Sunshine Reef 13Nov11

Wind: light westerly, north westerly
Swell: low NE
Current: at A-Bay Reef, NW to SE at least 1kph
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: richmond, gemini, dugout, jaro, jimbo, sunshiner

Whew, I’m wearier than I usually am after an offshore trip. Today was a good test of paddle fitness for Jaro and me, at least, and you’ll find out why later.

After several consecutive light wind (mainly from east round to north) days recently another was forecast for today (Sunday) so naturally Jaro announced an offshore trip, stipulating a 0430 launch at Middle Groyne.

Unique among Noosa Yakkers up to now, dugout’s launch arrangements do not involve a car. And this morning I spotted him (and tooted a greeting) when I reached the roundabout at the bottom of the hill. There he was, his Swing kayak on trolley, trundling along beachward in the opposite direction to several groups of dishevelled party animals who are a common sight at 0415 on a Sunday morning near Hastings Street. Dugout walks his trolley and yak down from his home somewhere near the top of the hill and launches in the eastern corner of the bay. The rest of us choose to use (or are stuck with) the MG carpark. On my arrival there this morning, with Jaro right behind me, Richmond had just launched while Gemini was preparing his big granite-coloured Viking. Jimbo also arrived soon after.

An intermittent breaking wave threatened a wet bum at launch but proved no real difficulty for anyone, and anyway, it’s quite refreshing on a summer morning, pre-sunrise.

We raised richmond on the radio straight after the 0430 launch and he revealed he was at the river mouth heading for Little Hall’s. Dugout announced he’d do the same and a few minutes later in the gloom I caught sight of him paddling strongly across the front of the groyne, headed west. By now jaro and I had decided to head for A-Bay Reef unless we came across something more promising along the way, jimbo had opted to do a lone recce of Jew Shoal while gemini made a trio with richmond and dugout, checking out the western portion of the bay. Between us we had Laguna Bay covered.

Despite the forecast NE breeze, we were all experiencing a steady NW-er which, judging by the choppy sea state, had been blowing for a couple of hours. This choppy sea slowed jaro and me down a little but we happily plugged along trolling our Laser Pro lures, hoping for the scream which rarely comes when there are no signs of working birds, but always means action.

We passed Hell’s Gates around 0515. Still no sign of activity, not even dolphins which are commonly encountered in the Granite Bay area. And ominously all was quiet from recce group west (richmond et al) who by now would be in the prime area for encountering pelagics.

By now I was watching the fish finder, about one km short of A-Bay Reef. Nothing here, either, no schools of baitfish down deep, no working birds. Ah well, we’re here now so may as well make the most of it.

As usual we set up to drift fish, jaro with bait while I used lures. It was about 15 minutes into the first drift when I noticed, by reference to my GPS, that we were moving along quite quickly, toward the SE. The breeze, although from the NW, couldn’t possibly move us this quickly so clearly we had a decent current. Ah well, “No run, no fun” according to fishing sages so we put up with it. But care is required in this situation because it is very easy to be fooled by the current, especially when there’s no means of judging drift speed (eg anchored boat) nearby. Jaro and I were both well aware of how far and quickly we were being swept but every thirty minutes or so we’d spend another ten minutes getting back up the drift line.

As for the fishing, things were dead quiet, except for a bust off for jaro early on. Maverick (in his stinky) dropped in to say hello on his way back home around 0715. He’d caught a couple of small keepers and at that time jaro and I had nothing to show for our efforts.

Just before 0730, however, jaro boated a sweetlip, which on a normal day would not rate a mention but today it became the star of the show.

Encouraged by this capture, we continued our drift just a little further along this line toward the SE. By 0755 with no further action we’d decided to pull the pin. By 0800 I was paddling toward Hell’s Gates, noting with unease that I could only make about half my normal speed over the “ground” into the current and breeze.

I was sure I could do the distance as long as the wind and current didn’t worsen the situation but even so had already identified a Plan B should that be necessary. (Plan B: head directly for north Sunshine Beach, only a couple of km away, and land there, sorting out the car problem later.)

On my GPS I have Hell’s Gates as a waypoint so I used this waypoint to allow me to judge whether I could maintain the required effort long enough to reach that key location. I concluded that I could do it, but I wish to point out that it took jaro and me 45 minutes to travel the 2.5 km to Hell’s Gates. Then, of course, we still had the extra distance to go back to Middle Groyne. The current dropped away once we cleared Granite Bay on the way in but even so, the journey back took around 90 minutes non-stop, and remember that stopping for a rest is not a viable option when in a current and/or breeze which is taking you away from your destination.

So the lesson here is that knowledge of a current’s speed and direction is very important if drifting at reefs such as Sunshine.

Jimbo and the others had all returned to the beach before we got there, all fishless I understand.

Why are we not catching fish? My feeling is that the reef fish just aren’t present in their usual quantity. Usually we’ll at least hook some undersize fish and at the very least will get some action, especially when a variety of techniques is being employed. But during this strange calm weather spell it seems that most worthwhile fish have moved on.

Any plausible theories on this, anyone? Note that today I saw no turtles or dolphins and no baitfish schools on the sounder. Maybe there’s a clue in this?

Anyway, I’m off for a well-earned nap.