Snapper still biting. 19Nov12

TR by sunshiner

Wind: Gentle NW at first, then picking up to 10-12knots
Swell: 1m northerly
Current: at Halls Reef, none detected
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: richmond, baptism, stormin, yakfinn, tarzan, sunshiner, drewboy (AKFF, visitor from Adelaide), pedro (later)

Drewboy, having never fished at Noosa before, was using my old Stealth Supalite, but staying in Hastings Street, so we were a little late launching today, with both my Supalites carried on the Suzuki.

So here he was, at launch time today. My old Supalite is the red and white one.

Except for pedro, who turned up much later than usual, I was the last to launch but, again excluding pedro, we all launched within a fifteen minute time span.

The string of yak fishers was heading for Halls Reef, based on the likelihood that the wind would pick up from the NW and thus give us a tail wind.

Drewboy had settled in to the unfamiliar kayaking environment by the time we'd gone about 3.5 km into the journey. He normally pedals his Hobie Adventure and has it set up with a super comfortable armchair. Rarely does he need to paddle so the seat, and the fact that his legs are too long for my borrowed Supalite, caused him some discomfort for a while until he jury rigged the seating arrangement and settled in to the paddling routine.

By the time we'd done the five km plus to Halls Reef he was keen to do a bit of drift fishing (relief from paddling) so I showed him how we achieve this here in Noosa and set him free. All the way out none of us had had any action on our trolled lures and there'd been no sign of pelagic action.

Blow me down, my first cast was just bottoming out under the yak when the SP went off, just as I was passing on some info by radio to Richmond, who by now was at Jew Shoal. Very soon I was on the board with a low forties snapper, a tiddler by drewboy's standards.

Snapper #1

I'd been using the same SP which had caught three fish on Saturday, so this was rapidly becoming a favourite. Stormin was using various baits and reported returning a couple of undersized fish and Richmond had reported a hookup and drop at Jew Shoal but the others were silent.

The wind had been picking up steadily from the NW and soon whitecaps were starting to appear. I went back up the drift track to start again and soon I felt the gentle tap of another customer so fed some line back to confirm the deal and another smaller keeper was soon in the bag.

Snapper #2

Very soon after this the wind started to pick up even more and it was about now that pedro came up on the radio, having just launched, I think, and started to ask about results, eventually opting to head for Jew Shoal. Richmond was heading back in at that time as the more exposed conditions at Jew Shoal made the wind even worse.

With at least 45 minutes travel time ahead of us to Middle Groyne I proposed a return to base on the radio and soon most of the Halls Reef contingent were heading for our familiar rock pile on the beach. Only tarzan was left out there and he turned up at the groyne also, about 30 minutes after we'd beached in fairly easy conditions.

So a satisfactory result for me, but I heard of no other keepers but maybe pedro will show us all how to do it. How'd you go, mate?

And thanks for all for coming along and welcoming drewboy in the Noosa Yakkers tradition.

Kev