A new plan - Secret Silver

With all of the success on the squid recently, in fact to the point that squid seem to be the only thing that I can catch, I am heading to Mornington again this afternoon. This is in the hope that I can get 6-8 nice million dollar bill size squid. I will then head to Coronet Bay, pick up the boat and go out with Dad off Corinella in the hope of enticing a Secret Silver - The mighty mulloway!

There are a couple of issues here though:

• Can I actually catch a few squid, now that I need to?
• Am I going to get stuck for hours on my way to Coronet Bay, which also happens to be on the way to Phillip Island before the Easter long weekend?
• Is Nicole (Who is due to have our first child tomorrow) going to decide to go into labour this afternoon or overnight, dashing hopes of any jewies?

Whatever happens, I have analysed my last trip and decided that I need a few new things on board with me:

• A longer anchor rope, with chain. I am currently struggling to hold bottom in the wind with my 1.5kg anchor and 10m of rope. I will invest in a large handline to wrap it all around, and fill it with foam so it floats should I ever drop it!
• A navigation light - We had to wait half an hour to launch last time. This could be solved by me getting 1-1.5m pole with a white light at the top to put behind me sticking up in the kayak. This will also come in handy when it gets to snapper season!
• A drogue for drifting. This would slow down the drift and be very handy when drifting for squid, or flicking soft plastics around.

Cerberus Cephalopods

Another weekend another kayak trip. This is great! As planned, we headed to Black Rock and launched at 6.30 in Half Moon Bay. It was good to meet a fellow VicYakker (Mark, known as Rollie) and we had to wait a while to launch due to it being overcast and still dark. Lucky because this gave us time to pay the ridiculous sum of $10 for a parking ticket! We headed to the wreck Cerberus, and I flicked a 3" pearl watermelon minnow at it. No sooner had it his the water than I was on! Not a massive start, but a 20cm pinkie opened the account. For the next half hour or so we caught and released many similar size fish, with almost every cast resulting in a hit. I even managed a 38cm flathead which went into the keep net for dinner.
It went quiet so we headed out a bit and anchored up after our first drift resulted in 500m of movement within a couple of minutes - A bit breezy so too fast to drift. A couple more undersize pinkies came aboard and we headed back in to the Cerberus for one last try. After 15 fruitless minutes I swapped to a squid jig and first cast on the drop I was snagged on the ship..... As I was cursing my luck and readying myself to say goodbye to $22, the snag took off! My PB squid to date then came aboard after a spirited battle, so I quickly removed the jig from its tentacles, cast back in the same spot and went to get the squid out of the net. I didn't have time to accomplish this as while it was dropping again a good squid took the jig! Then I had my 2 biggest kayak caught squid ever in the net but was drifting close to the ship, so moved off and put them in the keep net. Then I had 10 more minutes of casting at the ship for 1 more (Slightly smaller) squid. Dad tried to get in on the action, but failed to tempt any squid. He did catch quite a few pinkies in the meantime though.


The pic is of me with the Cerberus in the background. Disappointing to find that although we had to pay $10 just to park in the carpark (Even though we didn't have a boat trailer!) there were no fish cleaning facilities provided. Apart from that, it was an enjoyable day and good to meet another fantastic VicYakker.

Black Rock - Where to launch?

Dad and I are fishing at Black Rock on Saturday (If there are no babies yet....), in search of some pinkies, salmon and flathead. I will be stocking up on the gulp 3" and 4" minnows in pillie (Great colour), nuclear chicken (Another top colour) and vader (Just a good name). We are trying to decide where to launch. The ramp is point A on my map, with the Junction Beach at point B. I know for ease of launch there would probably be more space etc at the ramp, but I think most of the pinkie-holding reefs are south, nearer to point B.


I have posted this on VYAK at http://www.vyak.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=544 to get some opinions. Honestly it doesn't really matter where we launch, as long as we get onto some fish!

Storage solution

Well, I've had the both mine and Dad's kayaks sitting in my garage for a while now, as it's more convenient to take them out from there rather than drive to Coronet Bay (1 hour) then to Mornington (45 minutes), when it is only 35-40 minutes to Mornington from my house. Although this has been great (Fished 4 weekends in a row until this very windy weekend), it has caused 2 problems: My garage was filling up and had not much room to move, and Glen was at Coronet Bay this weekend without a kayak. I can't help Glen, but while I'm not out on the water I had some spare time to fix the space issue. Here is what I came up with:


Basically I went down to Bunnings, bought 50m of rope, 4 pulleys, 2 D shackles and some aluminium marine grade attachments to put the rope through from the wood. I got the wood from off cuts from previous renovations to our house. I drilled holes up each end of the pieces of wood (Cut to about 32cm long). Initially I also had some 250mm bolts to go through the wood, through the scupper holes and into another piece of wood below the kayak. This only worked at one end (It was too deep at the other end with the footwell etc) and would take too long to put on each time. I just made up a couple of loops of rope and now thread them through the scupper holes, up and through the pieces of wood then loop them back around. See picture.


All I have to do to get it off the ground now is pull on a couple of pieces of rope, then tie them off to the side of the garage. It not only keeps the kayak out of the way, but I can store paddles, PFD's etc on top. Total cost was about $67 for the materials from Bunnings.

Coronet Bay whiting

A bit misleading in the title of this post, as I only boated one whiting for the day. However, it's the 4th weekend in a row we've managed to get out on the water, and it's been a lot of fun. Another early start, with Dad picking me up at 5.30 and we arrived at Coronet Bay about 6.40 with a rising tide and high hopes. As we went to park, Kel (momunny from VYak) arrived and we set off. First we tried drifting throwing squid jigs around for nothing. Dad and I anchored and threw out rods with fresh squid strips on them hoping for some whiting. About 7.30 Mitch (mtfisho from VYak) turned up and started flicking a plastic. 2nd cast he was on, and pulled in a 45cm-ish flathead up to his yak and lost it at the side. His Dad Gaz (angryseal from VYak) turned up aswell and they went off trolling around. Now motivated by Mitch's hookup, I threw on a soft plastic and started drifting. Almost immediately I had a good hit and follow...... From a squid! Where was it 2 minutes beforehand when I had the squid jig on?????Dad and I decided that the whiting may be in closer in the shallows, and paddled in. Whilst flicking a plastic, my bait rod with squid strips went off and I soon pulled in a healthy 34cm whiting.


We moved a couple more times, and I got a very nice sized grass whiting, which was released due to them being far less tasty than their cousins the king george, then a couple of leatherjackets, which also went back over the side.
We paddled back towards the Coronet Bay ramp (Still not open!) and tried one last time for some squid. Dad cast out his black yamashita 2.0 and then busied himself casting out his bait rod. When he picked the squid jig rod back up he was on! Not a monster by any means, but a good size and it will be great bait for future whiting trips. It's also good to know that there are a few squid in Coronet Bay and we don't have to travel to Mornington every time we need some calamari!


We were ready to head back in, still couldn't see angryseal and mtfisho anywhere. After packing everything up and putting the yaks on the car, we finally saw them come back into view and they were out past the stick, maybe fishing for gummies or elephants?
Anyway, another good day on the water and meeting of some new faces. The forecast is good for all weekend so good luck to all who venture out!

Early Morning-ton session

After a quick call to Dad last night, we were ready to make the most of the long weekend. Unfortunately it's going to be blowing a gale, thunderstorms and windy, so we decided an early morning assault on Mornington was in order. Dad picked me up at 6, we loaded up and launched about 7.15. After paddling to our spot, we started casting. 2nd cast Dad was on with a nice size calamari.... and 3rd cast he also bagged a nice one. It took me another couple of casts before I got one. Dad then straight away got number 3. I went back and started another drift and got my second. It was still very nice on the water, but a breeze gave us a fair drift so I started paddling back with the squid in a keep net on my yak. Unfortunately, it turns out that Dad gave me the "big holes" keep net and on the way a squid somehow escaped!I anchored up and started casting again. I was on 2 casts in a row. After the second cast, I dropped my jig straight down in about 2m of water whilst getting my 2 squid from my net into the keeper net. I found out another one had escaped it so it was straight back in the boat never to see water again! Whilst I was cursing my stupidity, my rod dangling over the side was on! I pulled up number 5. Then Dad got a snag..... And lost my new yamashita "shallow" jig, which had up until then been responsible for the downfall of a lot of squid! I fixed him up with another one (My last decent one), but it dove quicker and while he was constantly chasing it to get off the snags I bagged another 3.


Dad decided to cut one up and use it as strips of bait for whiting, so went off and fished the edge of the reef. I joined him and soon we had a few small pinkies each. I had a couple more casts with the squid jig and bagged number 9. This gave us 12 between us, although 2 had escaped through the "keep" net!
A great morning, off the water in an hour and a half with a great bag of calamari. Just when we were leaving a couple of boats pulled up, but we didn't see them get any. Maybe if they had have been using the stealthiest of all fishing craft, the kayak, they would have done better......