Wind: SW to 5 knots switching to SE 5 knots later
Swell: 1.5m easterly
Current: at JS and LH Reef, none
Launch point: Middle Groyne
Participants: kahuna, turtleboy, sunshiner
…"Gee they’re a bloody beautiful fish, aren't they?" said a dripping wet kahuna on the beach at Middle Groyne at the end of the trip…
But back to the start of the day. Kahuna was just stowing his trolley when I arrived at the carpark. His yak was already on the beach and together we walked to the viewpoint as I was interested in seeing whether conditions differed much from Jaro's recce report from yesterday. As kahuna had already committed I figured it'd be doable with wetbums. And so it turned out to be so I hurried back to the zook, by now glad that I'd donned my battered old yakking wetsuit this morning.
The stealth was already setup for launch so all I had to do was get it off the zook onto the trolley and put my bootees on and I was trundling.
Launch time. If you look carefully you'll see kahuna straight out from the groyne.
My usual plan when faced with a wet bum or worse is to launch and paddle out to near the end of the wall and then hold there waiting for the hoped-for lull. Mostly this works fine. Today was clearly a day for taking your time because the water out from the end of the groyne was quite shallow, resulting in the occasional large wave curling and crashing from about two metres high. Fortunately there were lulls and as it happened I launched just before such a lull and also recognized it as such. I paddled hard straight out and struck a couple of steep but unbroken waves in the break zone. Dry bum!
"Got a bit wet" replied Kahuna when I asked him how he'd gone. But he was out there setting up and focussing on the immediate objective, get fishing!
A Jew Shoal recce was my plan but kahuna reckoned he had unfinished business out at Little Halls Reef, where recently some big fish had been thoroughly testing equipment, so we went our separate ways, with my NNE course getting a little kick along from the SW land breeze.
The first thing that struck me was that the gannets weren't hanging around. But then I saw a pair, unusually flying in close formation, low down and apparently heading straight east. They were the only gannets I saw today. Perhaps that's the last we'll see of them until next May.
Jew Shoal was soon showing on my sonar, but no baitfish apparent. I set up a lovely drift, put out a white snapback on my trailing rig and fished my usual SP with the casting outfit. By now I was aware by radio that turtleboy had launched and had opted to head for Jew Shoal also.
By the time turtleboy arrived I'd had no action and seen nothing of fishing interest except a few splashes possibly from tiny pelagic fish. Together we continued the drift. Then kahuna came up on the radio, apologizing for being off air (he'd accidentally changed channel because the lock wasn't engaged) and then told us that he'd boated a decent mac tuna on the way out, and was presently swimming a livey around at Little Halls Reef where he was seeing occasional bait schools on his sonar.
We at JS fished on a while until the SW breeze dropped out to be immediately replaced by a light easterly, perfect for a paddle from Jew Shoal to Little Halls Reef. With this extra incentive and a total lack of action at JS, turtleboy and I decided we'd join kahuna so set off west with the breeze up our tails.
The sun was illuminating brightly kahuna’s red and white Barracuda so we had no trouble spotting him from one kilometre out. He'd had no further action but we decided to try there anyway and the three of us spent the next 45 minutes or so, each in his own way, unsuccessfully trying to attract a fish. The place seemed dead. No birds, no bustups, and one solitary dolphin. Eventually we all decided that to get some excitement we'd have to head for Middle Groyne where the sand monster was almost certainly lurking today.
And lurking it was. There were about six boardriders having a great time on the waves at the end of the groyne, a sure sign that the surf zone transit would be interesting. By chance, we all arrived at Middle Groyne at about the same time and were all ready to run the gauntlet about the same time. Turtleboy and I waited for about five waves to go through and then I saw an opportunity and went for it, closely followed by turtleboy and a little further back, and further west, by kahuna.
As seen by the camera just as I started my run (cropped frame from video)
The edited chestcam video, only 41 secs
Anyway, we all approached the beach together but kahuna decided, as he'd never taken a bath at Middle Groyne before, that he'd do it today. As this event happened just behind me as I was paddling in, I couldn't catch it on video (cunning, this kahuna), but I did get the very end of it (on video above), as kahuna was dragging himself and his sodden yak out of the water.
Among the three of us, only kahuna had caught a fish. It was kahuna's first tuna, and a pretty good specimen of a mac tuna.
This pic is for his brother in NZ.
For the record, 77cm
A lovely few hours on the water, and a bit of fun at the end. Thanks for coming along guys.
sunshiner
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