I haven't been on the yak much this year. I picked up Cav from his place mid Saturday arvo and we scooted north, laughing at some clown with his yaks strapped to his yak in the most ridiculous fashion. We met Bigkev and his entourage at the ferry and he kindly lent me his stauns (?) but didn't bother to deflate his. Running up the beach flat stick at bang on high tide on road pressure.
I don't think I've been up there on the weekend before and it was busy. Took us a little while to find a camp but we soon had the fire stoked and beers cracked. I'd brought a full standup harness and my TLD with 900m of 30lb braid on it. I jumped into cav's yak and paddled a deadbait out through the knee high swell before dumping it well past the breakers. Back in to the beach and took a swim in the shorey. The water was beautiful. Life was looking good.
A couple more beers and I spun up a couple of tailor in the gutter in front of camp. They were right at my feet and I could see the school cruising in the breakers. The original bait I'd paddled out hadn't been sniffed so we switched it out for a fresh tailor. Kev did the deed this time paddling out and sufing back in. There was a bit of weed on the beach making life tough though. It would have been nice to hook Ethan into a noah, but dinner was calling so we pulled it all in and retired to the fire. Some kebabs, boerie, steak and a few more beers before tucking up for the night.
The new day dawned slightly overcast but with barely a zephyr ruffling the tent flaps. The surf was non-existent. A quick scarf of some cereal, drag the fully laden yaks down the dune and away. Cav caught a breaker in the chest but stayed upright, Kev ploughed out without any drama and the waters parted for me and I made it from the beach to the rigging point without going through broken water. I wish it was always so easy.
I stuffed about for ages getting ready and Cav was hooting and hollering in the distance. I paddled over to discover he'd found bait and was having a ball catching myriads of fish. I dropped my bait jig down, picked up a few yakkas and into the tube. Then started getting pearlies, moses perch, wire netting cod, grinners and the list goes on. All of them were of reasonable size but unfortunately the pearlies were too small. With bait in the hatch I headed north.
Several laps over the reef produced no strikes and I hadn't marked any large fish to warrant continuing with trolling for pelagics so swapped over to chasing demersals. And holy moley, every drop produced a fish. Mostly undersize red emperor, squire, more moses perch and grinners. Then I got my livey tangled with my slow fall jig. I was busy stuffing around trying to untangle it when my deadsticked rod gave a little bump. Then another. I dismissed it as another small fish, until I started to get towed along and the little 2500 started singing.
I too-ed and fro-ed for a bit then got colour several metres below the yak. I called out to Cav...
"What's legal for a Red Emperor?"
"55!"
"I reckon I'm in!!"
"No way, 55's a big fish"
"I'm pretty sure I'm good"
Then the fish broke the surface and Cav ate his words.
"Bloody hell! That is a good fish!"
"Hell yeah!!!"
I measured it three times to be sure as I couldn't get it properly flat on the bottom of the yak - 58cm. My day had been made with the first fish in the hatch. You bloody beauty.
Yak-caught legal sized red emperor. Rare!
Back up to the mark and I picked up my second for the day with a 36cm moses perch.
Moses perch, although the fingermarks are faded. What was Moses doing in SEQ anyway?
Cav was still hooting and hollering as he was filling his hatch with a great bag of fish. Kev had paddled off into the never never in search of a cobia. I think he was secretly trying to just get some breeze on his face as it was dead calm and bloody hot.
I found a bream and a nice 40cm grassy to round out my bag before i started to get concerned about my fish in the heat and we began to head for home. We headed for the beach, Cav turned turtle, Kev paddled all the way to dry land and I rode my trusty steed like a bronco that had a chilli smeared thumb stuck up its ass. At least until I went turtle as well.
All up a fantastic stress release from the rigours of work and study.
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