Yakabout - Magnetic Island #1

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Magnetic Island #1

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Friday, 26 October 2007

Trolling the breakwalls

Paddling to Magnetic Island

Launch:	- 9:00 AM
Landed:	- 2.15 PM
Tide:	- 8:30 AM,High
Weather:	- Hot, 31 °C, 5 - 25 knots
Caught:	- Nothing
Method:	- Trolling hard body and soft plastic lures

In hind sight, my timing could have been better for today's adventure out to Magnetic Island, but there was method in my madness. With high tide coming in at around 8:30AM, I decided to hit the water just after, in the hope that an outgoing tide would make my 8km voyage to the island all the more easier. My intention was to save energy for all that trolling I planned to do on the inner reefs when I got there. I got it half right.

The problem with waiting until that hour of the morning is that by then winds are more likely to blowing. In today's case, they were coming in from the north east at about 5 knots, making for just that little extra resistance that was enough to negate the tidal push. It took just under 1.5 hours to reach the island and by the time I got there I had already drank all of my water. So before hitting the reef I made for Picnic Bay, where the local bartender was good enough to refill my bottle. With that out of the way it was back onto the water and down to business.

I thought it was going to be a highly productive day today because as I prepared to head back out I spotted what looked to be a nice Queenfish chasing some baitfish around. Soon after I spotted what looked to be a rather large Trevally. Oh yeah... this could be good.

Sadly, it didn't turn out that way. The reef is rather shallow and the lures I wanted to use were catching more reef edges than anything else, so I had to step down my lure size for a while. I wasn't able to tempt anything with these. While trying to, however, I did get to see some great sites though I was too slow with the camera to catch them forever.

Among these were the obligatory assortment of sea turtles (mostly Loggerheads I think), as well as a nice fat Dugong that surfaced about 20 meters away. Today's highlight was another shark sighting - several in fact. The first of these being both the closest and most impressive. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed some violent tail slashing going on and instantly I knew what it was. So I kept my eye on the spot and was soon treated to that classic Jaws scene, with a fin rising from the surface and speeding towards it's prey at 100 miles an hour. Only metres ahead of it, Mackeral were travelling at much the same speed, leaping for their life and getting airborne in the process. I paddled out to investigate but it was all over by the time I got there. I'm not sure what kind of shark it was, but if I was a betting man I'd say a black-tipped reef shark of about 1.5 metres.

Speaking of Mackeral, I did see a school of them harassing baitfish a short time later and I paddled out to investigate and started throwing a soft plastic lure (11cm Pilchard style) into the frey. It did get hit on the 3rd cast, losing its tail and failing to hook up in doing so. Damn. A minute later the action died off and I couldn't find them again. I persisted for an hour or so, but after a while I noticed the wind was picking up. Worst of all, it was changing direction. It had now moved over to an easterly, which meant I had to paddle back 8km into a strengthening headwind. It was time to go.

Yikes... now I have to paddle back... after I try and catch a fish

As fate would have it, the wind continued to swing around and before long it was blowing from the south. By the time I got within a km of Townsville it was coming from the east, now blowing at a good 20 - 25 knots. That made the final stretch rather easy, despite the dicey chop. Another one of my lures got hit in the final stretch, although was spat out 5 seconds later. It just wasn't my day. No matter - I had fun regardless, not to mention a fantastic work out. I'm going to sleep well tonight.

The return trip did feel sluggish and upon landing I learned why. There was about 10 litres of water inside the hull. That'll teach me to leave the emptying bung loosened after the previous trip. Doh!