Wind: SW, starting at 5 knots, dying out gradually
Swell: low E
Current: none detected
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: eyetag, richmond, gemini, carlo, beejay, whalebait, helveticus, sunshiner, jaro, jimbo, imax, stretch, hollywood (13)
Distance 22.8 km
Max Speed 12.6 km/hour
Avg Speed 4.0 km/hour
Richmond, whalebait, eyetag, and myself all arrived at MG within minutes of each other a little before 5AM. I made sure I was first so I could steal Richmond's car park for the second time this weekend... sorry mate. :) We promptly unloaded without much fuss and headed down for launch. The tide was out a ways, so the launch would be a possible damp one...as Richmond and myself found out. Asides from wet bums, we had no troubles launching onto a moonlit bay.
As usual, my stuffing around with tackle after launch put me behind the pack as we headed up the north shore. It was my intention to keep relatively close to the shore on my way north, and then out to Halls for a bottom bash if the pelagics didn't show. Whalebait and eyetag kept close to shore as they moved north, and Richmond stayed further out to the east of me. Dawn broke, and still we continued north with no hits. Schools of baitfish had started to appear on my sounder, and birds were seen heading north, but no bustups had yet been sighted. By this time we had been hailed on the radio from the other yakkers to say they were on the water with some heading our way, and some heading to JS.
Richmond turned in further towards the shorline as we moved north, and I decided to head out to Halls for a look. By the time I arrived there and rigged my bottom bashing rig, eyetag and whalebait had reported bustups appearing closer to shore. I observed a lone stinky briefly trolling around Halls and then taking off, not filling me with much confidence, so I made my way back closer to shore.
I trolled a lazy arc on my way back closer into shore and then headed south to troll parallel to the coastline for a while. About 500m into this heading I had my trolled line smashed, producing a most satisfying scream from the reel. I decided to test my line strength with this fish (or "cheating" as Jaro put it) and didn't give him much drag to play with. The line held and very soon I had a healthy longtail tuna aboard. He even de-hooked himself for me after I'd gaffed him, allowing me to put him straight in the hold. How considerate!
Pic by sunshiner
I continued my parallel troll down the coast until I heard the magic words from eyetag... "I've just boated a 20kg spaniard!". I turned north again and headed to where all the action was being reported from eyetag and whalebait. I swung out east first to find Jaro and eyetag who were admiring eyetags spaniard before he headed back to MG. The spaniard was so large he could not keep it in his storage without destabilising his yak, so he had to nurse it home!
Pic by Jaro
From here Jaro and I made our way north to find whalebait and the mackerel. As we made our way past the caravan park on the north shore we found many small bustups, and whalebait in amongst them fighting another longtail (his fourth for the day I believe). Jaro and I trolled around for a while, with Jaro hooking up, but failing to land. I had one hookup on a cast into a bustup, but the little bugger had teeth and took my slug.
By this time my body was telling me i'd had enough for the day and the bustups were disappearing rapidly. I started a slow troll back along the shoreline to the south. Other yakkers further south were also reporting they were heading back to MG by this time too.
It was only a few hundred meters before my trolled line was screaming again. This time I quickly boated a spotted mackerel, but the spotty had other ideas about its final destination. After gaffing him and pulling him over the bow of my yak, he decided sitting still wasn't in his repertoire. Thrashing madly, he managed to pull free of the gaff, attach my lure to the reef shoe on my left foot (pulling free of it in the process), and then buggered off over the side, all in the blink of an eye. I think I was pretty lucky not to have a treble in my foot, and without the footwear that would most likely have been the case. At that stage, imax arrived on the scene to offer his condolences.
After that excitement, the long troll back to MG was uneventful. I was very glad to be back on the beach after that 22.8KM paddle!
GPS Track
Sunshiner contribution
Got a wet bum again today despite the fact that the swell was lower than two days ago. I had orders from the main cook to get a sweetlip or snapper today so ignored the charge up the beach by the rest of the throng and paddled alone out to Jew Shoal, noting quite a few terns going out and even a dolphin crossing my path. Looks like conditions are getting better.
On arrival at Jew Shoal I switched my casting outfit to my customary 1/8 oz jig and 100mm squidgy SP and started a drift near the Pinnacles. There were baitfish on the sounder but absolutely no signs of predators on the surface. However, a few hundreds metres away to the SW there were occasional bustups. I'd laid out my third cast and was monitoring the jig’s progress downward with my finger gently on the braid, bail arm closed. I quick tap was distinctly transmitted up the line followed a couple of seconds later by the tightening of the braid and the bending of the rod tip. Aha, a snapper I thought, but then a screaming run, almost identical to that I experienced last time I'd chucked out an SP over a month ago in the same area, had me changing my mind. Oh no! Not another longtail on my 6kg snapper outfit! The lengthy and one-sided fight was going OK, I thought, but the knot to the leader, just tied yesterday, gave out when I was getting the fish close to the yak. Almost certainly a longtail.
About now I heard the first radio ”yahoo” from whalebait, way over at Halls Reef. Then, every few minutes someone else would chime in as there were many users on the radio net and almost all were over in the same area. The picture I got from 4km away was that the fish were going nuts, very close to the shore. Bustups all around were being reported.
This was all too much for me so I packed up and headed west and not long afterward eyetag radioed his news about his huge Spaniard. Then he mentioned that he’d had to leave because the fish was too big to allow him to continue fishing safely.
Well, of course I got there way too late, but at least I did paddle over there. The wind was kind this time and dropped out completely allowing me a gentle paddle back to Middle Groyne where four of us landed simultaneously, with I being the only one not to have caught a longtail. On the beach I waited and measured most longtails as the yaks arrived. Amazingly, all were just on or just under a metre in length.
The final tally as far as I’m aware was:
whalebait: four longtails boated, two released, two kept
gemini: one longtail, one dropped spotty mac
jimbo: one longtail, one small snapper
eyetag: one ENORMOUS Spaniard
imax: one longtail
richmond: one longtail
A great Noosa Yakkers fishing expedition. Knackered now after a ~20km paddle.
Photo provided by Richmond
Eyetag contribution
After a long spell of bad weather and work commitments it was good to finally get out in the ocean for a fish. The day started slowly with a launch around 4.45. After a brief discussion of destination, north we went. I paddled close to shore alongside Brian (whale bait) while Jeff (richmond) and Matt (gemini) peeled off and stayed wider. We kept heading North with the birds, then we started to see the odd bust up. Around the time the sun was just clear of the horizon Brian yelled "YEP I'm on", and the fight began with a Longtail that was landed some time later. I paddled over to have a look and got a photo. I started trolling again and I was thinking it must be my turn now. Shortly after I had a strike but dropped the fish after a couple of minutes. Checking the lure, everything seemed in order so out it went again. I'd paddled about 5 minutes to the South when the reel screamed and kept screaming untill the spool was half empty and I started to get some line back. The fight was all over the place with the fish going deep then rising, coming straight toward me then deep and hanging tough, then I felt the head shakes and thought surely not this couldn't be a Spaniard. Dismissing the thought of a Spaniard I battled on and on until it came to the surface about 10 metres away, so I backed off the drag and went easy on him. A couple of minutes later he was on the gaff and across my lap. STOKED! What a nice looking fish, another victim to the Jaro Special (the only alteration being single hooks instead of the trebles). I think he must have been one very unlucky fish, once onboard the hook almost fell out of his lip and I was using 60lb mono leader. With the fish stowed I headed for home.
Well done guys nice spaniard there Ian. I should have made the misses catch a bus home yesterday and come out this morning. Would have made my life hell this week tho
ReplyDeleteCorie