Subject: fishing today -- 08Apr10
Date: Thursday, 8 April 2010 2:26 PM
WX
Cloud cover: 3/10 (see pic)
Wind direction & speed: initially calm, then west ~5knots, through to NW 10 knots later
Sea state: low swell, clean water
0542hrs. Trundling the yak down to the beach, I was suddenly confronted with this. See what you're missing?
Andy was already in the carpark prepping his yak when I arrived just before 0530. The sea was quite noisy, but the air was cooler than it has been for months, possibly a connection between these. I wandered down to the beach and could watch our deep channel next to the groyne doing its thing. No launch problems today.
Jimbo arrived shortly afterward and then I took the pic above. In light of Whalebait's report from yesterday we three opted to visit Jew Shoal.
Down on the beach Andy surprised us when he pulled out his Eagle VHF radio, being used for the first time today. By my reckoning now, at least seven of the hookers (including all of the hard core) have VHF radios, a huge safety improvement in the last year. Andy's callsign is "Andypaddles".
Launch, as predicted, was easy and soon we were out the back rigging up and conducting radio checks as the sun gradually illuminated our part of the world.
Jimbo headed off first. Knowing that Andy has no GPS I hung around a few minutes until he was ready to tag along, taking a mood pic while I waited.
0608hrs. Calm sea -- graphic weather report.
After all the paddling out to Sunshine Reef, the mere 3.5km out to JS seems like a picnic in the park. As we headed NE we encountered some power boat traffic, no doubt as a result of the school holidays which seem to have packed Noosa once more.
Noting that the breeze was from the west, I headed for my most westerly mark on Jew Shoal, nicknamed "Old faithful" for some long-forgotten reason. I was after sweetlip or snapper and set up my usual drift, but fishing with only my casting outfit. Andy drifted nearby. Sure enough, soon the GPS was confirming a solid easterly drift and I could see many of my well established Jew Shoal waypoints clustered on the GPS display, down drift a few hundred metres away.
I drifted past the pinnacles, 420m from my start point without getting a touch and kept going out into the deeper water beyond. Still nothing. I turned back to do the drift again. Jimbo was on a similar drift but nobody was reporting any action. Second drift. I'd laid out my first cast and was working the jig head a little just before retrieving it to cast again when whack! then nothing. Suspecting the worst, I reeled in to find a severed line with some shredding evident in the last 10cm. Bugger, down one jighead and one SP and nothing to show for it!
That was all the action I had on that drift. I turned and set out back to the same drift start point, passing Jimbo on the way. Shortly afterward he reported that he'd just boated a small but keeper sweetlip. A few minutes later he boated a second larger one at the same spot, which he'd marked on his GPS. At his invitation, I joined him, as did Andy. The three of us then intensively fished this area for the next 15 minutes without attracting any more action.
At this time I noted that we'd been fishing for 2 hours in beautiful conditions for small result so resolved to try one of my deeper spots for 15 minutes before heading home. Andy and I fished this mark on a very nice drift for the allotted time for zip! Time to go home.
With the breeze starting to move more into the NW, the trip back was easy. All three of us paddled the 4 km or so in under 40 minutes. I got back into the beach first and turned to watch Andy come through. By now there were a lot of holidaymakers around but fortunately none blocking our channel in which a strong seaward current was running. This necessitated a fair bit of extra paddling effort when the narrowest part of the channel was negotiated. Watching Andy, I was surprised when he stopped paddling in this narrowest section and hopped over the port side. Not as surprised as Andy who now found that he couldn't touch bottom and keep breathing on that side, while the starboard side was knee deep. He manoeuvered his yak, still the right way up, over to the rocks then climbed back aboard to finish off his aborted beach return, somewhat red faced. In the meantime Jimbo managed to pick a nice little wave and did a little surfing on the way in, accompanied by his usual flayling legs and arms balance act.
Jimbo's two grass sweetlip, the only keepers today.
Two hookers and a looker. Andy, Jimbo and NY Looker Geoff Gettons, who came over for a look.
The Vikings have landed. From front, my Espri, Jim's Espri, Andy's Nemo. Pity we hadn't had a Profish and a Tempo present.
Thanks for coming along guys and well done on the sweeties, Jim (both on soft plastics BTW).
Looks like some superb fishing weather coming up but I'll be away for a week or so and can't participate. Hopefully there'll be some trip reports popping into my mail box.
Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09 or 22 (if alone), Call Sign: sunshiner
http://www.noosayakkers.blogspot.com/
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