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Josh's Blog -
Yakass
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Written by Josh
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Saturday, 23 May 2009 |
Interesting night ahead Oh shit...
I've just had a walk down to the levees to have a looksee and as of the time of writing the water level is about a foot under the levee. What happens as the tide washes in, backed with easterly winds and high seas is anyone's guess. High tide is scheduled for about 9:30 tonight, so if we get through that unscathed the greatest danger should have passed.
The mood around town has been interesting, and from my vantage point at the shop, I've been able to observe a lot. Times like this bring out either the very best or worst in people and I've seen a little bit of both in the past couple of days, but thankfully, mostly the former. It's a very strong community here in Maclean, and it's been interesting to watch the town come together in anticipation. There is definitely some nervous tension in the air, although many of the locals here have seen it all before.
 Almost there...
*Update: Its around high tide and the levee has about 6 - 7 inches clearance, so I'd say we're looking pretty safe for the night. |
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Holger's blog -
Hollgi
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Written by Holger
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Saturday, 23 May 2009 |
A bit of a different week in Brunswick Heads
We just had a week of really bad weather and floods all around Brunswick Heads. It was the worst storm I have seen since arriving here for sure! It all started Monday with strong rain that continued to fall non-stop and by Wednesday the first news of floods & what to expect came through from Queensland. I worked in Billinudgel which is known to flood quick & fast. So we spend all afternoon lifting stuff up as high as we could. It kept poring down. At night the wind picked up, and we experienced gales up to a 100km/h. As a matter of fact I woke up at 4am because the roof-tiles where vibrating so loud. In the morning (Thursday) the wind had eased a bit and I decided to let the kids go to school, but that I would drive them in the car (to keep them dry & away from falling branches and so on). Still poring down. At 9am the school called and said they would have to evacuate, and we had to come in and pick up the kids. This wasn't a problem because my boss called before and told me they are flooded in, and there's no way to come to work (except to swim or to paddle). When I arrived at school I discovered a 18-20m fig tree had fallen over, and was now leaning on the building. On the way home we bought some more supplies and bunkered down. The SAS warned to prepare for a major flood event.
In the late afternoon some friends came over because the water had risen until 5cm under their house ( which stands on 1m stilts) and the fact that 2 brown snakes came up into the house just helped the decision to evacuate. Fortunately our house is flood-proof on high ground. Then the wind picked up. By 5pm we lost power. By 7pm it blew with gales up to 135km/h. At that time we got all the kids in the centre room in the middle of the house, away from the trees. The first panels of my fence flew away. Small debits flew around & knocked on the windows. Luckily the windows held and didn't break.
So we all sat in the leeward end of the house with candles and torches on, told story's till late, when we finally fell asleep. We woke up to blue sky, and hardly any wind. Luckily all we lost was 12 panels of the fence around the house. The amount of trees, branches and bio-mass laying around was incredible! No power meant no work again. So we had a look around. Fallen trees everywhere & widespread flooding. Huge areas including both my workplaces, the Wooyung Caravan Park & Quattro Design in Billinudgel where flooded. There where huge seas (6m+), which swept right over the break wall the night before. Toracina beach was under water. The main beach strongly eroded.
Because we still had no power, the freezer stuff thawed & had to be eaten. We decided to have a big clean up, followed by a BBQ. In the late afternoon we got our power restored, but the rain and the wind picked up again. After another stormy night, I think we are through the worst know. Luckily the Brunswick River peaked 15cm under the levy. It is still very stormy and rainy right now, and many areas are still flooded or without power. There won't be much fishing in the river the next weeks. The fisheries actually prohibited fishing in all rivers in the Northern Rivers area for the next 2 weeks, to let the fish-stock recover. If the conditions ease, I might focus my attention on getting a Jewfish in front of the river mouth over the next two weeks. |
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Carl's blog -
Astro
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Written by carl
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Saturday, 23 May 2009 |
Surface lure strategies
 Since I've been laid up with the 'dreaded Lurgy' this weekend I've been honing my cast and retrieve skills in the creek that runs through my property. I purchased a River2Sea Rover 75 which is described on the packaging as a 'new generation of walking bait'. This lure and others of the same design really do have a great action and from my first practice session scored a nice little Barramundi (25 cm). The trick to getting the dog-walking motion right is in the tip action of the rod and the rate of winding the line in. Standing on the bank with the rod vertically down it was very easy to get the action and manipulate it.
To test how this can be achieved from a kayak I sat down very close to the water and held the rod out horizontally. This worked quite well but will take a little more practice before I have got it down pat. A frantic action mimics a fleeing bait fish and a slow more pronounced action gives a 'oh noes, I am wounded' action. It was the slow retrieve that fooled my little Barramundi but have had strikes and follows with the faster action as well. Whilst I love my poppers I can see how this lure will be quite at home in a wide variety of fishing situations: sand/mud flats, fresh water impoundments and rivers and offshore (bigger though). Currently the lure still has it's original trebles (barbs crushed) but will experiment with using single hooks.
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Josh's Blog -
Yakass
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Written by Josh
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Saturday, 23 May 2009 |
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I've seen some heavy rains in my time, but the only times I've ever seen rain like I did come over Maclean the other night in Typhoons in Taipei - and in those instances the rain wasn't as persistent. It bucketed all night long, giving Maclean 300mm of rainfall overnight. I woke up to find my backyard underwater, although at that point it wasn't critical. Many of the towns roads were clear yesterday morning, but the river level was rising fast. As I ran the shop on my own all day (I was the only staffer able to get into work) I could see the waterline creep up over the boat ramp. As the day progressed speculation of how far it would go was the major conversational topic, with rumours of evacuation emerging. The real concern for this area isn't how much rain blankets the township, but more so whether or not river levels breach the levee or not. And by yesterday afternoon that looked a very likely scenario, although the suggestion has been it would not happen until later today as the high tide comes in to help make matters worse.
 This morning: where's the boat ramp gone?
As of this morning the river level has risen significantly, creeping precariously close to the nearby police station, not to mention this shop. I've come into work again today (on my own again) and there are a lot less people around, most likely because far more roads are closed. I doubt we'll be doing much business today, but for sure I'll be doing a lot of clearing, lifting everything off the floor and trying to get it all at least a couple of feet off the ground. If the levee's don't hold the rising waters out, this shop is going to turn into waterworld. Fortunately we have a fair few kayaks in here, so I'm thinking of using some of them for storage. That way it won't matter how high the water rises - they'll just float on the surface like little Noah's arks, preserving what would otherwise be endangered species of stock.
If things reach worst case scenario bad (I doubt they will) I may have to employ the same strategy at home. I don't have a lot of personal gear to protect, but I don't have much in the way of furniture to get it off the ground either. There are, however, a few kayaks stored inside, so maybe I can use those as surrogate storage vessels. |
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Trip reports -
Mackay
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Written by carl
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Thursday, 21 May 2009 |
Golden sailing dayGiven the long stretches of bad weather we've had up north lately, being ill for the last 5 days and sitting at home during perfect kayak fishing weather is frustrating to the extreme. So today I had to get out and decided to stay local heading to Victor Creek boat ramp to launch. Not feeling 100% I decided to start later and use the tides rather then have to rely on the wind to push me against a 5 metre tidal flow. After a quick set up it was off through the channels out to the islands. The wind was mainly SE and was able to negotiate the channels quite easily. Since it is shallow here I trolled a soft plastic lure and was rewarded with a lovely Golden trevally. I knew straight away I had a trevor and after a spirited fight I got it yakside. I don't mind eating trevally and golden are the most tasty, so aboard it came. I have trained myself to not look at the rod when it goes off, rather focus on furling the sail and turning the kayak to the right side.
 Golden trevally
Once out of the channels I swapped the SP for a Rapala CD11 trolling lure and headed out through the group of islands. The wind was not very consistent today in both direction and strength, which meant I couldnt cover water as I had hoped. As you can see by the pics this is a very scenic place and there is camping allowed on a couple of the islands. With no particular destination in mind I focussed on trying to maintain the fastest possible trolling speed and was able to average 8 – 10 kilometres/h. After a while I changed my lure to a Bluewater F18, but that to was completely unmolestered. A couple of hours later I replaced that with another CD11 (redhead).
Storms started brewing inland and I watched the rain develop along with same lightning and accompanying thunder over the ranges. It was now time to head back, this thought was also the trigger for the wind to die... bugger. (note: sailing rule 08: 1 hour out/2 in. meaning that if I have 3 hours of time available I will sail out for 1 hour and have 2 hours in which to return) needless to say... but I will anyway... it took all the 4 hours to get back.
 Some of the lovely rock formations that can be found here
I maintained a constant pace of about 8k/h peddling in the light winds, but had to make numerous directional changes to keep the sail full. Coming through the passge between Newry and I had a friendly yachty keep pace in his inflatable asking a heap of questions about where I had been etc.
There were also 8 or so tinnies having a ball game... thats right tinny footy... i could see bouys set up as goals and there were obviously 2 teams. A ball was thrown from boat to boat in an attempt to score a goal, yes there quite a few dents. Unfortunately the pics I took turned out poorly. |
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