Crofty's Sweetlip, 21Jan13

TR by Crofty
Wind: Clear Skies 10 knots Easterly Breeze
Swell: Half metre swell
Current: slight northerly
Launch point: Laguna Bay Middle Groyne
Participants: Pedro, Crofty, Dan King (unsure call sign)

After a fitful sleep in the car at Sunshine Beach, I dragged my rear down to Middle Groyne to set up. Pedro pulled up as I was getting out of the car and Dan pulled in shortly after. Note to self – sleeping in the car makes me more disorganised. It took me twice as long to set up, and the time advantage I’d gained by arriving the night before was swiftly lost. Leaving the beach was uneventful with little swell to contend with. I waited behind the breakers for Dan as he had no GPS and we were setting forth to Halls Reef together. As it turned out, I dislodged my battery cable with the rudder when I put it down and needed assistance to fix it up. An uneventful trip north, saw us arriving over Little Halls as the sun was cresting the horizon. Loads of bait was apparent on the sounder but little in the way of predators. We continued northward to Halls where we caught up with Pedro. Birds were working to the East but quickly returned to a searching pattern as we attempted to approach. Dan and I made the decision to stop chasing pelagics and set up a drift line for reefies.

I was fishing a lightly weighted Woolworth’s prawn with an open bail arm and tossing a plastic ahead. The first prawn in the water saw line flicking off the reel and I had difficulty removing the rod from the holder as it bucked and danced. No strong head bumps told me it wasn’t a snapper but something I enjoy more. Grassy emperor and a good one at that. I initially called it for high 50’s but later measuring it onshore saw it come in at 54cm. A few low 30’s snapper were released on the prawns but the plastic wasn’t being touched today. Dan was having the same problem. He was fishing plastics only and unfortunately didn’t get a touch. I’ve been there before and learnt this lesson. It can be really frustrating fishing the same water as the bloke beside you and not hooking up. Prawns will always accompany me in Noosa waters now. It can mean the difference between a fishy and fishless day.

After a while, the birds seemed to be working in close to shore and Pedro was off stalking the flocks. I decided to join him as the fishing wasn’t red hot anyway. Dan headed for home at this stage and I took off up the beach after the birds and Pedro. Some 3km later, I caught up with Pedro who was still fishless. A quick hello, and I decided that it wasn’t really happening here either with the birds seemingly vanished from the sky. So back I trundled towards Halls for a last ditch attempt before home. Halfway there, the water erupted with three long tails that looked more like beer kegs. Easy 15kg fish, which disappeared as quickly as they appeared.

There was more activity on Halls now on the change of tide with more bait and birds flitting here and there. I set up a drift and picked up another 44cm grassy to add to the spoils. I missed another one as I faffed about with a muesli bar and caught and released another couple of undersized snapper. Not to worry, I had a feed now.

Home time. I started making my way back towards the groyne. After passing Little Halls and having a quick chat to Pedro via radio to ascertain he was still fishless. Right in front of me, a school of tuna launched skyward. I fired off cast and couldn’t have timed it better if I tried. The slug landed square in the middle of the table sized white water and was snaffled before I cranked the handle. Unfortunately, after 10 sec of the reel singing, the line went slack. I don’t think I’d hooked up but it had merely been holding the lure in its mouth. Probably a good thing as I’d thrown my 6lb silly string at it and it would have taken forever to pull it up. No more excitement for the day from me as I head in to pack up. An aborted attempt at landing as I swung the bum of the revo through 180deg by accident, then a perfect landing even managing to surf a little runner to the beach. For those of you who have never ridden a revo, you’ll have no idea of how difficult that actually is!

Last I heard of Pedro, he was still out wide chasing the tuna. Perhaps he has a more exciting report?

Crofty

A few words below from Dan when he emailed me the photo.



Photo courtesy of Dan

Contribution by KingDan


Attached is the best photo of your 50cm+ sweetlip.  I hope your persistence paid off and you added to your catch. I had an uneventful peddle back however this was the first trip for a long while without the sail and my legs were feeling it by the time I back. I did encounter one bust up, 100m in front and saw some tell tail signs of spotties slashing at bait however a tinny beat me there and the finicky fish fled before they could get close enough for a cast and could get a look in.

Thanks for the tour of Little Halls and Halls.

Cheers
Dan

Fussy Fish, 20Jan13

TR by Gemini
Participants:  Lazybugger, Jaro, Gemini, Corie, Dano, Panno, Salty, BigKev, Redwood, Dave (Friend of Redwood)
Launch Site: MG
Conditions: ENE 6-8 knots, strengthening later in the morning

Well at least the carpark was full of eager souls this morning. I can't say the same for the fish in the bay...

We launched at around 4:45AM in dribs and drabs, scattering ourselves across the bay in small groups. Jaro and myself followed Corie out towards Halls, although Corie had opted to head out wide while I was a little further in towards the shore. As we passed LH the birds seemed to have no idea what was going on. They were scattered and seemed to be aimlessly searching. Not far past LH Corie advised us of surface action further out in his his direction.

Jaro and I turned to follow a large flock of birds busily diving into a fairly large boil. We tracked it out wide and managed to arrive before it dissipated, but only meters from casting distance some fool in a stinky raced into the boil and that was the end of that.

The boils then started to appear all around us, but nothing would take our slugs (or trolled lines). That coupled with the same stinky racing around like crazy made for an interesting time. Corie checked in with us and advised that the boils in his area were small mac tuna. Bummer.

The boats arrived in numbers then, positioning themselves out towards Halls reef. The boils continued to appear sporadically, but still nothing could be enticed to chew a tasty metal slug. At this stage I had a snack break and took some footage of the medusa which seemed to be everywhere. A banded sea snake also made an appearance a few meters away from me (something I wasn't overly pleased about).

Jaro then moved north of Halls with Corie who was reporting more bustups in his area. At this stage somebody over the radio reported a keeper snapper taken (BigKev perhaps?), but otherwise no other captures reported at that stage. I opted to try my luck back in towards shore for no other reason than it couldn't be any worse...stranger things have happened (but didn't).

On my way back in Jaro kept me updated with his adventures. Further out he encountered boils containing small yellowfin tuna, one of which a stinky landed in his presence. Unfortunately he couldn't replicate the same feat using almost every lure in his kit. The fish did not seem overly friendly today.

On the return trip to MG I narrowly avoided a wipeout against the wall much to the delight of onlookers. The wave took me by complete surprise, but somehow I managed to stay upright. See the video below (in HD where available).



Once on the beach I was informed that Dano had caught a keeper sweetlip, and Redwood had caught a leatherjacket; the only other fish for the day.


Distance 14.7 km
Max Speed 8.7 km/hour
Avg Speed 3.2 km/hour

Nasty Northerlies, 19Jan13

TR by Turtleboy
Wind: NNW 7-9 knots and strengthening
Swell: Half metre
Current: Turbulent
Launch point: MG
Participants: Stormin, Carlton and friends Matt and Digby, Kahuna, WhaleRider, Redwood and TurtleBoy.

I arrived at the car park at 4.45am to find Kahuna unloading, with WhaleRider and the Redwood pulling in behind me and the others already on the beach.



Photo of WhaleRider on the beach, Matt and Digby tandem in the gutter, others out of sight, Photo courtesy of Carlton.

After a quick discussion we agreed to head to Halls via Little Halls Reef. The going was tough into a nasty little northerly wind and chop but at least we would be wind assisted coming home. We were only averaging 4.4 kph going out and 1.8 kph coming back without even paddling.

Stormin was the first to arrive at LHR and was headed out to sea chasing birds. We witnessed a few splashes but very little activity. The rest of us were doing a combination of bottom bashing and circular loops with hard body lures. Redwood had a ganged skirt with Pilchard. He had one small hit but didn't hook up. Meanwhile, WhaleRider was monitoring his sounder with little success.

At about 7.45am, the fish-less WhaleRider, Redwood and myself decided to troll back to MG via the river mouth. Carlton and his friends had already turned for home. So we quickly radioed Stormin and Kahuna to advise. Hopefully at least one of them will be able to post some positive catch details into the comments section.

Watch this space for a video taken by Carlton on the front of his SuperliteX. Coming soon. And here it is !




Better luck tomorrow boys !

TurtleBoy.

PS. We did bump into another Noosa Yakker on the beach. Last seen scurrying up the sand cursing something about "Bloody HTML codes, trip reports".

Spotty Mack Mayhem Mk2, 18Jan13

TR by Jimbo
Wind: 5 knots
Swell: Half metre
Current at Halls Rf: Didn't have time to assess
Launch Point: Middle Groyne
Participants: Jaro, Soren & Emil (father & son combo), Jimbo

This was one of those days that kayak fishos dream about ... perfect weather, almost no wind, low swell, only one or two stink boats and the spotty macks going ballistic! I'll fill in the details shortly, but here's the ultimate outcome ... thirteen spotties between four yakkers:




Fish caught: Jimbo 3, Soren 1, Jaro 5 spotties and 1 slatey (one spot given to Soren) & Emil 3.

The details ...
We all arrived at MG car park shortly after 0400. Launch conditions were fairly easy. Jaro was first away when there was just enough light to see the low breaking waves at the end of the groyne.

This was only Soren and Emil's second launch into Laguna Bay, and Soren had only just purchased a new eTrex30 GPS the previous day, so we spent a little time with some basic GPS tuition for Soren, and revising surf zone launch tactics with Emil before heading out about 20 minutes after Jaro.

Given that Jaro had decided to head to Jew Sh (that destination possibly chosen by Jaro so he could come home aided by a slight NE tail wind filling his sail), I decided with Soren and Emil in tow, we would head towards Halls Rf to spread our reconnaissance over a wider area. We took a route along the north shore before heading out towards Halls Rf. We had had no strikes on our trolled hard body lures, nor were there any birds evident. However, about 1.5 km from Halls Rf Jaro came on the radio from Jew Sh to report he had seen numerous birds heading towards Halls Rf.

On arrival at Halls, we began to see birds starting to circle and gather about 300m to the north. By this time the breeze had dropped right out and the ruffled surface of a significant bust up below the birds could be clearly identified from 200m away. My initial thoughts were that this was probably the same lot of mac tuna we had encountered in the bay a week earlier. There was only two stink boats in the vicinity, both being pretty well behaved, and all three of us were able to paddle to within casting distance. Soren and Emil, having only one rod each with 30 lb mono and hard bodied lures, were limited in casting distance so had to paddle in close. This caused the bust up to divide into two or three smaller bust-ups (but not totally disappear) and I was able to target one of these with my favoured Halco polished chrome slug (can't remember correct name) attached to 15 lb braid on my light casting rod.

At this point everything seemed to happen at once. Emil shouted that he was on, and almost immediately I was hooked up on my first cast. After a couple of reel-screaming runs I was delighted to see the long-bodied silver flash of a spotty mackerel in the clear water below ... whoo wheee!!! ... the spotty macks were back in town and we were right in the middle of their neighbourhood! After a short tussle I landed and stowed my spotty then headed over to help Emil, who by now had also gaffed and lip-gripped his spotty but did not have pliers to release the hooks, and was unsure how he would stow the fish in the somewhat inaccessible forward hatch in his yak. (Apologies for smudge on lens of camera in next couple of pics).




Emil with his first spotty mack caught on only his second NY fishing trip.

In the midst of helping Emil solve these tasks, Soren yelled out that he was hooked up. After setting Emil free to chase the birds, still only a few hundred metres away, I paddled over to Soren and similarly help him stow his quite sizable spotty into his forward hatch. Soren was now declaring that kayak fishing was the best fun he had experienced in a long time.





Soren with his first ever fish caught from a kayak, also on his second NY fishing trip.

Somewhere in the middle of all that initial excitement I had radioed Jaro to tell him it was all happening at Halls Rf and that he should take the trouble to paddle over to get some of the action. He reported there was not much happening at Jew Sh but he had caught a sizable slatey bream (also known as a painted sweetlip?) but had released it as they are poor eating.




Jaro's slatey bream. Dr Dog note: A possible new species and record claim for the Record Fish blog?

Meanwhile, back at north Halls, the spotty mack bust-ups were occurring all over the place and we didn't have to paddle more than about 200-300m to be repeatedly amongst action. After helping Emil fix a loose screw on the bail arm on his reel, he then swapped over to a silver/blue slug which had improved his casting range and he and I soon after each landed our second spotty. I initially thought my second spotty was a shark as it was staying down and taking a lot of line from me, but this turned out to be another spotty foul hooked in the dorsal fin. I lost my next two strikes along with my two Halco slugs due to the spotties shredding the line above the wire trace. Interestingly, they would not touch two other slugs I tried, one blue/pink/white in colour, the other a simple small silver slug with no "action".

Jaro was at first a little reluctant to make the 4.5 km paddle over from south of Jew Sh where he had gone chasing some indistinct bird action. But my excited radio transmissions eventually got the better of him and he made the paddle over to Halls Rf where he too got into the action at Halls Rf proper along with the two stink boats. He was there not much more than about 30 minutes before he had landed three spotties.

By about 0800 Soren, Emil and I had migrated south to Halls Rf in the process of chasing the bust-ups, by which time Jaro had bagged out on his fifth spotty and had helped Emil stow his third. The generous Jaro loaned me one of his spare Halco slugs and gave one of his five spotties to Soren (still cast-limited due to having only a hard bodied lure) so he (Jaro) could continue fishing within his bag limit of five.

By 0845, Jaro and I had caught our 6th and 3rd spotties respectively, and with the sun now well up, despite the slight NE breeze just starting to build, conditions were becoming decidedly hot out on the water so we agreed to head for home. Jaro adopted a more south-easterly course so as to be able to take advantage of the increasing NE tail breeze with his sail set, while Soren, Emile and I paddled the direct 4.6km course back to Middle Groyne.

We all made a relatively easy and upright return to the beach, with the usual interest generated amongst beachgoers by four kayak fisherman displaying 13 spotted macs for photographing. For Sunshiner, it wouldn't be a complete trip report without the obligatory fish holder (and her son).



An absolute magic day guys, one to be remembered by the four of us for a long time to come.

Jimbo

Sunshine Beach, 17Jan13

TR by Doctor Dog
Wind:light ESE
Swell: half metre
Current: not detected 
Launch point: Middle Groyne Noosa Main Beach
Participants: Doctor Dog,  Damo (DoctorDog's visiting brother) Kahuna, Brian (friend of Kahuna)

We arrived at MG a little before 5am and found Brian a friend of Kahuna's on the beach ready to launch for a non fishing paddle. We were informed Kahuna was already on the water headed towards HR but did not see him nor could I raise him on CH9.

Damien and I prepared to launch in what appeared to be benign conditions

We trolled all the way round to Sunshine beach with no action to report except for a strike and brief hook up at Lion Rock where some large fast fish took a liking to my trolled pilchard offering. There was a crashing take with ratchet screaming and much surface splashing as the fish jumped behind me and then took off in short blistering runs some of which came straight back at me leaving the line going momentarily slack. This took the pressure off and the fish dislodged my hooks. We returned to to a very peaceful and apparently fishes Laguna Bay and made a successful dry return to the beach at MG. Kahuna was there on our return. He saw more surface activity towards Halls with Mac Tuna and Longtails busting up and leaving the water but none could be induced to take his lures.

Doctor Dog

Is it bed time yet? - 16Jan13

TR by Gemini
Participants:  Gemini, Redwood
Launch Site: Lions Park, Weyba Creek
Conditions: Fine, light breeze



Well the river didn't fire as i'd hoped it would last night/this morning. Here's a brief account of the nights activities.

At 11:30PM Redwood and I headed in a clockwise direction from the Lions Park to loop back around to the Woods bays, trolling and flicking lures along the way. A slight technical glitch with rudders and trolled lines put us on the bank for a brief spell, but we were back at it soon enough. We followed the current line out towards the river mouth and back with no hits. On our way back around towards the bays Redwood managed to pick up a hairtail on a drifting pilchard. We trolled up and down between and around the bays with no joy. The fish were splashing around near the jetty's, but none were interested in what we had to offer. No boils were sighted all night.

The only action I had was a brief grab from something fairly large on my home way past the Sheraton. I had my drag locked tight, yet the reel screamed like crazy. Seconds later the hooks had pulled, and closer examination of the gold bomber showed a bent treble and teeth marks. I'm guessing it was a decent sized shark, but who knows...

We finished up at around 3:30AM. Not a great fishing night, but it was pleasant out there at least with no boats to bother us.

One Hit at Sunshine, 14Jan13

TR by Pedro
Swell: Half metre
Current: not detected
Launch point: Doggie Beach (Sunshine Beach)
Participants: Pedro


I launched around 5am without incident and trolled bait hoping for a mac. There were plenty of terns heading into the wind and eventually, at about 8.30 I saw them working just out from Lion Rock (the southern end of A Bay).



If you look carefully you can see Pedro at about 4 o'clock to the rising sun position. Photo courtesy of Kerrie Crisp 5.30am.

On arrival the terns were picking up small anchovy as they fed on the surface. The anchovy were thick and covered a large area. Not long after my bonito on spaniard special, ( thanks Richmond ) was smashed and took off fast.

I continued pedalling to maintain pressure while winding in the other line and the ratchet stopped screaming. The fish self released. On inspection the small treble on the last gang was hooked forward onto the wire that holds the spinners. I re-baited with a large gar and continued to troll the area for another hour without result.

By this stage the wind had dropped so I headed out to A-Bay reef and drift fished for an hour picking up one just legal snapper that went back. At 10.30am I headed for home via the Lion Rock area, doing a few laps amongst the anchovies then timing my landing perfectly I was on the beach upright.

Cheers
Pedro