Considering that I approached today's fishing trip with a 'big' mindset, the result of my efforts today is an epic fail. Although I did catch quite a respectable sum of fish (I lost count) not a single one of them was worth keeping. The bulk of the catch were slimeys, one of which I used as a live bait (the rest released). On top of those guys were 4 or 5 pike. Despite the numbers of fish caught, I was so uninspired that I neglected to take photos of any of them. I didn't even get a worthy bite!
Truth be told, that probably had more to do with the weather than anything. No, scratch that - for a winters day, you couldn't ask for much better. But I did feel the cold, especially given the fact that I was bait fishing from an anchored stationary position, instead of my usual regime of trolling from spot to spot. It just doesn't pay to sit still in a kayak on a winters day - even if it's a good one. It felt OK when I started fishing at about 2:30PM, but by 4:00 I could no longer feel my toes. About half an hour later placing bait on the hook became really challenging because my hands were now also numb. Despite being covered with Sharkskin waterwear from neck to toe (with an icebreaker beanie on top) my freezing extremes soon sent shivers throughout my body. By the time the sun was threatening to withdraw I was completely done and thus, my trip cut short.
Today's epic fail came through no lack of trying. Not only did I come equipped with a large pre-frozen berley bomb, I also had a time-proven bait (bonito) with which to dangle. The berley trail worked a treat to. Within minutes of throwing it in, the sounder came alive with small fish arches. The bites came immediately, resulting in the first landed fish (slimey) within a minute. It was big for a smiley to and with only one exception, was the largest fish caught for the day. The exception being a pike that was bigger than I thought pike could actually get. I was tempted to get a photo of this fish, but the damned thing stank so much I just wanted to get it back to the water ASAP.
Too cold, too hungry, time to go home
Today's trip wasn't all frustration though. The hard lifting work was taken out of the equation by a couple of clever modifications that I've been meaning to do for a while now. One of these is a pulley-driven kayak storage system that lowers and lifts the kayak off the car roof racks (inspired by similar systems created by Astro & Billybob). The other is a simple system that makes easy work of getting the kayak onto the car from the launch spot. With my shoulder refusing to get any better, I figured it was about time to take some advice that has long been given to me. I'll take some photos and write up a description of both sometime during the week.
About the only thing that did go to plan this weekend was a bike riding trip on Saturday (no, that's not me in the picture above). Admittedly, however, it did take some getting use to riding a mountain bike again. My last bike was a high-quality flat-bar road bike. Like most of the bikes I've owned, that one was stolen to. Ironically, it was my (now) ex-fiancee who stole it. I guess she needed an extra bike (she already had one of her own) for any new potential boyfriends to ride. Dumb, blonde, thieving ho.
Although the Jervis Bay area has been battered by some strong westerlies throughout the week, it appears as if we have a green light for the weekends weather. Music to my ears. Once again Sunday appears to the warmer day, so that's when I'll be heading out kayak fishing. I've formulated an alternative strategy for this particular tip.
Lately I've been doing a hell of a lot of trolling or casting lures - all kinds of lures - and for the most part, doing pretty well. Truth be known, I'm somewhat surprised that I haven't caught more than I have over the past couple of colder months. Not that I didn't expect them to slow down on the bite - which they have - but more so I just didn't expect them to hang around. If my sounder is right (and I'm sure it is) there are good numbers of fish in the bay and basin right now. But considering how many times I must have passed by trolling at least one or two lures past their noses, let alone casting towards, it's actually surprising how few I have caught. I have been using quite a wide variety of lures to, so I don't think I'm having any 'match the hatch' issues. They just don't seem to be hungry.
So this weekend I'm going to do my best to make them hungry. My plan is to head towards a particular area at Bowen Island at the heads of Jervis Bay and anchor up within closest legal distance from the island. Attached to the anchor line (about a 6" above the anchor) will be a nylon mesh bag containing a pre-made and fully frozen berley bomb. Then I will cast out a bait in such a way that it dangles invitingly within the resulting berley trail. I'm using bonito for bait (only half of last weeks catch became sushami) and minced fish frame scraps will make up the 'stock' of the berley.
I squeezed about a handful of minced fish mush from it's frame through the mincer, and to this added a large cup of chicken pellets, a half cup of flour and about 5 pieces of bread torn up into small pieces. I make it all slightly damp with some water, add about 2 tablespoons of tuna oil and then mix it all together into a thick gluggy mix. I then line a container (I'm using a 1kg yoghurt container) with a thin plastic bag, poor the mush in, compact it down and place in freezer.
The harder frozen it is the slower little morsels of berley goodness are dispersed and the longer the trail will last, so it generally works better frozen solid. In past experiments, concoctions like this have worked very well for me on snapper. That's exactly what I am targeting specifically for this trip, and I won't settle for anything less than something with a bump on it's head. It'll be a mid-afternoon start and in my desperation for the big one, might hang around an hour or two after dark. So I'm going to be lit up like a xmas tree, and rugged up to the max.
The future of modern commuting transport
So that's my plan for Sunday. On Saturday I'm planning to go and pedal something different for a change. It's been at least a year since I've done it to any real degree, but I have always loved riding bikes (including motorbikes) so am looking forward to it. However, I wasn't inspired to buy a bike for the sake of pedal-powering fun (I get enough of that anyway). I picked it up because of my continual horror of rising petrol prices. It's a trend that appears to have no end and at this rate we'll be paying $2 a litre. Imagine what it'll look like in 2 or 3 years. I live about 12km from work, which I figure is a reasonable riding distance. It's damned cold right now, not to mention really windy lately, so until it warms up I'll be picking my days to use it for work communting. Luckily it's not $2 a litre just yet.
I was going to get more of a road-bike sort of thing, but couldn't get past my long-time adoration for mountain bikes. So I compromised and put 'slick' tyres on this Scott Aspect 45 mountain bike, which gives me considerable speed for such a beefy-framed bike. Over time I'll be replacing some components for reduced weight and greater speed, but the frame itself will be good for years. Anything else that I replace (wheels, hubs, fork, seat pole) will ultimately become a spare. Eventually, this bike will be the envy of many.
Thankfully the weather did indeed hold up for the weekend and if I had the time spare, I would have gone out both days. I knew Saturday would be calmer, but decided to head out Sunday instead. Winds might just turn out to be a novelty I thought, and thus included a sail-kit in my gear. At first I was undecided on where to fish - the bay or basin. Then I figured that if I caught some more tailor now, I might as well rename this site to tailortown.com.au. So instead I made my way to Murrays boat ramp from where I would head out into Jervis Bay, through the heads and off shore.
Wind was coming in at around 10 knots from the north east, which allowed me to sail nicely with a side wind all the way to the heads and beyond. I spent some of the way out tacking into the wind, with intentions to make the return trip a smooth downwind sail. The plan probably would have worked to, if only I wasn't distracted by the tell-tale omen of birds crashing the water on the north east end of Bowen Island. The closer to the action I got, the more excited I became. It wasn't just birds joining the party - there were a couple of seals in the mix as well. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that I wasn't the only one who's spotted the action. I was first on the scene, but other boats were closing in fast. In just a few minutes, they'd motor in and shut it all down. I managed about 5 or 6 casts before that happened. On the upside, those few casts returned 2 fish. The first being a reasonable tailor, which I quickly returned, figuring that there'd be bigger fish among the pack. A couple of casts later and I was onto something with a bit more grunt.
As I fought it in to the kayak I found myself trying to guess what it was. Is it a snapper? No... no real headshakes... just veering hard left and right (besides, I wasn't expecting to catch a snapper here and now). Is it a kingy? No... not trying to break deep-diving world records. Is it a tuna of some kind? No... it's strong, but not that strong. Maybe its another tailor... wait... it is a tuna! Of the bonito variety, that is. Small for a typical tuna, large for a typical bonito. It's not quite the pelagic fish I was hoping for, but it is at least pelagic. And yes, I did catch it on the Rapala X-rap lure that I said would account for my next pelagic.
All told I caught 6 fish today, including 2 pesky leatherjackets, which had - as usual - foul hooked themselves while harassing a deep-diving lure. There was also the tailor as well as a pike. I also managed to hook a small slimy mackerel, which I put back into the water as a live-bait. After 5 minutes it failed to produce, so with light failing I reeled it in, gently de-hooked it and returned it. As the sun fell below the horizon line I rigged up and set sail for the boat ramp.
Sailing home after a busy afternoon kayak fishing
Today really reminded me of the theory that fish are generally no where near as hungry during the colder months. My sounder picked up hundreds of fish this afternoon but encouraging them to bite was rather difficult. I can only hope that these numbers still show up on the sounder when it warms up. If so, I'm looking at a rather productive summer season.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I saw another shark today... probably the biggest I've ever seen. It was hard to say because I only saw the front half of it rise out of the water, about 10 metres behind a nearby boat (about 20 metres from myself). I couldn't rightfully tell you what it was, but it was quite large. Possibly a mako, maybe a white, or could have been another species that grows to be larger than, say, a kayak. The guy in the boat saw it to and actually motored over to tell me about it. I did keep my eye on the water after that while in the area but I didn't see another hint of it. It was too large to be a dolphin and too small to be most species of whale. I didn't catch the fin, just the nose, head and neck (in that order). After that initial glimpse it was gone.
Given how many hours I've put in in deep salty waters I'm still surprised I haven't seen more sharks than I have. What no longer surprises me is that the first sighting is almost always the last. I figure it was responding to a berley trail and as usual, didn't seem the least bit interested in myself.
I wasn't waken by my alarm clock this morning - it was the howling winds that stirred me to attention. Aside from trips to Taiwan and Phillipines where typhoons prevailed, it's been a long time since I've seen winds that strong. Jervis Bay was getting ripped up by it this morning and it made for a sharp contrast from the conditions of yesterday. Driving to work this morning was another one of those moments where I wished I had my camera handy, because it was well worth the photo opportunity. I did, however, have my camera handy yesterday and I did actually stop to take a photo of the bay. If there was ever a day to chuck a sicky in the Jervis Bay area, it was yesterday. It made me very hopeful that conditions would hold right through the weekend. After todays weather my confidence has dimmed somewhat. Here's hoping it'll look more like this, because I'm absolutely hanging out to get out there.
I spent the weekend at Coffs Harbour, working with the Maclean Outdoors Hobie dealer at the local 4WD, caravan, camping and boating show. I was pretty busy most of the time so didn't get a chance to get out and play, although we did go for an exploratory walk on Sunday morning and staring out into the harbour and ocean was rather inspiring indeed. I reckon this would be a fantastic place for kayak fishing, with nice protection offered by the harbour in most conditions. We hiked up to the top of a nice hill that overlooks the entire area and once there I was kicking myself for leaving the camera behind. Next time I'll be more prepared. But not just with a camera though. Oh no...
Next time I go to Coffs for work I'm going to try and fit in a day off to back end it and use the time to sample the waters up close and personal. Looks to me like prime pelagic fishing grounds, so I'll be equipped for large, fit and fiesty fish. Peering out into the blue from that height really re-inspired me to get and out and catch something capable of towing me and my kayak.
Soon to be chomped
This is the lure I'm counting on doing the damage the next time I do head out targeting large pelagics. This particular Rapala X-Rap Magnum Divebait is one of the finest lures of it's kind that I've seen. It's this red-headed, white bodied style lure that has accounted for most of the bigger fish I've caught, even having success on in-expensive $5.00 models. Whilst the X-Rap isn't what I'd call a cheap lure, it is a damn good one. I lost one of these to a mackeral at Hervey Bay on only it's second cast and have only recently picked up a couple more. I'm using better leader material now, so hopefully these guys will last a little longer. If so I'm confident they'll account for at least a few good fish.
'Bluewater' Jon Schwartz is a dedicated kayak fisherman based on the US west coast and is particularly keen on hunting large game fish (with an impressive number of marlin under his belt). He's also a pretty good writer, which is a skill he's put to use on an article about big game fishing from a kayak. Although he's writing from a US perspective, it's all applicable to any yak fisho looking to pick up a few worthy tips. The article can be found at Bluewater Jon's kayak fishing website. Here's a snippet:
"The thrill of landing a trophy on a kayak is matched by an increase in risk factors. Conditions can change in an instant, and the lake-like conditions that you paddled out it in can quickly morph into a frothing cauldron. Be cautious, conservative, and curious; anyone can get lucky, but to safely catch fish on a consistent basis, you’ll have to study the sport and the ocean diligently."
It's been longer than usual since my last post due to some horribly miserable weather here at the NSW South coast. Last weekend was a complete write off and this weekend is looking just as bad. This weekend doesn't bother me because I'll be busy shifting house anyway. Tonight is my last night in this humble little cottage in Basin View and tomorrow my first in my next residence, where I plan to stay put for quite some time. Fortunately I won't be going through a real estate agent on this next one which will be refreshing. My new home is in Sanctuary Point, smack bang in the middle of the Basin and Jervis Bay... not such a bad place to be. The backyard is nice and open and should be perfect for an organic vege garden, which will be my next project for weekends when the weather is too crappy for fishing. By this time next year I plan to be a lot more self-sufficient than I've ever been, with fresh organic veges to go with my freshly caught fish. Can't wait.
It's going to be a few days before I get the Internet connected at the new house so I'll be off line until sometime next week. By the time I get connected again I'll be desperate to get out for a fish because there's little to no chance of it happening in the mean time.
That seemingly amazing footage of the killer whale leaping into the air and inadvertently landing on a kayakers head sure is convincing and I have to admit that the first time I saw it, I thought it might be genuine. Somewhere along the lines I learned that it was in fact the product of a korean soft drink commercial... a sort of pepsi to the max kind of thing. Even though it isn't anything more than a krafty con job, it's still pretty cool to look at. Many kayakers have seen this video so a good deal of you know the footage in question. If you haven't seen it, click the 'read more' link below to check it out.
What some more of you might not have seen is the youtube clip that does a pretty good job of demonstrating that it is a fake and how it was done. That to is also available to check out by following the 'read more' link.
If you're somewhat curious to know what it would be like to have a close encounter with a killer whale from a kayak for real, I've also included a clip taken by some lucky kayakers in the San Juan Islands. Pretty amazing footage. Thankfully killer whales earned their reputation by killing animals such as seals, not humans!
With dark clouds looming low I came very close to shelving today's trip but fortunately the rain held off all day long. Late afternoon I decided to head out regardless, with just a couple of hours daylight left. I had a very clear plan of attack for today, which was to head out to the position where I found the large tailor last weekend. I'd developed the opinion that this is where the bigger ones could be found, unlike just about everywhere else I've been fishing (where bream and flathead are abundant). So today was all about proving that theory.
Caught on Rapalla slash bait, medium diver.
It only took about 10 minutes after reaching the destination to prove my theory correct. Trolling the deadly Rapalla slash bait hardbody lures (one a shallow, the other a medium depth diver), I hooked onto this fish. Taking the medium depth diver, it put up a pretty good fight for it's size, which was just over 50cm. Not quite as large as last week's fish, but big enough to be great fun on light tackle.
10 minutes after that the shallow diver accounted for the next fish, which was a little bigger again. Still not quite as large as last weeks largest fish, but it was getting closer. I'd estimate about 55cm. Both this and the previous fish were returned, both a little shaken, but certainly a little wiser.
Caught on a Rappala shallow diver slash bait
A half hour later I hooked up again, this time onto something with a bit more guts to it. This fish fought more like the 58cm specimen I caught last weekend, shaking it's head vigorously and going on several hard runs. I tamed it fairly quickly though and a few moments later had it netted. This guy was definitely bigger than the last couple and I decided to keep this one for the neighbours. It measured up at 59cm and according to my lip-grip scales, was right on 2kg.
Neighbours dinner, all 59cm worth
So I figure that my supposition was indeed correct. Big tailor are now present in the Basin in numbers and a good deal of them are hanging around directly south of Basin View. Todays trip lasted less than 2 hours, but that's more than I needed to catch some good fish.
I've been paddling around seals a fair bit when I was living in Victoria and I was always pretty keen to get up close to them, but I've never had a seal come this close to my kayak. After getting over the intial shock of having a seal jump abpard the kayak, I reckon I'd find it very amusing. Then again, the seals I'm use to seeing are a lot bigger than this little fella.
Up until last weekend, all of the tailor I have caught from St Georges Basin have been little choppers and very few had been worth keeping. I always knew the bigger ones were there because not only have I seen them jumping, I've been bitten off by a couple. I'm starting to suspect that the bigger ones hang around in a different location from the juveniles (where I caught this one), which is also where I've been bitten off before. I'll be spending this weekend trying to prove that theory to myself.
From this...
As you can imagine I was pretty happy when I caught this fish but for a moment I considered putting it back, simply because my freezer didn't have enough room in it and no way could I eat it all that night. Then I remembered a recipe shown to me by Astro while I passed through Mackay last year. Pickled fish! Here's how I did it:
...to this
Mixed 150ml distilled white vinegar with 150ml apple cider vinegar, added 100ml of olive oil, added 1 finely chopped red hot chilly, added 1 crushed clove of garlic and stirred. Then simply add the fish, place in fridge and wait for at least an hour. So simple.
I found that the taste was slightly better the next day, so I think a bit more fridge time (than 1 hour) is the go. Doing a bit of a look around google, I can expect the fish to be preserved for about four weeks. Not that I expect it to last that long - I finished off one of these jars in just 2 days (the one fish filled 2 old pickle jars).
This recipe is excellent for fish that you would otherwise take or leave. You know... those species that don't make your mouth water at the very thought of them. Astro's example was Mackeral, and trust me, it's nicer pickled. It also works really well for tailor. Trevally is another fish I'd happily do this to, as is Aussie salmon. Oh yes... kingies to. But doing this to say, coral trout, it probably sacrilage.
I met Steve Fields on the water just after midday today and by the time I got there he'd already caught quite a few tailor, so it looked good for a successful afternoon fishing. From Basin View we trolled our way over to the west-end to try the shallows for bream, to no avail. For a while there it looked like we weren't going to find any more fish and ironically it was only 5 minutes after Steve left me out there that I started catching some steady fish - one of them quite the specimen. I caught this greenback with a trolled Rappala shallow-diving slashbait, which is a proven winner on tailor around here. On 4lb line (6lb leader) it made a very strong account of itself, jerking hard at the start of the fight and pulling hard towards the end. For a while there it thought it may even be a jewfish. Weighing in at 2kg and measuring 58cm, it was great fun to catch on light tackle.
From that point on the fish came on strong almost wherever I went, all of them (that I know of) being tailor - some of them legal, some of them not. In just a brief 4-hour session I caught at least 20 fish today, releasing most of them unharmed, keeping 3 for the table (including the big one). There were a couple of early double hook ups and before long I started fishing with just one rod. Most of the smaller ones were encountered closer to basin view itself and there seemed to be more larger ones further over to the west.
Double hook up!
The basin was alive with fish activity this afternoon, which was really very promising to see. Tailor are out in prolific numbers , all of them protected from commercial fishing. If that hadn't been banned several years ago, I'm sure it wouldn't be fishing as well as it is now. Today was the perfect day to take advantage of it, which although reasonably chilly, was for the most part sunny and calm. By the end of the day I'd covered a fair distance, forming a big triangle in the process. I used a variety of lures, including bibbed hardbodies, several soft plastics as well as poppers. Apart from the silver Finn-S minnow flick bait, every single fish fell for the Rappala slash bait. I'm really starting to appreciate this lure because I know that tailor sure do. I've seen kingies fall for them just as easily and I reckon Aussie salmon would do so as well.
It only took about 10 minutes after reaching the destination to prove my theory correct. Trolling the deadly Rapalla slash bait hardbody lures (one a shallow, the other a medium depth diver), I hooked onto this fish. Taking the medium depth diver, it put up a pretty good fight for it's size, which was just over 50cm. Not quite as large as last week's fish, but big enough to be great fun on light tackle. 
