13 Unlucky? 13Jan13

TR by doctor dog with contribution by lazybugger at end

Wind: Clear Skies 5-10 knots Northerly Breeze
Swell: low messy wind chop on a half metre swell
Current: not detected
Launch point: Laguna Bay Middle Groyne
Participants: Sunshiner, Lazybugger, Doctor Dog


05:07. Launch time. From left, sunshiner's Supalite X, lazybugger and his Evo 465, Doc Dog and his Supalite BFS.

We met in the carpark at Middle Groyne a little before 5.00 am; Sunshiner and Lazybugger had initially planned to launch from northern end of Sunshine beach but changed plans when early morning recce showed conditions too lumpy for a safe beach launch. Sunshiner made it through the small half tide shore break without any problem but Lazybugger had a technical issue with his paddle in the middle of the shore break and found himself back on the beach the wrong way up. Exit no 2 was uneventful for him and Doctor Dog did not time his exit as well as he should and wore a little white water on the way out the back.


Lazybugger and Doc Dog setting up just after launch. Pic by sunshiner.

Sunshiner lead the way towards Jew Shoal with Lazybugger interrupting progress just inside the shark nets to say he had hooked and landed a small shark which he released. The three of us punched out into the sloppy chop out to Jew Shoal with only a few terns cruising to all points of the compass not stopping to feed or harass any bait. No bust ups from predators just a few lazy jellyfish.

A procession of power boats were heading out to Sunshine reefs and beyond but no evidence of any fish being caught. One power boat was anchored up at Jew Shoal but did not seem to be producing anything and moved off back to the river mouth as soon as we turned up.

With the strength of the breeze now freshening to 10-12 knots conditions were not suitable to staying at Jew Shoal so we headed towards Halls as there seemed to be more bird activity that way. Sunshiner and Lazybugger were trolling HB lures and I had a Laser Pro HB and a large pilchard on a trolling rig (Easy Troll).

We paddled in a wide spread over to Little Halls and apart from Sunshiner spotting a flock of birds over a small and shy school of bonito there was no fish activity to speak of.

We gradually made our way back to MG with a few diversions to flocks of birds but no fish. We all returned to the beach right way up through a small full tide shore break with little surf.


Lazybugger returns to Middle Groyne. Pic by sunshiner


Doc Dog returns to Middle Groyne. Pic by sunshiner (frame from movie file)

Cheers, Doc Dog

---

Contribution by lazybugger

I arrived at the Doggie Beach car park not long after 4am. I went for a walk down the path to check out conditions, which wasn’t easy at it was still a bit too dark. On my way back I found Kev, who said it was a bit too messy to bother with a Doggie launch, so off to MG it was. I’ve got to admit I was a little relieved as dragging my yak up that steep path wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

Dr Dog met us shortly after our arrival in the carpark. Kev was first to launch and made it through fine. I thought I was ready but as soon as I put my paddle in the water I realised I’d stuffed up. I put the 2 piece paddle together back to front. I pulled it apart and put it together quickly but soon realised I didn’t get it right again as the blades weren’t hitting the water at the right angle and as a result power was down. I decided to go anyway and fix it after the break. That was a mistake. Unlike Kev who got a clear run, I had a couple of slightly larger waves break on me and they pushed me sideways. With paddle power reduced, I couldn’t get straight again by the time the 3rd or 4th wave came through and into the drink I went. Back to the beach. I fixed the paddle, drained the water out of the footwells and seat and made it out fine on the next attempt.

After setting up the rods it only took a 100m or so for the first run of the day. Unfortunately it was just a baby shark. After a bit of surgery he was released to terrorise the nudey beach. No photo, sorry, he didn’t look that exciting.

After that I had my second bit of drama as the drift while I was fiddling with shark meant I had to paddle over the shark nets. Sure enough my rudder got caught first time and then the second. I moved a bit further away from the big buoys and took things a bit faster rather then trying to glide over for the third attempt & had success.

I was a fair way behind the other two by this point. I wasn’t too far from Jew Shoal when Kev suggested a move to Little Halls as that’s where the birds were heading. Along the way I thought I’d check my pilly rig and realised that I’d turned too tight earlier and the Halco Laser Pro on the other rod was now caught in the rudder. Rather than risk going in the drink, as the way my luck was going that would have been the outcome if I tried untangling myself, I called Kev and asked him to fix it for me at Little Halls.

Little Halls certainly had a bit more action on the sounder but no luck was had by any of us. Kev cut the line and retrieved my Halco for me. The current was pretty fast though, due to the large high tide. Not sure that the few casts with SPs that I had got close to the bottom because of it.

Kev made the call to head back and I followed not far behind. Again no action on the troll although I did see a fish swimming on the surface go straight past the front of my yak. It looked like a reef fish with a dorsal fin along the length of its body and was mainly brown with black spots. Trigger fish sort of shaped I’d guess. At least I saw a fish.

All three of us made it in unscathed.

A few lessons learnt today. I might stop breaking down the paddle and just keep it as a one piece from now on. It fits in the car anyway.

Youngest best, today. 12Jan13

TR by sunshiner with video etc contribution by gemini

Wind: Light west to NW then NE about 6-8 knots
Swell: small northerly
Current: at Middle Groyne, none
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: Soren and Emil (first time), jimbo, gemini, jaro, stormin, bigkev, redwood, scater, indiedog, sunshiner

The earliest arrivees waited on the beach together until there was just enought light to see how wet we were going to get at launch time. Jimbo looked after first timers Father/Son duo Soren and Emil and I was happy to see that all three got out safely without serious problems. Jaro, first to launch, almost took a big bath, getting slightly airborne just in from of me as I waited my turn in the channel. I was first away from Middle Groyne and headed for Jew Shoal into a choppy sloppy sea, even though the wind was still quite light.

As I headed out I trolled my usual HLP and was heartened by the sight of dozens of terns overtaking me and flying very low to the water. This looked promising. Unfortunately this apparent good sign was not accurate, at least for where we were.

The waters at Jew Shoal were still churning as a result of strong winds earlier in the night and there was even some swell. Accordingly drift fishing out there was less comfortable than usual. Sea sickness overtook several yakkers who are not normally afflicted, thus curtailing their trips. Those who stuck it out didn't reap any significant reward although young Emil (aged 15 I think and thus the youngest Noosa Yakker) scored a small keeper snapper.

Jaro had picked up a small throw back snapper on bait and while drift fishing near him I spotted, in quick succession, two Spaniards leap in beautiful arcs about 100m away. Nothing we did could tempt them to take our offerings, however and that was the last surface action I saw all morning.

Bigkev, on the way back to MG, encountered a bustup of very small mac tuna near Granite Bay and promptly boated three of them.

I understand that Soren and Emil met the sand monster and that gemini has some footage to prove it. The most spectacular beach return as far as I know was stormin's. While gemini, bigkev and I stood watching on the beach without cameras at the ready, stormin timed his run to coincide with the arrival of a nice little wave. We all thought he was a goner for sure but he cleverly braced on the wave and stayed on it, surfing it to the west, into the concentration of swimmers who hurriedly made way for his revo as it carved up the wave.

So, very little to show for our efforts today, except for bigger leg and arm muscles. I could not find any bait concentrations around Jew Shoal and there were only one or two scattered blips of bait in the bay. This is a huge change from the previous time I'd fished here, on 09Dec, when bait schools were evident all over.

Congratulations on your first outing with us Soren and Emil. May there be many more.

Kev


Track map and video added by Gemini.





Distance 11.8 km
Max Speed 6.2 km/hour
Avg Speed 3.0 km/hour

Fishing Noosa River early morning, 12Jan13

TR by Eyetag


I launched from Noosa Heads Lions Park around 12.30 am and headed straight to the Woods Bays trolling a Gold Bomber.

A couple of laps around the Inner Bay and then to the Outer Bay which was where I got my first strike, a bloody Hairtail. I trolled the current line out from Ricky's and I got another Hairtail.

The wind was still up a bit so I decided to head up to Weyba Hole. Things were pretty quiet there but I did manage another Hairtail. This one was a big specimen but unfortunately was missing about 400mm of tail (no record claim). The wind was starting to drop so back to Ricky's.

By now it was quite pleasant with a lot of bust ups. I did a slow drift casting a small Gladiator Prawn and retrieving it with a slow roll across the bottom. This was producing small Big Eye Trevally which were still fun on 3lb gear but I wanted something bigger. I could hear more fish busting up a little further down stream. Again the small Gladiator worked well with small Grunter Bream and some good sized Tarpon. I was bitten off twice.

With the Prawns being so easy for the fish to swallow whole I thought a bigger lure might stop them biting me off, so I started slow rolling a Gladiator "Slim Jim". This also worked well on the Grunter and I landed a nice Mangrove Jack but I was bitten off again. Thinking there was Tailor around I decided to troll the Gold Bomber up to Ricky's and back. On my second lap 50 metres out from Ricky's it got smashed by a monster with the first run taking me toward the river mouth and with some serious drag on an 8kg rod he was still taking line. When we got past the sand bags, I was in serious trouble. I fought the fish for 10 minutes then the hooks pulled. BUGGER, big Jew I think.

The fish were still there in numbers so I went back to the Prawn and was getting Tarpon after Tarpon. I must have hooked at least 30 but only landed 4, with their acrobatics and bony mouths they are hard to hook well. With the tide slowing so did the bite and after hooking Mr. Hairtail again I headed in without a touch on the way back.



Tarpon, a great sportfish, but not very good on the tooth



Mangrove Jack after being on ice.



The two Gladiator Slim Jims used.



Small Gladiator Prawn rigged on 1/8 oz 1/0 heavy hook.

Eyetag.

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

Tim, 10Jan13

Hi Yakkers,

Very quick trip report from this morning; arrived at MG car park at 5.15 and had a quick squiz at the conditions. Very choppy with some swell but not to many white horses so decided to give it a crack. 

Launched at 5.30am and got out without a problem, dropped my red and white Rapalla X-rap and headed out parallel to the headland. Conditions close to shore were not too bad but the further out I got the worse the wave/swell conditions got with some big'ns every now and then. I was a bit edgy because of a rollover last week at Morton, so was trying very hard to maintain my centre of gravity in the right spot. 

After I reached the headland point (out near a series of yellow buoys--shark nets??) , I decided it was time to turn back. Going with the waves was much more difficult than going against them and was quite quickly pushed toward the headland. With some effort and concentration I negotiated the conditions back to MG where I landed without incident at 7.15am. 

An interesting and challenging paddle with no bites of any kind. Hopefully tomorrow will be better paddling and fishing.

Tim

Pedro e` Lorenzo, 08Jan13

Pedro and Lorenzo
Wind: Easterly 5 to 10 knots
Swell: 1m to 2m
Launch point: MG

Participants: Pedro, Lorenzo

As promised, I took Lorenzo out for a fish today before he returns to Italy.

We launched at around 5am and even though it was Lorenzo's first time in a kayak he did well, staying upright and making it out the back after being pushed back in by one of the bigger waves. I also made it out between sets, on my first attempt.

We headed into the easterly breeze toward Jew Shoal trolling gar on Spaniard special and chin guards. JS was a bit lumpy, with a few waves measuring just above 2m on the sounder.



View from Jew Shoal looking across to Noosa headland. Photo by Pedro.

As there hadn't been any surface activity nor birds sighted so far, and as it seemed like the birds had moved, we headed for Little Halls.

About half way to LHR Lorenzo thought he had a hit but it didn't hook up and later once at LH his SS came in missing its gang hooks. I suppose the swivel broke. It pays to test all connections.

Upon arrival at LHR, I bottom fished with prawn for ten minutes and Lorenzo did some laps with gar on chin guard. The fish weren't playing for us today so I set up to troll back to MG with a 35cm mac tuna on chin guard. About fifty metres into the pedal the bait was taken by something (a shark probably) and the only bit left on the hooks was the tail.

Turtleboy had radioed earlier in the morning that he was at MG and might still be on the beach when we land so I put out a call. Kev responded and was waiting on the wall.

Lorenzo was tipped and I managed to stay upright after aborting a landing and facing a couple of bigger ones.

See you on the water,
Pedro

Pedro and Corie, 02Jan13

TR by Pedro with contribution from Manscaped


Less Swell Than Expected
Wind: light West turning SE 10knots
Swell: 1 to 1.5m
Launch point: MG
Participants: Corie, Pedro


Wendy and I arrived at 4.45am and after having a look at conditions and calling Corie on the radio(no response, I tried several times). I launched in Wendy's prowler, picking a lull made it straight out no worries.The sand monster was lurking but asleep for most of the time.

I spied Corie heading north but I also saw that the birds were heading east so I followed the birds. JS was quiet so after a couple of laps trolling pilchard and HB I headed for Nth Sunshine and it wasn't any different there, although there was some terns looking for a feed.

On the way back headed for JS, I saw one school of small mac tuna bust up. Back at JS another school of mac tuna were hitting the surface occasionally with birds overhead. I trolled then bottom fished then trolled and with no strikes or bait lost I headed in at 9am. The tide was in and I had no problem picking a gap and landed safely.

But once home I did have a problem with my arms, neck and back as I normally pedal not paddle.

Happy New Year NY's

Pedro



Good morning all,

I went out this morning arriving at around 4am the wind was almost non existent and the bay looked inviting so of I went. There were waves standing up at the end of the groyne but the sets were well spaced and I made it out unscathed.

I set course for halls trolling a hb and a pillie along the north shore. Before getting to halls the southerly was picking up so I headed out wider and headed back towards the river.

Halfway back I noticed flocks of turns heading in so the schools of bait must have been deep. Once I found the dirty water line I followed it for a while before deciding I had enough.The only fish I had seen were flying fish flying away from me as I paddled along.

After stowing my rods I headed in to MG. After watching the sets roll through I waited for next ones and paddled in after them making it all the way to shore untouched.

Corie

PS. Also saw a tiny tinnie out there would have been 10ft max. My evo looked like the titanic compared to it and was wondering how he got out. Go have a look at the pictures on the FishingNoosa Facebook page. They at either exceptionally keen or stupid.