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Saturday, 29 December 2007

Too many places to choose from

I've had a fair bit of time to reflect on various aspects of my recent coastal kayak fishing trip, thinking about what went right for me, what went wrong and what I'd do differently next time. I get asked a lot about this so I'll be writing about a lot of this here in more depth over time. Perhaps the most common question I've been asked, however, is what was the best kayak fishing destination that I found. Thats not an easy question to answer because I happened to land in some of those places at precisely the wrong time of year. I was washed out of Noosa and Tin Can Bay by flooding rains, for examples, and in other areas certain target species just weren't on the chew (I'm looking at you Mackay). It happens.

I definitely had it good in a couple of other areas and of course these have left the fondest memories. One of these was the entire wide bay area around Hervey Bay (despite the flooding at Tin Can Bay). From the Mary to Burrum River Heads it's all good. Great fishing, fantastic sight seeing and generally well protected waters. The weather is also spectacular and there is no need to worry about crocs or stingers. The entire area just has kayak fishing written all over it.

Wrestling a 11kg tuna from the Hobie Revolution

Further north I managed to get amongst some really good fish at a couple of spots off Yeppoon and I'd have to say that this is where I had the most fun yak fishing. I'd been hooking onto big pelagic fish further south but it wasn't until I reached this point that my tackle were able to manage them. The Nitro rods arrived while I had a quick stopover at Rockhampton. Introducing new rods, a new reel and new line seemed to make a big difference because a couple of days later I caught one of those Longtail tuna (13.5kg) and followed it up the following day with another that weighed in at around 11kg. I also caught my first ever cobia this day, though that particular fish was caught from a powerboat (acting as my ferry and support boat while fishing Findlay's reef). When it comes to big fish, Yeppoon has got it going on. There's some big tiger sharks out there as well, but that just adds to the adventure.

Fishing boat at sunset, Clarence river, Iluka

Although on an entirely different level, competing with both of these destinations is the Iluka/Yamba area. From the mighty Clarence river system to the coastal areas all anglers tastes are well catered for, from Bream and Blackfish to Tailor, Tuna and Mackeral. I spent almost a week camping by the riverside there and I could have stayed a month. Actually, I could retire there without a care in the world.

I've driven the entire length of the NSW coastline over the past few weeks and paid close attention to it this time. Colour me impressed - there are plenty of potentially fantastic kayak fishing spots... all the way from Byron Bay to the Victorian border. I'm really going to enjoy exploring the coastal waters of NSW, that's for sure. I can see now why kayak fishing is becoming so popular here.