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.

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.

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.

So many fish, so few bites!

Ideally protected waters at the mouth of Noosa river