YakFishWest

Archive for July, 2009

Derby day here in Perth and with the game an ansolute disgrace, i decided to go for a fish instead. Headed out to one of my local spots, hitting the water mid afternoon into a fresh southerly, that strengthened till dark and died after to almost glassy conditons. Tried a few different lures and trolled for a while, before dropping a pick and throwing out a yakka with a stream of chopped up mulies for berly. Just on dark this bloke hit my bait, he slugged it out deep, desperatley trying to get to the rocks, but the rod did its work, eventually netting this solid Snapper of around 80cm. I grabbed a few pics, and eventually swimmed him back to health and he powered back of into the depths! Awesome stuff!!!

Great night time Snapper, on a dead bait!

Seeya next time buddy, 10cm bigger please!

Brett’s Version

Gave Matty the call for an arvo sesh, and he joined me for some piscatorial pursuits as the wind died off this afternoon, heading out on the water by 6. There was a firm S’Wester, and a pea soup rain that looked like fog running in.. Perfect in other words.

Our Weapons of choice, Adventure and X-13!

We pushed out into the headwind and rain till we came upon our ground, i set out a lure, and cruised around looking for fish. Just as i passed the end of some structure my Twinpower starts to sing!! I pedal slowly forward, keeping pressure on the fish, and reel in my second rod. Once thats out of the way i start on my fish, definatley a Snapper!

Nice metro Snapper!

Played out the aquatic beast firmly yet patient, and got him to the yak cleanly, after a bit of topwater comotion, got him onboard for a few snaps, then quickly dispatched for a keeper.  I sort out all my gear, stow the fish, and criuise over to where Matt is slowly trolling. He says he’s got a fish too, and it’s solid! Turned out it was!

Matty the Magician conjurs up a porky Pinky of humungous proportions!

Great night in the end, with the weather calming off, and with a bit of swell, was a beautiful night to be out there! We both got a nice fish, with Matt scooping the pool, it’s as good as it gets!

Matt’s Version

The forecast for most of this week was wind and rain, though with a little respite on tuesday night. So I hot footed my way back from Collie to meet up with Brett for a 5.15pm launch.

The wind had dropped to about 15 kph and the rain hadn’t gone away, though that didn’t put us off and we headed out with rain jacket hoods up into an atmospheric sunset.

My tactic for the night was to run a half gardie a few metres of the bottom with a downrigger on one side and a HB lure ~50-70m out the back and at 6-8m on the other.

After about 30 mins of trolling I was looking down at the sounder thinking that looks promising and wondering whether the downrigger hum would be putting the fish off when the banax 1300 went off big time and I grabbed the rod and proceeded to scrabble about making sure there was tension on the rod while winding up the downrigger and winding in the HB setup.

With both in I played the fish that had run behind me and taken the line between the rudder and hull – after ‘low’ sticking the rod down in the water the line came clear and I played it out – it gave a few good runs and my recently modified drag (see “when your drags a drag”) performed admirably.

After a few runs it was a slow pump and wind with the odd bit of line being taken then up came the flash of pink – This was a great looking fish – nice bump on the noggin and I was stoked to get it safely in the net – I was excited that it might be a PB and even if it was not, was stoked that it was my first fish taken on the down rigger trolling setup.

The fish came in at 85cm and 6.7Kg great night out – A new PB for me – the weather eventually cleared and pretty much glassed off. Now for some 20m water….trolling…

Brett scored a nice pinkie too…

This time of year doesn’t present many oppurtunities to get out on the water, due to the North Westers, and typical winter patterns. I find myself carefully scanning the weaher channels to find those small windows of oppurtunity that appear where i can get out, and taking advantage of them as best i can. This weekend in particular, we have had a series of fronts come through, resulting in strong NWesters, big swell, rain, and typical winter cold miserable weather. Tho, like a star on the horizon, a small window opened on Sunday arvo, and i mean small…..

Typical winter pattern, series of cold fronts, strong winds, generally cold wet and miserable.

As you can see, things weren’t looking to great, and with a thunderstorm also predicted, i thought i should get out there asap! So i arrived down at the launch to see Paul’s (Yakyakker) car in the carpark, and a yellow yak just heading out in company with another yakker, which turns out to be fellow yak blogger Glenn (http://jarlaxle.com/).  So i rig up the big blue Adventure, and just as i’m about to launch, Graeme rocks up also!  Great stuff, some company!! So we all head out to the mark and get busy trolling some lures.

Shortly after starting to get serious, i’m cruising alongside Paul and he hooks up, rod bucking under the solid headshakes of seemingly a solid Pinky, when the line goes slack just as he grabs the rod. BUGGER!!!! So he keeps at it for a bit longer, and soon enough i see Paul hooking up and landing a solid fish, great stuff Paul!!!

Still not too much on the sounder, its getting rougher, bit of rain… So starting to head back and my Twinpower starts to sing! Solid hook up! Grab the rod and start to wind in the second rod, keeping pressure on the fish, which starts to run hard. Pulls yak around, so i leave second rod and focus! BANG!!!! Second rod goes off!! FARKENN HEELLLLL!!!!!!! Think bugger it, i’ll land the first one then look at it! Fish fights preety hard, giving the Magnumm Butt a great curve, finally get it yakside and haul aboard a nice 80cm Pinky! Another set of crunched trebles will also need to be replaced! Second rod, fish gone, no tangles, sweet.

Great winter Pinky!!! Worth getting wet, cold and blown around for!

Pinky on a Yak, photo by Paul Tuckwell (Yakyakker)

After this i head off and rendezvous with the lads for the trip in, it was rough as guts on the way in, we soon landed safetly, and noticed the lightening approaching in the distance, then seemingly very close! Thought we timed it pretty well! Had a bit of a chinwag with the boys, then we headed off.

Jarlaxle on his X-Factor, punching headlong into a nasty Nor'Wester!!

Thanks to the lads for the company, great result!!

Paul and Myself with a brace of fine Metro Winter Pinkies!!

I made this Video not long after Matt got his new X-13, and set up his sail. This was a bit of a shakedown trip to give the home made sail a test, and see how rough we could go out in!

Was fun thats for sure!!

Danna and I borrowed her mum’s caravan and headed up to Guilderton for a long weekend of camping/ kayaking fishing and relaxing. The caravan was stored at the familiy farm North of Gingin, so we had a night and morning there while we picked the ol girl up.

No lakes to fish, though a few creeks

- out came the bacon rind and landing nets

and heh presto got some lil’ joogies (sp?):


Cooked them up for a tasty treat:

Stopped off in Gingin on the way to guilderton for a snack and came across a 1992 edition of Wangler in the cafe – who said they were in a time warp? interesting reading – all the talk was how GPS fishing would hammer the fisheries….. no really!

Caravan, van and yaks ready to roll…

On arriving at Guilderton we checked out the river mouth – the bar had broken last week and the river was heading west to sea at quite a rate of knots…

The swell was way too big to attempt a launch, so I headed upstream to try for a few bream.
Danna checking out the local ‘dessert’

Got heaps of undersize ones and a few grunter and on dusk hooked one solid sized fish in about 10 inches of water though it spat the hooks 5m from the yak and almost gave me an ear pearcing…

This was the biggest fish of the day

The river was very low – the lowest it has been in along while, in fact so low that the stnk boats could not go far as sections of it were less than 1ft deep.

We headed up to Booragon rd and laucnhed from there one day – a much nicer snaggy end of the river – still plenty of bream – all undersize though good fun on mulie strips (the gulp worms were not working for some reason?).

Danna keeping tradition and outfishing the partner of the GF…

We stopped off for a nice picnic – and bit more shore based fishing – that’s one expensive rod holder!

Heres one of the lil tackers..

All in all, a great trip – I’m sure there’s some big lunkers in there somewhere, though yet to unlock the code. I’ll return in a few weeks time with the lads and will attempt the ocean side then…and if not have a go in the snags again..

Went for a night time paddle in the canning river. After a bit of chat on the beach with the other guys – we headed out to some nice snaggy ground,

pre launch get together

anchored and lobbed out some bait. All was quiet for around 20mins, then Dan got into the first bream, followed by Paul then myself.

After picking up lots of under size last weekend in moore river it was pleasant to get some size specimens – my first came in about 28cm, then my next about 3 mins later was a lovely 35cm.

In came another about 28cm then it went quiet for a while.

After a quick location change I picked up another about 31cm bream and after getting buried twice I decided to call it a night, let my 2 biggest bream go from the live tank and kept the two smallest for lunch tomorrow.

letting the big fullas go…

A bag limit of bream – not a bad nights work

A great evening out on the water – good to meet a new yakker (Danny) and big thanks to Paul for showing me some great new ground.

Great report Brett. Here’s a few pics I took…

Brett with spinakker fully loaded-

Brett giving the ray some welly – or was it the other way round?

A wobby that I got along side and thought better of getting him onboard

A new species for me – never having handled one before I was a little cautious – I’ve heard they’re bendy eneough to turn round and bight you if holding them by the tail and can lock on and not let go. Seemed a shame to take this fella for the table so I said goodbye…

Off he goes

Love the video Brett – I’ve got another one on my camera that I can whack on the tube.

Quiet fish day – only wrasse and the wobby and a few whiting on the way in – a day of W’s!

Met up with Alec(Mustrumur)  thismorning for a pedal round Woodies. Hit all the usual spots with very little result. Eventually after trolling around for a while searching for any fish, myself and Alec complied with the ancient Sound tradition of looking for the nearest boats and joined them on the pick! We rattled our anchor chains to our hearts content, and as a result, noone caught any fish!

Alec on his Outback Papaya!!

It's started early this year.........

It was very quiet all morning, and didn’t see anything caught, so around mid-morning, i up anchored and went for another look around. Headed down to Beluga’s and after being slowly circled by at least 5 boats found a bit of ground and threw in a pick. Bit of berley in the water and finally a few Herring and Skippy came on the chew.

Nice little Herring on a Flickbait.

At this stage Alec had had enough and hit the road, so i sat on anchor till after lunch, before heading in myself. Was super quiet out there, i eventually managed half a dozen herring, with a few going out as baits, but without a touch. Was a great morning on the water, cheers Alec!

Slightly re-touched pic of my Adventure

The Stealth Kayaks have really captured my imagination since first seeing one in the flesh last year. I love the idea of a kayak that can handle surf conditions, with ease, one that’s designed to feel at home there. We in Australia have endless surf beaches, and with that in mind, i have kept my eye out, and finally one has come along at the right price, so i pounced.

Really since coming to the sport i have ony ever pedalled my fishing kayak, now i can experience other aspects of the sport, and get some strength into my paddling shoulders, and chase some Tailor and Whiting of the Surf beaches! I will report on my experiences!

Stealth Supalight X