Solo Jaro Snapper, 11Jan13

TR by Jaro
Conditions: At 6.30am a north-easterly wind around 12 knots, white caps slowly abating to around 9 knots around 9.00am.
Sunny periods.
No swell to speak of but very choppy.
Participant: Jaro

I woke at around 3.20am with Seabreeze showing wind at DIP at 13 to 15 knots. Not good I thought and worse at Cape Moreton. But I was up and it was predicted to abate so I decided to go anyway.

There was quite a few email communications from others stating that they were pulling the pin and heading back to bed. I arrived at MG at 4.05am and found it very windy and though it was dark I could see the white caps easily so I pulled the pin also. I met Gemini coming along Hastings St as I was going. We stopped and chatted with Gemini deciding to also pull the pin. I had told Gemini I would keep an eye on the wind and if it abated I would probably go later. On arriving home I noted an email from Corie stating he had been down to MG and had decided to pull the pin also, and sure enough, at 5.30am Seabreeze went to green for go and so I took off after emailing all that I was going.

I arrived back at MG and still found it windy with white caps but decided to go anyway. The channel along the western side of MG was now well developed so getting out dry was a breeze. I was on the water at 6.10am. I decided to troll to JS using a Halco LP and as I was paddling directly into the wind and choppy slop, it was slow going.

My plan was to get to JS and then troll back to MG as I did not fancy being on my own. Anyway, as I battled on, I became more comfortable, confident and settled. I arrived at JS at 7.30am and decided to switch to trolling a pilchard. At around this time Turtleboy made contact with me from shore and I was just going to reply when I had a strike and a good one at that. I quickly told Turtleboy I was hooked up and proceeded to do battle. At first I thought it was a shark but soon realised that the pulse on the line was different so I knew it was something else. The fish did a few runs but soon gave up the ghost and I could see it was a very decent sized snapper. It even looked like it could be a record when seen under water. However, when I boated it I could see it was not a record but a still a very good fish indeed.



Well that encouraged me to troll some more around JS which I did till but after having no more action by 8.30am I decided to troll back to MG. I had noted that there were more birds around today but were well spread out. I also noted that there was a lot of bait fish in Laguna Bay.

Returning was a breeze with the wind behind me and my sail up. About 1.5km from MG there was suddenly a lot of birds congregating and diving so I paddled towards them as fast as I could, seeing that there was a large bust up but of course they disappeared before I could get a cast in. This happened a few times with the same result so I gave up and headed for MG and then caught a 1 metre shark 500 metres from shore which I released. Getting in was a breeze. I arrived onshore at 9.30am where I was met by Andy Pannifex who kindly helped me with my kayak and also took the following photo.



Photo above by Panno



The snapper measured 70 cms. Turtleboy - I was going to crop Jaro's toes off but thought it might hurt !

So all in all a great day.

Jaro