Smelly fishbox. 22Apr13

TR by solman

Swell: Negligible (southern)
Wind: Nothing early on increasing to around 10knts WNW
Current: Running east 2kmh at Halls
Conditions: Perfect
Participants: Solman and sunshiner

What a morning! The expected southerly swell and very low wind produced perfect conditions to launch at MG.

I arrived in the carpark at around 0520, shortly followed by Kev. We discussed tactics and Kev had decided to head to A-Bay Reef to target some reefies, and I was heading to Halls again chasing my first longtail.

A quick look at the beach confirmed the conditions and we both were on the water in no time. My first actual 'drybum' launch - I usually manage to fill up my seat and footwells with water for the journey.

0549. A typical Noosa sunrise. Sunshiner in the distance, on his way.

After fussing around with my sounder (not working - wet mount, story for another day) and trying to get some nice GoPro footage with the sun rising behind me I finally set off and within a short time frame I was passing Little Halls and soon coming up on my Halls mark, my new Halco Laser Pro 120DD (red and white) in tow. To my surprise, I had seen absolutely no signs of pelagic activity! One single bird was fluttering around. The water was perfectly calm, but I couldn't hear any splashes or any other birds calling to their mates… unlike last Wednesday when they were splashing around all over Halls.

A mere 50m off my Halls GPS mark and my trolling rod gets hammered. I quickly switch on the GoPro and grab the rod from its holder, line peeling off at a reasonable rate, but with 500m of braid on my Penn spinfisher I wasn't too concerned. Never having fought any pelagics from my yak I was kind of unsure how to go about it. Kev had told me not to be afraid to put some hurt on it early on as the fight can last up to an hour. So hurt it I did. Tightened the drag up a bit and held on, just trying to get a feel for how the yak handles the fish. Towing me around at about 3.5km/h for a while, the fish tired easily. In what seemed like no time (but was in fact around 20 minutes), the fish started doing circles underneath me. Just prior to this stage I was beginning to doubt it was a tuna… but the circling assured me and I settled in for a bit more of a tug of war. Taking some line and giving some back as the tuna circled underneath the yak I finally got a glimpse of my fish - a beautiful longtail. Nervousness gave way to excitement and I finally let out a bit of a cheer.

Next step - landing the fish. With thoughts of yakfinn's first attempt at putting a gaff in a tuna (ask him next time you see him) in the back of my mind, I clumsily missed the fish's head and hit my leader. Luckily no damage! The fish was very calm at this point, lying quietly in the water beside me, so I put the gaff in its mouth and with a quick tug, pulled it through its cheek. Game over. One small thrash from the fish but I had it securely across my lap. A quick victory raise to the GoPro and into the fishbox she goes.

0703. Longtail safely in the hatch.

A quick call to Kev on the radio to tell him of my success and then I was off on the troll again. (Kev: at this stage I was at A-Bay Reef and we could communicate perfectly well, a remarkable distance).

Still without any signs of birds or other predatory fish, I decided to try my luck on the bottom. Without my sounder I was fishing blind and the current was quite strong, so I soon gave that up.

For the next hour I trolled around Halls. No surface action, no hits on the lure. Another quick call to Kev to tell him I was heading slowly back to MG and he told me that he had not had a touch and would be doing the same thing very shortly.

50min or so later and I was safely on the beach at MG. My girlfriend, Teone, had come up to have a swim so we took a couple photos and waited for Kev to show up whilst showing some excited beach goers my catch, much to the delight of a youngster who was trying to make his toy hammerhead eat my longtail.

Kev arrived shortly after and took a couple more photos.

The longtail went 105cm on the brag mat and I'm guessing around 12-13kg. Not a massive one - but my first and certainly most enjoyable!

0915. Victory!

Solman