Nice paddle but..., 4Feb10

From: Jim Thompson
Subject: Yak Fishing Yesterday - Thurs 4 Feb 10

Hi Yakkers,

Apologies for the delay in reporting yesterday's outing - basically the same as Stu's today, ie, nothing much to report.

I launched at 0540 right at bottom low tide and had a bit of fun getting out. The waves weren't particularly big and there were ample breaks in the sets coming in. However, once having launched I found myself being swept out by a very strong current running out next to the rock groyne, but also in towards the rocks near the seaward end. No amount of back-paddling could counter this current to await a break in the sets, and I was just swept out and confronted by a couple of rough waves that I then had no option but to just paddle flat out into. I was lucky to just burst through the crest of these waves at an angle of about 45 deg accelerating upwards and becoming mostly airborne out the back of each, just avoiding being tipped over backwards and quite probably washed back into the rocks at the end of the groyne ..... a lesson to be learnt when launching at bottom low tide.

Well that was the excitement for the day. I didn't catch anything keepable, so you can stop reading now if you want. I put on my Spaniard Special lure with a nice slimey mac attached and paddled from MG to the river mouth, and in the absence of any surface/bird activity as far as I could see to the north, decided to head for Jew Sh, changing to Jaro's favoured Halco lure for the journey (I'm yet to catch anything on one of these lures, Jaro). The wind from the ENE was quite slight, and decreased a bit during the morning, maybe 10-7k, but had pushed up a sloppy wind wave during the night on top of 1.5-2.0m SE swell, making things just a little bit bumpy for most of the morning. The good point was that the conditions, combined with the fact that school holidays have finished, meant I had almost the whole ocean to myself .... saw only about five stink boats for the whole morning.

Other than one brief gathering of birds about 200m away, which disappeared by the time I had tied a slug onto my casting rig, there was no surface activity at all at Jew Sh. I decided to do a bit of traditional bottom fishing around the Pinnacles and landed a small cod on my casting rig and a massive "toado" on my trailed line that managed to take the bottom hook of the 3-gang set in the process of releasing it with my pliers. I reloaded the two remaining ganged hooks with a pilchard and soon had a good strike but unfortunately the striker didn't stay hooked. I blame this on the bloody toado for knocking off my bottom hook of the 3-gang set.

After about an 1.5 hours out at Jew Sh I called it quits about 0930 and again headed back towards the lower North Shore (now being pushed along by a mostly following sea and NE breeze) then across the river mouth once more and back to MG. I was back on the beach by 1030 without any dramas coming back through the surf zone.

Again, a nice paddle, good upper body exercise but no keepers.

Seabreeze is indicating that tomorrow (Sat) morning could still be good conditions for yakking if anyone is interested (Kev, have you recovered sufficiently from your sailing sojourn in Bass Strait?). I won't be going however.

Cheers,
Jimbo