Diesel on the board. 27Jun14

TR by sunshiner

Wind: light but cool SW-W
Swell: less than 1m E
Water temp: 22°C
Current: at Jew Shoal, none
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: diesel, jaro, sunshiner
Keen Angler Program: One snapper frame donated by sunshiner

Six bloody degrees celsius! 5:45am. My exhaled breath was fogging up as I gazed across the bay. And the sun was still 45 minutes below the horizon. But at least the days are getting longer.

I'd read jaro's email as stipulating a 0600 launch time (later he explained that it was 0600 arrival time) but he was nowhere to be seen. Nor was anyone else except a petite but obviously dedicated female ski paddler who was just about to launch her skinny and stark white 6m ski.

Given the weather forecast you'd expect a dry bum launch and you'd be right. The 180° view of Laguna Bay as you emerge from the shadow of Middle Groyne makes the early morning starts worthwhile, for me anyway. That's how it was today. Sublime. Except, that is, for the sand cleaning machine clanking and whirring on the north side of the groyne. But that's a small price to pay.

Not expecting any responses, I switched on the radio and asked Noosa Yakkers for a radio check. Diesel immediately responded, to my surprise. Where was he? Straight out from the groyne, but invisible due to low light levels. For the time being, as he lacks a good beach cart, diesel launches at Munna Point and uses the river mouth to access the bay (not recommended as a long term solution). He seemed pleased to hear me and we agreed to meet in 40 minutes or so at Jew Shoal. Jaro enters stage left, audio only, and is quickly made aware that diesel and I are on our way to Jew Shoal, where he also intends to fish.

Conditions this morning.

And so we arrived there separately in the expected sequence. With a SW breeze it was pretty chilly out there for Noosa (tropical for Melbourne) but the newly risen sun was already starting to punch out warming rays. Pretty soon we'd need our sunnies on.

Soon after we'd started fishing diesel was asking for info on size limits for a "fingermark". From his radio description this was probably a striped sea perch which we occasionally get at Jew Shoal; he released it. I was engrossed in my usual standard snapper procedure, casting one SP outfit while trailing another. From yesterday's lack of activity at Doggie Beach reef I was not expecting much but hey, at my age, you grab every opportunity to get out, even if the fish may not be plentiful.

The very next cast after I released a teeny weeny coddy thing I felt the familiar bump of a snapper take and a minute or so later I was on the board, but only just.

37cm snapper which ate my cast SP, visible in the pic.

This turned out to be my only action of the morning, despite another two hours of trying. Jaro was using bait, as was diesel, who was in danger of being placed under house arrest by SWMBO if he didn't produce a keeper today (or so he told me this morning). It seems that diesel is keen to learn how to catch fish but lacks experience although he's learning quickly and is certainly putting in the distance on his yak. Consequently I was very glad when I saw him chuck out a rigged pilchard bait and almost immediately afterward boat a fish which had taken it.

He paddled quickly the short distance over to me to seek my opinion on the species so that he could release it alive should it prove not to be a keeper. It was indeed a keeper, a school mackerel, which he then verified by checking that it exceeded 50cm (it was 56cm).

Later, when he'd run out of bait, I took a picture for him as he had a bit of bad luck involving saltwater with his own phone camera.

Diesel's first kayak caught keeper. More to follow I'm sure.

After the pic diesel paddled off toward the river mouth intent, no doubt, on gaining his lady's assurance that he could continue to fish with Noosa Yakkers. See you next time, diesel.

Jaro was still not on the board by 09:30 and I hadn't improved my situation so we decided to head home together. As we left Jew Shoal the wind started to drop off and by the time we were in the middle of the bay we were paddling in glassy conditions with a clear blue sky and on water so clean that every grain of sand could be seen in six metres depth. One matter of interest reported by jaro was a very large longtail tuna snagged but dead in the shark net running parallel to Main Beach. Several years ago we encountered a similar situation in the same net and somewhere on the blog there's a pic of Doc Dog holding that (rather smelly) longtail up. Possibly these fish are coming in at night?

Kev Long
Sunshiner
Author Kayak Fishing Manual for iPad and Mac (click linked text to view)
Stealth Supalite X, yellow/orange

Pedro from MG, Sunshiner from Dog Beach, 26Jun14

TR by Pedro
Wind: light but cool SW-W
Swell: less than 1m E
Water temp: 22°C
Launch point: Middle Groyne

Participants: Pedro from MG, Sunshiner from SBDB

I launched in the dark at 5am and headed to Granite Bay to catch gar.

As there was no swell, I anchored up in 3 meters of water close the rocks, just inside the last point (Fairy Pools) and deployed a berley pot. I was using a packet berley from the tackle shop but white bread works.

First cast with garfish rig, also bought at shop (small float with a couple of small long shank hooks and split shot added) baited with prawn and a double hookup. Ended up with about nine before they went off the bite around 7.30am.

Slow trolled gar out to North Sunshine for zilch so drift fished, trailing a gar and casting pilchard and prawn for 2 snapper, biggest went 44cm.

There was a current running from north to south so decided to troll back to my start point and drop anchor, this seemed to work and I ended up with a couple of grassies and a tusky around 40cm.

Photo of my catch below.



During my paddle I had a radio call from Sunshiner who had launched from SB Dog Beach. His account of the day is below.

Cheers
Pedro

Contribution from Sunshiner




Hi guys

Doggie Beach was easy this morning. Launched at 1045.



Fished Doggie Beach reef with SP for three hours for nothing. But just drifting around in the sun was nice anyway. Pedro was out at north Sunshine catching a few snaps and sweeties on bait.

Gave it away and caught a small wave coming in. Chestcam was running and provided this pic.



Heading for Jew Shoal early tomorrow. No whales sighted or heard today.

Sunshiner

Jimbo gets inked - 22Jun14

TR by Jimbo/Weeksie/Redwood

Trip date: 22 June 2014

Participants: Jimbo, Weeksie, Diesel, Redwood & Steve from Brisbane (not a NY)

Launch Site:  MG

Destination:  Jew Shoal 

Conditions: 10-12knot wind from East, 1m swell, choppy with white-horses at times 

Keen Angler Program: none

Please see my report and then additions from Jimbo and Weeksie which are taken from emails they sent.

Redwood TR

Awoke at 4.30 to the sound of a screaming reel. The new alarm sound was worth the $2 already. The sound definitely had me motivated until I heard the rain. I checked the radar and could see a larger cell just off the coast stretching from SEQ to NNSW and the bad bits looked to be not far off Noosa Heads. The cell was travelling NE away from Noosa and I was sure it would move off quickly and we'd get a glorious day.

I arrived at Doggie Beach around quarter to six expecting to see a couple of yakkers who said they'd be going but the car park was empty. I took a quick look at the conditions in the dark and although it looked doable with timing, it was the lightning to the NE that put me off. Lightning and fishing don't mix as it's been known to travel long distances in search of a carbon blank. I have heard on more than one occasion that beach fishermen have been struck from storms out to sea when the lightning changes direction and instead of hitting the water travels horizontally until it finds it's mark. It still sounds a bit far fetched now, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I headed over to MG and see if there was any action there and saw someone unloading their yak at the barriers. I found out later on the water that this was non-ny "Steve from Brisbane". I had a quick chat to Steve who seemed to be in a very big hurry, he made Sunshiner look like a slow-poke. By the time I had setup and pulled the yak on the beach Steve was halfway to JS. I also discovered I'd left my GPS behind but figured I could just use the other yakkers as markers so that didn't put me off.

I was just about to launch when Weeksie arrived so I waited and we headed off to JS. Half way there I trolled through quite a large number of diving birds with no result. At JS I was determined to keep trying the placcies with the pillie on a trailing rig as backup. Last week I couldn't get my placcies to the bottom and for good reason, even the 5oz/150gms of lead on the trailing rig wasn't hitting the bottom, so this week I came armed with a 3/4 and 1oz jig-heads (I did look seriously at the 3oz jig-head but decided against it). The trailing rig was set and I was trying to get my placcie to the bottom with a 3/4oz head, but even then I couldn't really tell if it was hitting the bottom after I'd cast out in front. I'll keep at it as you only need one bit of success to trigger the whole thing, but at the moment this fishing style is doing my head in.

While mucking around with placcies my trailing rig went off and I battled something very heavy for 10min before I was bitten off with the thing only a few more winds from the surface. I thought I was hooked up to the reef for half the fight, it was that heavy and with so little action. I think it was probably a shark.

I re-rigged and at the same time changed the placcie to the 1oz big mama. I chucked it out back while working on the other one but forgot to put the bail arm down whilst I drifted and even with 100-200m of line out that 1oz jig-head didn't hit the bottom, it was being ripped out East by the current. WTF?

Jimbo radioed to ask how to deal with a squid and said that he saw it disgorge ink once and wondered if it was done. Weeksie thought it was and Jimbo put the gaf in pulled the squid toward him, but it was nowhere near done. It spat black ink 1.5m up and so far that it came over my bow and I was 3-4 metres away from Jimbo trying to get in for a pic. Jimbo's face also landed up being on the firing line, which apparently he didn't know about until I told him back on the beach, so obviously the ink does not stink (he thought it was sea water). It did make for a classic pic though.

Nice ink Jimbo. Luckily he won't need laser treatment to get it off.

Jimbo bringing in his 50-60cm squid (body length)

Nothing else to report except that while taking another classic pic, my trailing pillie which was only just dangling below the surface was smashed by something very fast and toothy. Jimbo has said I might try some wire after the fist loss, but I wasn't in the mood for rigging up wire rigs at that stage.

It's a sh!^ job but someone's gotta do it.

There was a huge amount of bait around, this patch was about 400m off MG and seemed to be hanging around a current line. I'd personally never seen that many bait fish. The sound they make rippling on the surface is quite soothing. There appeared to be nothing chasing them other than the birds from the top.

Bait fish just off MG

Weesksie TR

There were a few starters this morning in dribs & drabs with an early storm cell disrupting starting plans. Jimbo, Redwood, a yakker on a red & white stealth who I didn't catch up with & myself

Tim checked sunshine beach around 0530 as did I at 0600. We both seemed to have similar conclusions that this launch didn't look too pleasing with this storm cell still about & a slight easterly making conditions uneasy.

At MG, redwood was launching when I arrived & jimbo was well away, all heading for Jew shoal, as did I.

Some bird action 2k out from JS with no surface activity other than small baitfish

I did have hopes up trialling a flasher rig which consisted of 3 no. 2/0 hooks, feathered & glittered up & with a slice of pilly on 60lb mono paternoster style.

Two jigs of the bottom this was hit & came up paternoster less & with one hook still intact so maybe it has some promise.

Redwood lost something big early & was also bitten off at least once

Jimbo took home the prize with a keeper grassy & calamari to go

Jim might prefer to reply to your email in good old fashion ink!

Jimbo TR

Not a lot to report fish wise.  Five yakkers went to Jew Sh this morning. I launched at MG about 0615 followed some little time later a non-NY from Brisbane (Redwood got his name), then about half  hour later Redwood and Weeksie launched, having decided Doggie Beach was a bit problematic. Upon arrival at JS I met Diesel who had launched well before dawn in the river somewhere and came out through the river mouth.

The four NY bottom bashed in fairly close proximity to the Pinnacles while the non-NY kept trolling around the same area.  Redwood got bitten off initially by something large and heavy that didn’t want to come up, probably a shark, then much later by an express train.  Weeksie retrieved a blue plastic bucket found floating around, and Diesel donated a packet of bait to small reefies.  I landed a just keeper sweetlip plus a 2-3 reefies on prawns, and for a bit of excitement boated a huge squid (body length ~50cm + 30cm tentacles).  I thought the squid had disgorged all its black ink in the water, but it saved one last squirt for when I was about to lift it into the yak, quite a bit of which landed on my face.  Redwood has a photo so I’m hoping he might post a proper TR including the photo.

Mission accomplished. 21Jun14

TR by sunshiner

Wind: light SW-W throughout
Swell: about 1m ENE
Water temp: 22°C
Current: at Jew Shoal, none
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: jaro, aussie-stu, doctor dog, stormin, couta1 (visitor), sunshiner
Keen Angler Program: One frame donated

Dry bum launch at 0600, with lots of stinkies crossing the bar to our west and a yacht, Champagne Charlie, anchored in the bay. Dolphins were hunting around us as we set up and every now and again skittish baitfish made their presence obvious while terns were visible headed NE. Clear water, looked good. Jaro reported catching a small tailor just off the groyne, possibly on a slug, and I can report that the grinners have moved back in to the shallow waters of the bay, as they used to be several years ago, when we had to stop trolling that area because they were so prolific. I in fact caught two today on my trolled Halco LP, one on the way out and one on the way back, and jaro had a monster grinner, estimated at 80cm, take a trolled pillie bait. So keep an eye on your rod tip when trolling as you could end up with a dud lure/bait spinning around behind you, twisting your line.

I launched first and opted to head for Jew Shoal, while the rest headed for Little Halls Reef and Halls Reef, except for aussie-stu who joined me a little later.

Conditions were superb and it felt good to be out there again after a couple of weeks of no paddling. I'd mentioned at launch time that I was after a snapper or sweetlip so set up a soft plastics drift toward the ENE as soon as I arrived near The Pinnacles. Having set up my trailing outfit (more about this later) I sent out my first cast and had it taken by something small within 30 seconds or so.

Black-tipped cod, one of the commonest small reefies we catch on SPs at Jew Shoal. I have never seen one much bigger than this specimen, even though I've caught dozens. Min legal size: 38cm.

This was a good sign, I thought, as recently I've had trouble catching any reefies at all at Jew Shoal. I let this drift continue until I was about 350m east of The Pinnacles, then turned back upwind and paddled the 500m or so back to a point west of my previous start point. I then slow drifted the approximate same path for no result except right at the end when I lost my jighead and SP due to a bite-off as I was retrieving it quickly. Bummer, likely a smallish mackerel!

All this time my trailing outfit had been hanging out the back, about 10m down I estimated (this depth helps keep it snag free), without attracting any interest. The lure itself was a 100mm white Berkely Power Bait, which are cheap, reasonably robust, and attractive to passing tuna. I use a low cost seven foot rod and a good quality Shimano Stradic 4000 reel spooled with 10kg braid. This outfit sits in the centre mounted rear-most rod holder on my Supalite, an extra one I had put in specifically for this purpose and which allows the rod to point out to the starboard side rear at about 45° to the axis of the yak. On many occasions this trailing outfit has produced keepers when other methods haven't, and today was to be another. Handily, it also doubles as a casting outfit and gets plenty of action when pelagic feeding activity is encountered.

Anyway, now you know about my trailing outfit. I paddled back up the drift line to start another drift over the same approximate area and chose a start point in 14m of water about 250m west of The Pinnacles. As usual, I deployed the trailing outfit first, plopping it out about 15m or so down wind, where it would hang back as I drifted and not interfere with the operation of the casting outfit, which usually produces most of my fish. Placing the butt of the trailing outfit into the rod holder (just within comfortable arm's length) after confirming that its drag was set very lightly, I turned my attention to the casting outfit which needed a small adjustment following re-rigging after the bite-off. I was engrossed in making this adjustment when my inner ear balance system alerted me to the fact that my yak was suddenly leaning wickedly to starboard. This lean I've felt before and I immediately swivelled around to check the trailing outfit. Sure enough, the rod tip was pointing toward the water instead of the sky and the reel was just starting to sing the song we all love to hear.

Of course, the casting outfit was in my hands so that had first to be secured. This done, I wrestled the trailing outfit from its rod holder, being very glad that the drag was not set tightly (a drag set too tightly in this situation may cause the yak to be rolled or at the very least may make it very difficult to drag the butt out of the rod holder). Whoah, this fish was on a rampage, but I ramped up the drag and got stuck into it, with the yak being pulled around in circles. Although I was hoping for a snapper, it was not until near the end of the fight that I was pretty sure I had a snapper on. In these same waters I've also caught sweetlip, a jewie, trevally and of course many tuna. I was very sure that it wasn't a bloody grinner, anyway. Those beautiful pinky-red flanks were a sight for sore eyes when the fish first came into view. Soon afterward the gaff did its job and my best snapper for the year so far was in the hatch. Yeehah!

Note the depth, 16m, clearly visible on the sonar display.

With no more action, soon afterward I headed for the beach at about the same time as did the yakkers over to the west.

Beach pics

Jocelyn, a local lady from Sunshine Beach, did the honours.

Doc Dog took this with my camera.

No other fish were brought back to the beach, but I've heard nothing from couta1, whose car was still at Middle Groyne when I left.

Hope some of you get out in the next few days. Perhaps this is the start of our snapper season.


Kev Long
Sunshiner
Author Kayak Fishing Manual for iPad and Mac (click linked text to view)
Stealth Supalite X, yellow/orange

Monster grinner and a fish with many names 15Jun14

TR by Redwood

Trip date: 15 June 2014

Participants: Redwood

Launch Site:  MG

Destination:  Jew Shoal 

Conditions: 5-8knot wind from West, 1m swell

Keen Angler Program: none

I woke up to the sound of rain at 5am, checked the BOM and saw a large rain system moving south east, but it looked like it was moving fast and would likely miss Noosa. The wind was 5 knots at DIP so the trip was on. I met Aussie Stew in the car park who told me the battery on his sounder/gps combo was dead and that he was going to hit the river even though the offshore conditions looked good, so I'd be going solo again.

The launch was easy and I was soon on my way to JS. I'd not done a long trip in a while and my arms were telling me so about 2km in. My new paddling technique is 1000 times better than my previous technique thanks to some paddling coaching from Tony down in Caloundra. Money very well spent IMO and I'd encourage all new yakkers to have a couple of lessons so you don't develop bad habits and get everything right so you can save energy and go faster and at the same time. I suspect my poor paddling technique was responsible my forearm tendon rupture.

6.30am - looking west with almost full moon in the sky

At JS looking North. A big bank of dark clouds and rain to the East

I arrived at JS and joined a single stinky for some bottom bashing. My plan was to start using plastics seriously and I had about 5 or 6 different types ready to go, however I soon discovered a ripping current heading west and I couldn't get my heaviest jig-head to the bottom. I'm not sure what the plastic pros do in these conditions, but I decided to revert to dead baits and big weights. I set up a drift with half a pillie and this was smashed immediately. The fight was unusual and the result was surprising as it turned out to be a monster Grinner. I measured it for possible record and then released it, although I'm wondering if I should have kept it? Maybe they're OK eating at that size?

Monster 60cm Grinner. Doesn't look like much here but it would have made a decent feed. This one was released. Grinners any good to eat?

I set up another drift and again the pillie was taken quickly. This time a 35cm Squire... the perfect pan size. It was now about 9am and the next few drifts produced nothing. It seems the fish had gone quiet. The stinkies didn't look like they were having much luck either. The sun had finally come out from behind the clouds and the wind was dropping, it was turning out to be a great yakking day. I did a few more 300m drifts before thinking it was time to head back. It was all very quiet and I was enjoying the sun on my face whilst browsing my HBL's to see which lucky fish was going to get a swim back to MG when suddenly I almost got tipped out of the boat. After I recovered from the fright, I grabbed the rod out of the holder and started to fight the fish. It had a few very strong by short runs and then it seemed to give up. It came to the side of the boat with zero fight in it which I thought odd for a fish that size. Perhaps it was in shock? I boated it and started to check the chart for an ID. It looked like a combination of a Snapper and a Jew Fish but I couldn't positively ID it on the water, so I'd have to ID it onshore and hope it was legal.

The paddle back to MG was uneventful except for the 'Coast Guard' using me as a marker buoy to go around... thanks for the waves guys. The landing was as benign as it gets and I had a number of curious onlookers come up for a chat on the beach.

60cm Slatey Bream (Painted sweetlip)

Very pronounced lips. Also notice the bugs coming out of it's nasal cavity... *shudder*... gives me the willies.

I emailed a few yakkers for an ID and stopped in at Davo's who called it a Morwong. Kev, Jimbo, Aussie Stew and Pedro all ID'd it as the same fish except it seemed to have a handful of different names. According to Wikipedia the name Morwong is incorrectly used in relation to this fish in Australia and the correct name is a Slatey Bream or Painted Sweetlip. From looking at the pics the Morwong seems to have a sharper V tail.

Unless anyone disagrees I'm calling it a Slatey Bream (Painted sweetlip).

Also known as Slatey Sweetlip, Australian Slatey, Blackall, Bluey, Greysweetlips, Moke, Morwong, Mother-in-law Fish, Painted Blubber-lips, Painted Sweetlip Bream, Slate Bream, Slate Sweetlips, Slatey Sweetlips, Smokey Bream, Thicklip, Thicklip Bream, Yellowdot Sweetlips.

Yaro bagged a much bigger one back in 2010.

Pic from 2010 - Jaro and a cracker Slatey Bream. Jaro I think said it was terrible eating, but I thought the one I had wasn't too bad. The kids smashed it, so must have been OK.

Aussie Stew landed a few nice flathead in the river. Another great day out. Where was everyone?

Redwood.

Long awaited return 13th-June-14

TR by eyetag

Wind: 0-5 knot variable then S/W 5-10 knots
Current:Fast run out tide
Launch Point: Noosa Heads Lions Park
Participants: Eyetag

Back on the water at last after 20 weeks. I launched around 10.pm Friday night and peddled yes peddled straight to Rickys to find the current line racing due to the large tides. I was onboard Stormin Normans' old Hobie, which I am now the proud owner of. I stuck to the original routine, drift downstream with a small Gladiator Prawn and return with a Gold Bomber out the back then do it again and again and again, I got a good mixed bag consisting of Big Eye Trevally, Bream, Flatties, Tailor and Jacks all playing the game mostly on Gladiators and with the added bonus of not one Hairtail although I did have 2 Bombers taken home as souvenirs.

Flathead with a Gladiator hanging out its mouth.

The Big Eye like the Bream were between 20cm and 30cm not big but a lot of fun on the light gear. The fishing was consistant until the tidal run slowed. With a couple of nice fresh meals onboard it was time for me to leave, the paddle back through the Woods Bays was a non event.

Grinners are not winners 8Jun14

TR by Redwood

Trip date: 8 June 2014

Participants: Redwood

Launch Site:  MG

Destination:  Zululand 

Conditions: 20-25knot wind from South East, 2m swell

Keen Angler Program: none

After an evening walk around the headland I decided that conditions in the bay were conducive to a session in the morning as long as I stayed in close.

MG at 6.30am

I arrived at MG at around 6.30 and the bay looked a picture and the launch looked as easy as they come (even Doggie Beach looked doable the evening before, but strong wind and 2m swell meant a no go for me).

After a dead easy launch I rigged up a HLP on one side and a pillie on a safa rig on the other. I thought that a troll past the river mouth might be in order before I headed for the calmer waters in the lee of the headland. The mouth produced nothing, but the wind did push me out quite quickly. I turned around and headed for the shark nets near little Little Cove and then NE along the headland. Being quite late in the day there was a lot of activity around, walkers, fishermen, kayakers, divers and crazy Tree Tree to Main Beach swimmers. I'd never kayaked so close to the headland before so it was great to explore everything and get a fee for it from the water side.

Seriously quick surf ski paddlers. The seemed to have no issue rounding the headland in the wind and big swell and no issue going really close to the rocks. One straggler was having a hard time just balancing, one paddle then brace and balance, then another paddle and brace and balance. No wonder he was falling behind.

Tiny red dot in the water in the middle was a very keen but obviously poor judge of surf breaks long board surfer

Small yacht glistening on the sunlight.

I eventually made my way to the Fairy Pools and thought I'd have a peak at conditions out of the lee. Yikes! The 2m swell was horrible and the wind was strong so I quickly turned around and headed for the shelter of Granite Bay where I decided to do a bit of bottom bashing. When I got into calm waters I checked my rigs and found the fast turning an rough conditions and tangled them all up and I had to cut the line to untangle. Luckily I got my HLP back and with it came a Grinner. Beauty! No doughnut for me. I did a bit of bottom bashing in the bay just for the hell of it and this only resulted in a few nibbles on my 1/2 a pillie.

After a while I packed it in and headed for home trolling a small medium diving HB I'd not used in a while. When I got back to MG and reeled the line in I found I had Grinner #2 attached. This one was released (the other one drowned).

The beach landing was again a breeze, but I did pull up right behind a bridal photo shoot. Bugger! no fish for the ultimate fish holder to hold. Instead I thought I'd take a few pics myself. The bride and her bridesmaid were game and turned for a smile. Thanks ladies, come back again for your next wedding and hopefully I'l have a fish.

There's going to be a yak in them-thar wedding pics

Good sports and great smiles

Not the most thrilling day, but still a very enjoyable way to spend a morning in Noosa.

Redwood

Tunny does Halls. 02Jun14

TR by tunny
Wind: less than 5 knots, variable
Swell: 1 metre
Current: negligible
Launch point: MG
Participants: tunny
Keen Angler Program: 1 Spanish Mackerel contributed

I was on the beach at MG by 6am. The sky was overcast and there were a few drops of rain but this soon stopped, the clouds lifted and it turned out to be a glorious day. The launch at close to low tide was no problem and I headed past the river mouth towards Little Halls with my extra large skirted pilchard in tow.

A few birds were diving on arrival at Little Halls and small bait fish about 1cm long were occasionally breaking the surface. I did a few circuits of the reef without any success. As I could not see any bird action on the horizon I decided to persist with Little Halls but with no bites after an hour decided to head for Halls.

As I approached Halls the sea was calm, there were no bust ups, no birds, no signs of the bait fish I encountered at Little Halls and no boats. A few circuits of Halls yielded nothing. Just as I was starting to think that coming to Halls was the wrong decision my reel started screaming and the fight was on. It felt like a good size fish and made some solid runs but finally I got it to the side of my kayak. A Spaniard - and the biggest one I have caught from a Kayak, measuring 120 cm.

I continued trolling around Halls for another hour without any further success, then headed home via Little Halls. At Little Halls the birds were still diving but the fish were not biting. This may have been due to the presence of a pod of dolphins.

I arrived back at MG at 11.00 am and with the tide closer to high the beach landing was no problem.

Great day out - look forward to the next one!

Teewah tearaways. 01Jun14

TR by Aussie_stu

Wind: 12-15knots E
Swell: decent, but apparently smaller than last weekend
Water Temp: 24-25C
Current: N
Launch point: Teewah beach aka the boneyard
Participants: Scater, Jake, Aussie_stu and ran into Sprocket and Tarzan up there
Keen Angler: nil

After meeting Scater and Jake at the barge and loading my crap into their cars, we jumped on the first barge and hit the beach just as the sun was trying to break the horizon. The wind was a little more than the 7-8knots forecast on seabreeze, but the swell didn't look too bad and we were all pumped to get out and give it a hit, especially after seeing several good fish caught up there last week.

The launch was a little harder than MG with no real lull, just smaller waves, and with the wave zone being about 250m it meant you were bound to meet a few on the way out, Scater manned up and tried to show Jake and me how to do it, unfortunately a sneaky wave got hm and he went for a little dip before jumping back on and hammering out the back. I jumped in and started making my way through the washing machine and as luck would have it (could have been skill, but I'm not gonna claim it) each wave I met had either broken or I managed to get over it, and managed to make it out without a swim. I lost sight of jake as he came out, but he did say he had a little swim too, but eventually he made it out safely.

Once out we deployed troll baits and I started working north, while the other two boys headed south. After a about an hour of trolling (maybe more, was too busy watching the swell than my watch) I hadn't had a touch, but the boys reported over the radio that Scater had a Spaniard on board and Jake had a Spangled Emperor that he released, after hearing that I started working south until I came across the boys, again I had no touch, but did see another yakker boat a Spanish.

The boys decided to head in for a break and to ice down the Spanish, so I took off north again. This is where things for me started getting hectic, after about a kay or so I could see some birds working and from a distance could see some good sized fish clearing the water chasing the bait. I started trolling towards them when the smaller slimie I had out got hit and took off on a ripper of a run, unfortunately what I suspect was a decent mack bit through the wire trace and took home a new piercing.

After rerigging with another slimie I started out towards the bait school again when no more than 5 minutes later I got hit again, this one stayed connected and had a good first run before dogging it down deep. Thinking it was a tuna I put a bit of hurt on it and then to my surprise a nice cobia popped up. After another last ditch run I managed to gaff him and wrestle him into the cooler bag (lucky you got in last week Redwood, this one would've beaten the previous record, but not yours).

I radioed in to Scater about the cobe then turned around to see the bait school was only about 10 metres away and I was drifting straight into it. I quickly tied on a 3" white plastic and flick it into the school, I let it sink down hoping for something big lurking underneath, when bang, I got hit and off it went. After a spirited fight it started circling under me and I thought I might have picked up a small tuna, but then up came a nice 55cm Cale Cale trevally (a record maybe?).

After dropping him in the bag I fired another cast towards the bait ball and let it sink, bang again, this time up popped a nice keeper squire, but with enough fish in the bag I dropped him back. The next few casts resulted in a nice spangled emperor and a grassy, both keepers, but both went back. Was very strange throwing keeper reefies back eh.

sounder screen shot

After this point I had drifted off the fish so I paddled back up to them and fired another cast in, this time I kept it high and fast and came up tight to a good fish. Initially it went deep, then took off on a screamer run before showing its colours by circling under my yak for a good 10 minutes before I could get a good tail hold on him, a nice tuna of about 110cm.

By this time I was stuffed so I started paddling south towards the cars, coming across sprocket on the way. Had a good chat, he had 2 Spaniards in the hold and while we were paddling along his mate hooked up again.

After finally making it to the exit point and stowing all my gear, I started making my way back into the washing machine. Again as luck (or skill) would have it I managed to miss any of the monsters that were lurking and even surf a wave or two in before finally going in when the nose hit the bottom. Nothing like a dunking in a foot of water to bring you back to earth eh?

Hopefully Scater will post up some info on what happened while the boys were off on their own.