Trip date: 12 Sept 2014
Participants: Tunny, Mahatma, Redwood
Launch Site: Middle Groyne
Destination: Jew Shoal
Conditions: light breeze, sub 1m swell, light current
Keen Angler Program: none
Sub 1m swell? No wind? I hardly recognised the graphs on Seabreeze and also chose not to recognise my alarm going off at 3.45am which, is why I arrived last with Tunny and Mahatma already prepping in the car park. We were scheduled for a 5am launch and if I hurried we'd make it.
The launch was dead easy and we were out the back of the small surf just after 5am. We pointed our yaks at the crack of light on the horizon and headed off. I'd only paddled for 10min when I could feel the sweat starting to bead on my forehead. It was warmer than expected. After the usial 45-50min we arrived at Jew Shoal with the sun not up yet, but light enough to see clearly. everything looked perfect, now would the fish come to the party?
Mahatma was sans GPS (and sans radio) so he was relying on us to put him on some marks. I had gone to a mark 400m north of the Pinnacles as I'd had some luck there before. Tunny was trolling around the Pinnacles with his new deep diving lure and Mahatma was somewhere in the middle.
I've still not caught a single thing on a soft plastic, but I'm going to keep trying until that changes. I was hammering away with one of those big white numbers on one rod (Sunshiner specials I think they're called) and a 1/2 pilchard on a trailing outfit. Mahatma I could see had a paternoster rig with what I presumed were pilchards for bait. This rig proved to be a winner as he held up a keeper Squire as I passed him on my way back to my drift starting point.
I fished the same area as Mahatma with a similar offering but was getting no action. All was quite on Tunny's end with Tunny fishing only with plastics.
Somewhere around this point we could hear and see a baby whale going nuts further west toward the beach. The thing was definatly full of the joys of life, larking around and trying out his new body. Jumping, rolling, slapping it's tail which you could see he hadn't really got the hang of yet. Typical kid. It's the youngsters that worry me, they're just kids and they can make mistakes. The adults seem to know you're there, but they kids might just go up for a big old breach and go; "Ah, not good, I'm going to land on that floaty thing". Mother and calf came within a few hundred yard of us, then went down and resurfaced quite a long way south.
I decided to try a new location just west of the pinnacles and see if that changed anything. Two drifts later and the status quo was the same. The pillie rig I was using had a fairly large hook (5.0) and fairly large 1/2 pilcard. I decided to cut off the placcie on the other end and add a smaller circle hook with a smaller pilllie bait. which, paid dividends as I was starlight on to something that felt like a Squire, and indeed it was, but unfortunately only 30cm. I did a couple more drifts with the smaller outfit but after each drift I'd check it and find the whole thing had twisted into a birds nest. I only had one light sinker on, so I added another to see if it would eliminate the twist, which it did.
Mahatma wasn't too far off me and I could see he landed a couple of small reefies and he also landed a small flattie earlier. The cupboard was still bare for Tunny and the plastics. At 8.30 I pulled the pin leaving Tunny and Mahatma in glorious fishing conditions. BTW I also spotted a number of very large turtles at JS and a few dolphins about 800m to the west.
On my way back about 400m ahead of me I could see large patches of darker water and as there was no wind I thought perhaps it was bait fish and as I got closer I could see it was. I stopped and decide to take some video of it which you can see below. I'm not sure what kind of fish they are (looked like pilchards) but Davos most recent NN article mentioned that Mac and Long Tail Tuna have been feeding on Frog Mouth Pilchards just past the headlands. So maybe they are Frog Mouth Pilchards? I hope there were no Tuna chasing them as I was shooting movies and not firing slugs. Should I have cast a few slugs in? Should you always cast a few slugs into a bait school JIC?
Tunny informed me later that he picked up 1x Grinner on his new deep diving lure. And that was it as far as the fishing went. A really nice day and great to be back out there.
Sub 1m swell? No wind? I hardly recognised the graphs on Seabreeze and also chose not to recognise my alarm going off at 3.45am which, is why I arrived last with Tunny and Mahatma already prepping in the car park. We were scheduled for a 5am launch and if I hurried we'd make it.
 |
| Mahatma and Tunny at 4.50am |
The launch was dead easy and we were out the back of the small surf just after 5am. We pointed our yaks at the crack of light on the horizon and headed off. I'd only paddled for 10min when I could feel the sweat starting to bead on my forehead. It was warmer than expected. After the usial 45-50min we arrived at Jew Shoal with the sun not up yet, but light enough to see clearly. everything looked perfect, now would the fish come to the party?
 |
| Mahatma doing is best silhouette impression of a kayaker |
I've still not caught a single thing on a soft plastic, but I'm going to keep trying until that changes. I was hammering away with one of those big white numbers on one rod (Sunshiner specials I think they're called) and a 1/2 pilchard on a trailing outfit. Mahatma I could see had a paternoster rig with what I presumed were pilchards for bait. This rig proved to be a winner as he held up a keeper Squire as I passed him on my way back to my drift starting point.
 |
| Mahatma and a keeper Squire caught on dead bait and paternoster rig. |
Somewhere around this point we could hear and see a baby whale going nuts further west toward the beach. The thing was definatly full of the joys of life, larking around and trying out his new body. Jumping, rolling, slapping it's tail which you could see he hadn't really got the hang of yet. Typical kid. It's the youngsters that worry me, they're just kids and they can make mistakes. The adults seem to know you're there, but they kids might just go up for a big old breach and go; "Ah, not good, I'm going to land on that floaty thing". Mother and calf came within a few hundred yard of us, then went down and resurfaced quite a long way south.
I decided to try a new location just west of the pinnacles and see if that changed anything. Two drifts later and the status quo was the same. The pillie rig I was using had a fairly large hook (5.0) and fairly large 1/2 pilcard. I decided to cut off the placcie on the other end and add a smaller circle hook with a smaller pilllie bait. which, paid dividends as I was starlight on to something that felt like a Squire, and indeed it was, but unfortunately only 30cm. I did a couple more drifts with the smaller outfit but after each drift I'd check it and find the whole thing had twisted into a birds nest. I only had one light sinker on, so I added another to see if it would eliminate the twist, which it did.
 |
| Redwood's undersized Squire |
On my way back about 400m ahead of me I could see large patches of darker water and as there was no wind I thought perhaps it was bait fish and as I got closer I could see it was. I stopped and decide to take some video of it which you can see below. I'm not sure what kind of fish they are (looked like pilchards) but Davos most recent NN article mentioned that Mac and Long Tail Tuna have been feeding on Frog Mouth Pilchards just past the headlands. So maybe they are Frog Mouth Pilchards? I hope there were no Tuna chasing them as I was shooting movies and not firing slugs. Should I have cast a few slugs in? Should you always cast a few slugs into a bait school JIC?
 |
| Someone's gotta live here |
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