TR by sunshiner
Wind: gentle SW at first, then calm after about 9:00am
Swell: 1.3m SE
Water temp: 20.6°C
Tides: 4:40 am : 1.24 H; 10:48 am : 0.33 L
Current: none detected
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Surface action: none
Participants: diesel, jimbo, lazybugger, allan o’leary, sunshiner
My trip distance: 11km
Keen Angler Program: nothing donated
A totally clear sky today throughout our trip. Dead easy launch at around 0550, only just illuminated by the waning moon. Jew Shoal was our chosen location, initially and the first of us were out there fishing by 06:30.
A light SW breeze caused me to choose to start my first drift from the Old Faithful location on the extreme SW corner of the shoal. Today I deployed a banana prawn at 10m on my trailing outfit while I cast my usual SP around in search of the elusive snapper. Others were using SPs, microjigs (lazybugger and diesel) or bait on the bottom, the last of which tended to result in plenty of reef ooglies, particularly for diesel.
But no snapper, or decent sized grassies. Baitfish were there aplenty but nothing seemed to be feeding on the bounty. At one stage I retrieved my drogue to find that it had become a temporary home to a cloud of tiny (1 cm) prawns.
Diesel was the first to abandon the shoal, heading off to Halls Reef at about 0815. Then jimbo headed home at about 9:00am. The sea started to glass off.
As you can see, conditions were superb. That's lazybugger in his Profisha and my fish is a "butter bream" aka Diamondfish, Monodactylus argenteus. These are the small fish that usually school with their backs showing above the water in Jew Shoal's 7m shallows.
Lazybugger was picking off a few of the pike which hang around the shoal and he donated them to my future troll bait supply. Thanks Scott.
By around 10:15 the rest of us had left our destinations for Middle Groyne. Only Alan had brought a "keeper" home: a small snapper which was just legal.
So, the shoal and Halls Reef are still very quiet. Let's hope the coming new moon will create the spark which brings the fish in.
Kev Long
Sunshiner
Author Kayak Fishing Manual for iPhone, iPad and Mac (click linked text to view)
Stealth Supalite X, yellow/orange
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