Mornington bait hunt

Getting out in the kayak 2 weekends in a row? It's unheard of! However recently we have had "Spring-like" conditions and the trees have been in bloom very early, plus I noticed this during the week:


With the water temps on the rise there have been a few reports of snapper filtering in, however Dad and I decided we need to get some bait so when they really start to fire we'll have a nice selection.

As we had a limited timeframe (3.30pm until dark) we headed to Mornington, and overlooked the spot we usually fish to see at calm as a mill pond and free of any boats. As we launched just after 4, 2 boats converged on the small reef we fish, which I have found often puts the squid off. Despite this, third cast I am on and bring up a squid with a very tentative candle attached to the jig, and it escapes about 2m from the yak.

About 15 minutes in I get another one, and Dad (Who is slow trolling 2 jigs past where I am casting them) hooks one as well. Next cast I manage another one, and 2 more quickly follow. Dad then snagged up his jig and it unfortunately broke off, so I was enlisted to tie his braid to a flurocarbon leader. This proved to be an excellent ploy, for as I was doing this for him Dad managed to snag another 1. I now had 4 and Dad 2, so we decided with 2 more each we'd have 10 and some nice bait for big red.

After a fruitless 15 minutes I managed 2 more in 3 casts, and Dad got 1 soon after. As dusk fell we had only managed 9 and on a "one more cast" on the inner edge of the reef as we headed in I managed one, which in jeiwe fisherman terms would have been described as a "million dollar bill" as it was tiny! We put them in a bucket with salt water to preserve them, and packed up and headed home.

Here is Dad with a selection of squid as we packed them up to freeze:


No whales this week, but we managed 10 squid (7 to me, 3 to Dad if you're keeping score!) and I tested my new anchor - After paying $50 for a sand anchor with 2m of 6mm chain and 50m of rope (Then getting annoyed at how much space it takes up so not bringing it anywhere!) the most effective method was 10m of cord and a brick!