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Trip Reports Woody Head, Clarence coast Woody Head (Sat) | Woody Head (Sat) | | Print | |
| Written by Josh | |
| Saturday, 19 September 2009 | |
Bonito, snapper & wobbygong shark The Diawa Team Advantage compliments my other Diawas nicely With relatively calm wind and water, conditions were better at sea than I was expecting this morning. I'd debated whether or not to take the sail (sometimes a tough decision to make at 6AM) and opted to leave it behind, deciding instead to stick with a single ama and rig up outrigger style. The water was cooler than expected on the other hand, so I started thinking about snapper instead of tuna. It wasn't far from launch that my first fish came - a modest chopper tailor, soon after followed by a slimey, which was promptly sent back into the water as a livebait. It was a cat-like livebait in that it had 9 lives... almost all of them used up while on the end of my line. Each time I checked it there were fresh bite marks in it, yet amazingly the little trooper hung in there for hours. Eventually it answered the call, hooking a nice Wobbygong shark of just over a metre long. I was careless while handling it at the side of the kayak and it soon spit the hook (and bait fish) which was much the same result that I was hoping for at that stage. Being a wobbygong shark, and one of only (I think) 2 species of shark the shark shield doesn't effect, even though I had it turned on when it came yakside, it had no visible effect on it whatsoever - exactly as I expected. A short while later I spotted some surface activity that on first glance looked to be a school of hungry mack tuna. It took a terribly long time to coax one of them onto a hook, and when it came it actually fell for a bait-jig intended for whatever it was they were feeding on. And the fish itself turned out to be a smallish bonito, which I plan to multiply into snapper tomorrow by using some of it as bait. Although it was just a smaller fish, it got a bit messy bringing it in - those bait jigs are pretty clumsy - especially on a kayak... particularly when you've got more than one line out. I failed to get photos of any of these fish, as my stills camera ran out of batteries before the fish started biting (I was putting it to work on another up-coming article) but I did get them on video. Speaking of which, that clip is coming soon. Although I launched alone I was joined today briefly by Marty and friend, both of whome were sailing & trolling from Adventure Islands. Marty is a newly-annoited member of the Adventure Island club and is he one happy man. It was great to see him out there, so comfortable with the boat already and already having great adventures on it. He'll be hauling in the longtail in no time!
Where: Woody Head, Shark Bay, Clarence Coast, NSW |
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