Wind : 3-5 knots SSE
Swell : ~1.2m ESE
Current : At Lt Halls ~ 0.8kph S>N
Launch Point : Middle Groyne, Noosa Main Beach
Participants : EyeTag, Jimbo
I arrived at the MG car park at 0445 just as it was getting light to find EyeTag' s car in its usual place and the tracks on the beach indicating that he was well ahead of me. Launch conditions were the same as described by Sunshiner on Monday, ie, two of three largish waves breaking about 10m out from the end of the groyne then a period of about a minute of relative calm making for a relatively easy transit to sea.
Once having set up my rods I called EyeTag on Ch 09 with nil response so called Noosa Coast Guard on Ch22 and logged on to their watch register. EyeTag, who was listening in on Ch22, heard my call to the NCG and called me indicating he was past Lt Halls Rf and still heading north for Halls Rf. He had no hits and reported no surface activity up to that point. However, given the success of Sunshiner and Richmond the previous day, scoring a longtail and yellowfin tuna trolling around Lt Halls and Halls and casting into bust-ups when they occurred, I intended to do the same with a bit of bottom fishing thrown in. The paddle to Lt Halls was easy with the assistance of a gentle SSE breeze and the rising sun was conveniently shielded behind a dark cloud bank to the east. The following pic from EyeTag indicates the pleasant scene :
On arrival at the Lt Halls mark I started setting up for bottom fishing but was surprised to find I had drifted some 220m in the ~8 minutes it took me to complete the re-rigging my two outfits - trailing pillie on the heavier trolling rod and lightly weighted whole prawn on the light casting outfit. As there was only a light SSE breeze, this indicated a significant assistance from a fairly strong S>N current. I repositioned back to 150m on the "up-drift" side of the Lt Halls mark and had completed only about three casts when EyeTag approached having returned from trolling around Halls Rf (about 1.5 km to the north) reporting no strikes in all his journey thus far. We were right on top of the Lt Halls mark when I had a big strike on my light casting rod with the prawn. Both Eyetag and I were calling it for a sizeable grassy. Again, thank you to EyeTag for the following pic taken in the early stages of the tussle :
After a few more minutes I was a little disappointed see the white shape of a "standard" 1m long shark below the yak. Anyway, having not caught any reasonable fish for weeks (months?) I decided I would keep this shark and brought it along side the yak in preparation for gaffing. At that point the shark gave a violent kick/flip and managed to break the leader and was gone. This was understandable as my 7kg mono leader was tied directly to the hook (no wire trace) on my light casting outfit and the shark's rough skin had severely abraded the mono leader near the hook.
EyeTag then continued his trolling expedition back to the river mouth via the lower north shore, then back out to Lt Halls (by about 0800) and then back to the launch point at MG. Since there was no bird or fish surface activity evident, and given EyeTag had had no success trolling extensively over the whole area, I chose to continue drift fishing over the Lt Halls mark for the next 2.5 hours until 0900. During this time I managed to land another "standard" shark and a 40cm snapper on the trailed pillie and a "just keeper" sweetlip on the cast prawns. In this time I also lost (self released close to the yak) another shark and a reasonable sweetlip.
The paddle back to MG was uneventful and pleasant, under a now totally overcast sky, albeit into a slight headwind, as was the return to shore by again picking the long gap between sets. The only other noteworthy comment was that Noosa Coast Guard called me up 30 minutes after their (incorrectly) logged ETR time of 0900 (rather than 0930) to ensure I was okay. The point to note here is :
(a) it's nice to know NCG is keeping a watching brief over your welfare if you register on to their watch log, and,
(b) if you do log onto NCG's watch log (in my opinion only necessary if you are fishing by yourself, or possibly in an area 3-4 km distant from a fellow NY), you have a responsibility to listen in on Ch22, and to cancel your coverage once safely back on the beach.
All in all a very pleasant outing. Sorry no pics of the fish as I don't carry a camera with me, and in any case they were not really worthy of a photo.
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