Saturday, April 14, 2012

Last trip's pics

Here is the squid from earlier in the evening (Note that it was still shorts and t-shirt weather at this stage!):



The squid above was definitely too big even for strip baits and would have been far better in the frypan!

Below is the current bane of my existence, just about to be thrown back into the water in disgust. It had cooled down a bit by then, as you can see from my attire.


Again, nothing really to report from this but hopefully we're getting closer to the elusive jewie....

Friday, April 13, 2012

Another Corinella donut

After hitting Mornington in the morning, we launched at Coronet Bay (Yes the tide was high enough!) just after 5pm yesterday arvo. As I only had 4 squid from the morning Dad thought we should get more, so we started flicking jigs around, and both put out pilchards on squid spikes under floats. We had a few moves between Coronet Bay and Reef Island for not much, and just on dusk we were about to pull the lines in and my float went under - A fairly lengthy fight ensued and one of my biggest squid to date was brought to the boat. I remarked that it would be too big for bait so rather than cut it up it should go to the table but Dad disagreed, so into the esky for bait it went!

I pulled up the the ramp and dropped Dad off who drove the car and trailer around to Corinella and I motored around and met him at the ramp. We headed straight to our spot and as it was high tide did not have to negotiate the web of channels in between which significantly reduced the travel time. As we got nearer a light came on - Yep a yakker was there again! The same guy who has been there the last 2 times. We gave him a bit of a wide berth and fished below him, however within 10 minutes he drifted past - He was on to a monster! I've gotta give it to the PA boys as he was standing up fighting this fish in absolute darkness with no worries about losing his balance. We asked him if he needed assistance as he was drifting quite fast but he said he had a net and a gaff and would be fine, also that it was kicking so it wasn't a ray. About 10 minutes later he came back past to anchor again - Turns out it was a big eagle ray!

Within the next 30 minutes Dad and I both landed smallish gummies that went back to grow bigger and things went quiet. We moved up the channel a bit at about 11pm (The yakker had long since returned in) and tried there where we were harrassed by elephants. Dad had a good run on half of the big squid's head (Which was still massive) and his reel started going backwards - He had somehow turned off the anti-reverse - Rookie mistake!

After too many elephants stealing our good baits we dropped a small rod in and I landed 3 small bay trout, which were to become livies. All of the banks were exposed now and it was back to our spot in 3m of water and out went a livie on one of my rods and a squid strip on the other.

After an hour or so of nothing we packed up at 2am and headed in, again not taking anything home. It was also interesting to see that even the snapper didn't turn up as they have been there every other time.

A couple of lessons learnt:

#1 use your anti-reverse Dad! We sit out there long enough without decent bites to miss one like that.

#2 Big squid aren't as good bait as little squid. The strips seem very fat, however they would probably be ok for somthing like gummies.

We took some pictures on Dad's camera, so they'll be up soon!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Quick Mornington sesh

Launched at just after 6am at Mornington this morning. An onshore breeze made conditions a bit lumpy, particularly over the shallow reef that I fish. About 3rd cast in I snagged and lost my favourite jig - A little 2.0 yamashita in the natural colour. I went out to the outer edge of the reef and anchored to get a new jig on and dropped my black yamashita 2.5 over the side whilst I was rigging up.

After retying on the leader to the braid I put on a 2.5 yamashita in the natural colour and as I was cutting the tag off the end at the knot my stationary rod went off - The first time that I have actually caught a squid dead sticking it. I brought it in and dropped it down again, then made a cast with my natural one. As soon as I had cast the one straight under the yak went off again, resulting in another nice squid. Both of them were a very good size for this area.

A boat came near me just as I hooked up on the rod I was casting, so naturally they stopped about 15m away. They were drifting very fast so deployed a drogue but still didn't manage to hook up. As they were motoring back to the top of their drift I hooked up again so they went on the other side of me (Where I was now casting). I now had 4 squid in the box (The last 2 being quite small - A great bait size!) and it was quite rough so I called it a day and went back to shore. To top it all off I was home by 8.15 to keep the family happy!

Now to try to convert these squid to a secret silver tonight in the boat!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

The trout are about

Ok so usually this is about fishing from my kayak, but today we tried something different..... The Rhyll trout farm. As it's Easter Sunday, it was jam packed with people but it was my son's 2nd birthday yesterday and we bought him a fishing rod, so I thought we should probably put him on to a fish! It was quite steep prices at $9 each just to walk through the gates, and at $19 per kg of fish, so I was hoping for a small one!

There were lots of people around the lake, and we couldn't see anyone getting bites, so we rigged up a bubble float and fished casting with the wind so it stayed out there. Ben had a lot of fun getting out the worms and assisting with baiting up, however he may have consumed one or two in the process. As soon as the float hit the water it was bobbing up and down, and I gave the rod to Ben but by then it was gone along with our bait. My Dad baited up and cast out for us with Ben sitting on my lap, and within 30 seconds he was on again. I had the drag loose and whilst trying to come to grips with reeling it in he had taken out 2 other lines and a poor little girl near us thought she had a fish on for a while!

The fish swam away from the lines and we slowly got it into the bank, where Ben walked backwards like a pro surf fisherman and beached it.

At about $40 it was the most expensive 500gm trout I have ever seen, but the smile on Ben's face was priceless! When we left we had only seen one other person catch a trout, so my tip if you go there is to use a float!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Jewie quest

Last night it was time to use the squid that I had caught the day before, so off to Corinella for a jewie hunt! We were meant to be there and launching by 6pm so I got there early and rigged the rods and readied the boat, obviously it was 8pm before Dad showed up.

After launching, we made our way to Tenby Channel and went right to the end of it, casting in our fresh squid and some pillies towards the old jetty. About 20 minutes later, some yakkers quietly motored up and anchored right on top of our baits - It seems that us yakkers can be just as stupid as boaties!

Five minutes later, one of Dad's rods went off and he landed a 3kg snapper, not what we were after but better than nothing. Both my rods then screamed off for no result. This happened a couple of times, and over the next 5 hours I must have missed 8 bites (Definitely all snapper - They smashed the baits but always missed the hooks!) and Dad didn't get another bite. I did manage a small school shark as a consolation prize.

At about 1.30am I woke Dad (Who had been asleep in the bottom of the boat since 11.30) and we headed in. When we arrived back at the ramp we were greeted by a gentleman who had fished landbased near where we were, using dirty old smelly servo pilchards for bait. He was cleaning the 25kg mulloway he had just caught. I guess God really does have a sense of humour!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Crazy calamari

Well it was an early start this morning, leaving just after 5.30 (However now that daylight savings has finished the boys are waking up at 6 anyway) and headed to Mornington. Launched the kayak in pristine conditions (Forgot the camera) and first cast had a hookup but lost it. Felt small, but a bad omen as I was targeting bait size models for a jewie hunt off Corinella tomorrow night.

About 4th cast in I hooked and landed a small one, then a boat came along as I was at the end of my drift and anchored in the middle of it! I couldn't do the drift again so went slightly south of the boat and couldn't generate any interest for the next half an hour, whilst the boat (In "my" spot!) pulled in about 5 between the 3 of them, however they let a few go as they obviously didn't want the small ones.

I went over the other side of the boat and a bit closer to shore and started casting. I was using 2 rods - One with a 2.5 black yamashita and one with a 2.0 natural yamashita. I worked them both at once, casting one, then the other and alternating giving one a whip, then putting it down and doing the same with the other. About 4th cast all hell broke loose - I got a decent squid hooked up on one. As I was pulling it in I put my other rod in a vertical rod holder and every now and then wound the handle to stop it getting snagged. The squid must love this because within a few seconds I had a double hook up. This happened 4 sets of casts in a row, so I had another 8 squid.

After about 3 fruitless casts I hooked another what I thought was small squid, however it turned out to be a cuttlefish - A first for me. I hear they're good bait and kept it, which gave me 9 squid and a cuttlefish. I know 10 squid is the bag limit, and as I believe they're both cephalopods I thought it was better to be safe than sorry and came in, confident that I was within my bag limit!

As we are using them for the jewies tomorrow night, I decided to individually bag each squid with a bit of salt water and use a tie to seal the bag. Hopefully this will keep them fresh!

When I got home I then put them all into tupperware and chinese food containers (Don't tell the wife!) and into the fridge.