tangled up with my hard body I had been trolling and lost my lure! I tried another one which had no effect at all.
At this time I paddled closer to the North Shore side of laguna and met up with a Redcliffe kayaker by the name of Kevin Crawford (good guy). Together Kevin and I fished the bay for a couple of hours and lost a good few fish between the two of us (both using light tackle) the highlight was when Kevin lost a good size Spotty to a couple dolphins who played with his Spotty right next to his yak before taking off with it!!! We both ended up with one last spotty before calling it a day. See attachment.
Stu’s fish
and BigKev’s
:::::::::From Ian (eyetag)
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Subject: Re: fishing today -- 28Apr10 - the others
Date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010 7:09 PM
I ended up with 4 Grassies 37-46cm, 2 Squire 38 and 48cm, 1 Tusk fish 34 and 1 Shark 92cm.
I was chasing Spaniards early, first at JS then SR and didn't lose a bait. Most of the reefies were caught on a blade. For a first I caught a Maori Cod and a Grassy on a blade at the same time, one on each treble. The day was great weather wise but I stayed out too long. Some of us never learn. I will be paddling again Friday, launching around 5.30 and staying closer to home, that's the plan anyway.
Ian
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