Subject: fishing today -- 19jul09
Date: Sunday, 19 July 2009 3:04 PM
I was all alone today. Even the normally indefatigable Jaro couldn't make it.
It was pretty brisk at 0630 at MG. But there was no wind, the swell was non-existent and the sun was only half visible, the lower half having not yet cleared the horizon.
Although there were no yaks around there were plenty of stink boats coming out through the bar which was benign compared with last Sunday when at least one boat was swamped and rolled (should not have been there IMHO!). Within a couple of minutes of launch today I was setting up outside the surf zone, which was not in action at all today.
I'd resolved to try Little Hall's, a reef some 3.2km NNW so set course with a HB lure swimming along behind me. The sea was flat -- it reminded me of paddling in the river or on a lake. Fantastic conditions. Before long my mark came up on the GPS and the sounder confirmed the location...
0730. Little Hall's reef. 13.9m depth with fish schools showing.
The presence of baitfish gave me some hope that predators might be around so I put out a soft plastic trailing on the rod held in the rod holder at the stern and used a different SP on my casting outfit, casting down-drift in the 5kph westerly breeze, letting the jighead and impaled plastic sink gently. I'm not very familiar with Hall's Reef and when I hadn't had a touch after 30 minutes I decided to head for Jew Shoal, more familiar territory, which was 2.7km away, to the east.
The gentle breeze was from the west and the sea, as I said earlier, was flat so I covered the distance to A3 01, "Old Faithful" at the SW edge of Jew Shoal in well under 30 minutes. I had the shoal to myself because the stink boats had all headed out for the more distant reefs so I immediately set up an easterly drift from A3 01 which I judged near perfect at around 1kph.
It took me 30 minutes to drift to the shallower water near the pinnacles and during that time I'd picked up only a couple of undersize (as usual) black-tipped cod and lost one jighead and bait to a snag (bugger! down $1.60). By this time a couple of the boats started appearing back from over the horizon and helped themselves to some of my reef (to no avail, I believe, as they didn't last long before heading back toward the Noosa River).
Having caught nothing of significance by the time I reached the pinnacles I opted to go for deeper water, where we'd been having some success in the last month or so. This entailed a move of only 400m and before long I was drifting gently toward one of the snapper marks which I'd recorded the day Harry got slammed by the longtail tuna and Jim caught the whaler shark and all of us caught snapper. Again the drift was perfect and this time I was immediately encouraged by a strike which unfortunately failed to hook up but which pulled the SP partly off the hook -- at least there were fish out here!
I tidied up the bait and put it out again. The drift was such that there was just enough movement of the yak to cover the territory very gently. When the cast jig was at its maximum depth (reef depth: 21m) I could simply lift it up and down 3-4 times a minute for several minutes before I judged it necessary to lay out another down-drift cast. During one of these little lifts I had a solid hookup which I soon discovered was a 34cm or so snapper (undersize by about 1cm). This was an encouraging sign, I thought, as I gently released this fish to grow up.
The GPS display now showed that I was in the centre of a cluster of marks all of which had previously yielded fish and the closest of which was about 20m away horizontally. The drift was going nicely through this cluster with my trailing jig hanging out the back at about 15 degrees and my cast jig swimming vertically below the yak, very near the bottom. I felt the gentlest of gentle bumps on this latter jig and struck immediately to be rewarded with a satisfying bend in the rod as the hook struck home. The fight was vigorous, but relatively brief as my first keeper snapper of the day appeared next to the yak after fighting desperately all the way from the bottom, the jig firmly embedded inside the jaws. I'd barely got this fish into the footwell when I felt the yak move sideways. I turned to look at the trailing outfit and saw that this was the cause of the movement. The rod tip was in the water while the butt was held by the rod holder at about 10 degrees "up" from horizontal. Clearly there was a fish on the end but the drag wasn't yet yielding line. I hurriedly put down my casting rod, jammed my feet on top of the struggling fish in the footwell and picked up the stern rod to take the fight to the other fish. All of this was successful for before long a second snapper, almost identical in size to the first, was also in the footwell. This was better, two fish in two minutes!
0950. Two tethered snapper in the footwell. Note the stripes on the one at the front. Not a common appearance for Noosa snapper, in my experience.
These fish were tethered and stowed after several minutes and fishing resumed. I'd pressed the "mark" button on the GPS while fighting the second fish so, taking a look at how my drift was going on the GPS, I saw that I was about 100m from where the action took place so decided to go back to the spot just to check whether there were more fish "available". This took a couple of minutes while I also checked the sounder to see if there were indications of fish presence (there weren't, but there was a small bommie which rose up about 1.5m above the bottom there). A couple of minutes after I'd put the lines out again at "the spot" I was distracted by a small and unusual marine creature which was drifting nearby. I was photographing it when I felt the yak roll to starboard very slightly. I was pleased to find that I automatically countered the roll by leaning to port then, suspecting that the trailing rod was the culprit, looked around to find that it was severely bent with the tip under water and was clearly connected to something alive and down deep. I've been experimenting with this rod holder and so far have found it to be a success but may have to ensure the drag is set a little lighter otherwise I might find myself in the drink. Anyway, another short fight ensued and another snapper, similar to the two now cooling their fins in the fishbox, soon popped up to join the party.
1016am. Snapper #3.
This trio was a good feed for me, so, cognizant that I might be required to come out fishing again tomorrow (can't resist such great weather) I decided to head for home shortly after I'd stowed the fish. The trip back was superb and I made good time, hit the beach and enjoyed chatting to the beachgoing holidaymakers who, as usual, turned up to ask about the fish, the kayak and fishing from it.
The take-home catch. All between 40-45cm.
Just before coming in I'd noticed an unfamiliar yak being paddled out near the shark net. As I was about to load my Espri, the damp owner of this yak turned up in the parking area with his yak under tow. It turned out to be Tony, a friend of Harry's, who has been hanging around for a while saying he's interested in getting into this caper. He's now bought an Emotion yak and was out in it near the shark nets as I came in. He is keen to join us fishing soon so keep an eye out for him (Harry, can you please hook Tony up to our email system?). Here are some pics:
A damp and trouserless Tony with his new Emotion yak. He was damp because he'd been practising eskimo rolls.
Another view of the Emotion. A nice boat, very streamlined, and plenty of scope for pimping.
Ah, another great day on Laguna Bay. Who's up for another shot tomorrow before the wind gets up again?
0615 at MG?
Oh, one other thing. Got your message Andy Cav. Sorry to hear about your accident. We'd love to see you back up here with us soon.
Kev
Red & Yellow Espri, black paddle
VHF channel 09 or 22 (if alone), Call Sign: sunshiner
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