The more I look, the more I like

Surfers at Noosa main beach

As hostile as the weather is here in southern Queensland right now, it comes as no deterant to the surfers. If anything, the opposite seems to be true - those waves are whipping up nicely. Not the case for us kayak fishermen though, so today turned out to be a fairly lazy one for me. I did put in some ground work to formulate some plans for when the weather does fine up, which is looking like being the weekend at this stage. As part of that research I popped in to a couple of handy tackle stores, including Tackleworld and Davo's – the latter of which is right around the corner from where I'm staying. Both proved to be well worth the visit and I managed to find a few extra items that I was tracking down.  

I was also fortunate enough to catch up with Bill 'Billybob' Watson, who is somewhat of an angling celebrity in these parts. Bill operates the Fishing Noosa website, has written a book on the very same topic (revised edition coming soon), is an avid kayak fisherman and also a kayak fishing consultant for Perception kayaks. The Perception Swing is a very popular fishing kayak here in Australia and I got the impression that Billybob's contributions to this yak have something to do with that.

The more I research these waters the more it becomes obvious why Bill has gained the kind of experience required to act as a consultant. Noosa is a very diverse fishery and is ideally suited to kayak fishing of various kinds. Indeed, some areas can only be reached by paddle boats and that alone should tell you something. It's that diversity that is keeping me here, waiting out the storm so to speak. When the weather does clear up I'll be hitting the water wholesale. With any luck at least one of those trips will be tour-guided by Billybob himself.

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Big Bream: which lure would you reach for? 

In the most recent poll I asked the hypothetical 'what do you do' question: Paddling back against an outgoing tide, you spot a flock of busy looking birds 1km offshore. Of the two alternatives posed, most voters (72%) suggested that like myself, they'd ignore fatigue and paddle out to investigate. 28% prefered to keep paddling back to shore. I can hardly blame them to because sometimes those circling birds amount to nothing. Most of the time (in my experience), however, they don't.

I've got a new 'What do you do?' for you to ponder. I was faced with this very same dilema just yesterday: You spot a school of bream hanging around. Which lure do you reach for?

- Ecogear sx40 hard body
- Soft plastic worm
- Soft plastic grub
- Soft plastic minnow
- Other

If you choose other, please add a comment here to spill the beans.

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QLD drought... broken yet?

Today Noosa feels more like Mallacouta; not only is the rain coming down with a heavy consistency, there's also strong winds blowing. There's little to no chance of me heading out in the yak in this sort of weather, which gives me a chance to play catch up. I've got quite a few things to get out of the way so this is a good opportunity to do so. With any luck this rain will stir the pot nicely and muddy things up somewhat - I don't think the crystal clear waters helped my chances yesterday. It's a bummer that I can't get out there right now, but it's good to see Queensland getting the water it so badly needs.

Now that I've been on the road for about a month I can speak with a fair degree of conviction on some of the gear I've been using and there's several items I've been meaning to review. I expect to get some of these written up today, followed by a fairly big update to the gear list section.

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So many fish, so few bites!

Ideally protected waters at the mouth of Noosa river

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And now kids, here's what not to do! 

While kayak fishing around Noosa river today I got the urge to head out through the heads and into the surf to troll along the back of the breakers for a while. Of course, this means coming back in through the breakers, which is always fun. It was particularly fun for me today and somehow I knew it was going to be, which is why I was inspired to capture the moment on film. There are 2 clips here, one taken immediately after the other. Clip #1 demonstrates kayak surfing in a Hobie Revolution done right. Clip #2 demonstrates how very quickly it can all go bad.

At first it might be difficult to fully appreciate how fast I'm moving here, but in the 1st clip, take note of the wash splashing up from the bow. In the second clip you can see me catch up to the wave in front (which is the same wave I'm riding in the 1st clip). This wave is bigger and really picks up speed. So much so that I slowed down on the pedlling. I suspect that this was my big mistake. Read on to view the clips. 

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Hrmm... upgrades

It's not just the big pinapples that Queensland boasts because compared with their Victorian counterparts, the fish are generally bigger up here as well (on a per-capita basis at least). Its clear to see why size limits up here are bigger to match. To accommodate the spartan-style fish that frequent these coastal waters I've been forced to upgrade a lot of kit, including a pricey Wilson Live Fibre Texalium 8-15kg spinning rod.

Tackle is getting bigger to match the fish

The tackle has been upgraded to, now using 40lb wire traces (30kg mono just won't cut it here) and I've even had to upgrade to a bigger and better filleting knife, a Cold Steel Carbon V. Obviously the lures I am typically using are getting larger as well. The photo above illustrates the upsizing nicely. The black knife is the Cold Steel filliter, which has a 23cm blade that should be both easier to sharpen and manage lager fish with. The metal slug lure on the right is the size I'd typically use in Victoria. The 40gram model on the right seems to be more appropriate for QLD. Ditto for those soft plastics - the one on the left is getting more use up here, whereas the smaller one was more useful in Vic.

Don't get me wrong – the smaller fish are here to and the lighter gear will get them. I've just got the bug for big fish is all and now I'm among them in numbers I just can't help myself. I've never been one to be too particular about size and weight, although thats weighing on my mind (pun intended) more often now, for several reasons. To scratch that itch I've picked up an Alvey measuring ruler, which is perfect for my needs, as it contains most of the common fish size limits of each state. Add to this I've also replaced my aging, rusting Gladiator lip-grips with a Shimano surrogate, complete with weighing scales (up to 7kg). So from here on in I'll be providing more information on size and weight of the more significant catches. Armed with all this new viagra-enhanced gear, hopefully there'll be a lot more significant catches.

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River, estuary and ocean - all within paddling reach

28cm Golden Trevelly & 32cm Tailor

The gents from Tackleworld Kerwana had been kind enough to point me to a couple of local fishing spots on the Maroochy river. With potential for conditions to go either way (and perhaps not so great for ocean fishing)  I figured today was a good a day as any to go forth and explore them. I spied lots of people fishing the river when I arrived, from boats and banks. As advertised, the river does indeed look nice and fishy. It also looks like an ideal destination to get busy with a kayak.

After setting up camp at the nearby caravan park I loaded the kayak with 3 rods and enough tackle to cover whatever I might encounter in the river as well as out in the ocean. My plan was to travel downstream several kilometers, into the river mouth, out through the breakers and into the ocean. I'd troll with a soft plastic, SX40 hard-body all the way there and then switch to metal slugs for the surf.

It was a pretty good plan I thought and it would have turned out perfect had I managed to hook onto anything interesting past the breakers. Unfortunately that wasn't to be the case and with the sun going down fast I couldn't hang around and persist. Pedaling back through the breakers was a hell of a lot of fun, being carried some 50 – 60 meters on one wave. Even the surfers were impressed at how easily the Revolution handled itself.

Darkness was setting in quickly as I made my way back against a heavy out going tide, which I suspected would make it difficult to impossible for the fish to spot the soft plastic lures I was trolling. Ironically, I was having that exact thought when I reasoned that the 2” minnow was just too small to be seen when I reached for a 3” to swap it with. As I did so the rod bent back and as luck would have it, I was on.

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A story of coincidence, providence and blind, dumb bad luck

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Nice river this Maroochy... I might just stick around a bit

Upon waking this morning I was torn between wanting to explore some of the nearby river system or head out into the ocean again, chasing those elusive Mackeral. With conditions calmer than I expected Moffat's Beach was looking rather appetizing. But unlike the other day there were no fishermen here. I'm not if it was because they knew smething I didn't, or whether or not the army of paddling enthusiasts scared them away.

A sea of kayakers at Moffats Beach

I've never seen a gathering of paddlers quite like it, with their numbers being around 40 – 50. There were all kinds of sea-worthy yaks, as well as some cool looking standup paddle surf boards (that looks like fun). I wasn't game to get my Hobie kayak in amongst them because I figured I'd never get out fishing if I did (the questions and comments would never end), so I pushed on to plan B.

That was to get to Maroochy river and fish from several clicks upstream down into the mouth, out past the breakers and into the ocean. The plan fell into place perfectly to, covering a fair distance, getting a good workout and catching a few good fish. I'll write up the report on today's trip in the morning, although a couple of pics of todays catch are in the gallery. One of which was released, partly because I wasn't sure what it was -  can anyone fill me in? It didn't look terribly tasty, nor did it appear to be carrying much meat anyway.

Whats this fish?

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Too rough for the fish... and the fishermen

China shipping co, loaded to the hilt

When I first looked at the surf off Moffats Beach in Calloundra, I instantly thought that my plans would be thwarted by high seas. Once I was on the water (following a rather unceremonious launch) the rolling swell didn't seem so much of a bother, so I took off on my intended route regardless. This began by trolling from the north end of the beach to the south and down towards Kings beach and across the mouth of the passage. Following the advice of locals, I trolled my way to the lighthouse on the northern tip of Bribie Island and then across to the yellow marker a km or so offshore. From here I simply retraced my steps, towing 2 lines almost the entire time. 

I did manage several hook ups, one of which came on a 50g silver slug and felt a lot like a Mackeral. It spat the treble hook, however and that was my last chance. I also lost the tails off several large soft plastic lures (probably also Mackeral) but I did manage to catch what I think was a small Snook, which I found terrorizing some baitfish. Thankfully for the baitfish I was able to tempt it with a soft plastic lure instead, although I did release it soon after.  

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I do believe it was just the other day that I was whining about the reliablity and performance of the Toshiba notebook that I was using. Sure enough, it died last night and now refuses to boot up. It's still under warrantly and as far as I'm concerned, they can replace or refund the damned thing. Either way that'll take a week or two and that just won't do. So I've bought another PC (the event of which is a story in itself) that is clearly a much better machine. This laptop is an ASUS model and the only thing I don't like about it is the fact that it's running Vista, which I despise. I really couldn't be bothered reinstalling windows again though so I'm going to trim as much of the fluffy fat as possible and try and make do with it.

Oh, there is something else I really don't like about this machine is that it doesn't support the standard PC card, which is what my wireless card was. So I've had to upgrade my wireless card as well. I did get great prices on both, but it was still a $1800 kick to the budget.

On the way there I stumbled upon a Tackle World store in Kawana and having never encountered them before, decided to step in and have a chat. I was really very impressed with this shop, both in product line up and price. The service was good to - not only did I walk out of there with a bag-full of Mackeral-ready tackle, I also got some great tips on where I might find some thumper Trevelly.

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