Snapper from the Hobie Kayak?

I Decided to have an early fish with local Yaker and friend Dave Tingey alias 'Tingles' at a local spot near Adelaide. It was decided upon that we would meet early next morning to see if there were any Snapper around as the ban was in place the following week. This is to help Snapper stocks not being interrupted during their annual spawning season. 'Tingles' had an early appointment and couldn't get there until around 6 so I decided I would start without him.

It was around 5.20am when I reached the launch site, there was little moon and it was very dark. I wanted to turn the car around so I could back the trailer near the ramp which is quite steep so I proceeded to turn the car around when it came to a noisy halt! What had I done! I've ran over something. On inspection I had gone over the edge or the ramp and the left front wheel was in the air, the underside of the car flat on the ground. ARRGGGG!! I had forgotten about the steepness of the ramp and was also worried as the yak was still in the middle of the road. After laying some rubber, literally, I was humiliated and embarrassed at what had happened, must have sounded like a yobbo!
After I had the car where it should be I proceeded to get things ready without any more incident, phew.

The water sounded quite calm as it was still dark, I wouldn't have launched if it wasn't.
I checked all the safety gear, put on the PFD, turned on the Railblaza Navi light and also the LED Navilight Port/Starboard, no way I'm taking chances in the dark and these lights are very bright, great visibility and totally waterproof.

To make it easy with launching, Dave had previously showed me a great tip. Have the mirage drive clipped with a bungee so to is flat under the hull for launching but you can still use it once you peddle. I did this without any dramas and relaxed the bungee once in safe water which was over the first breakers. I didn't actually realise from the shore but there was a bit of swell but nothing to worrying and proceeded to anchor on what I thought looked good, nice broken bottom and around 5m of water.

This Mulloway was caught using the same plastic earlier in the year, see post HERE.

Today I was trying bait and plastics so I threw out my first rig, a whole pilchard on 2 snooded hooks, and no sinker as there wasn't much water movement into the darkness, let out some line, double-checked the drag, put it in the rod holder and locked it in place.

I then started to berley which consisted of chopped up pieces of the 2kg of pilchards that I had prepared the night before.

My next rig was the plastic so after smearing on some SFactor onto the Pilly Flickbait I again tossed it into the darkness and started to work the lure.

"I was fishing for over 1/2 an hour without a touch, the sun had started to creep over the hills and I could see 'Tingles' in the distance making his way over, great I thought, at least one of us should get a Snapper".

We started to fish together, burleying at intervals but with no results. I then started to try some different tactics, tied on my ever reliable sinking minnow to see if there was any snook or salmon around but even that didn't get a hit. Try for some squid I thought, so I put on the jag and flicked it as far as I could.

I left it for quite a while as the wind was picking up and the water was getting a little sloppy but managed to get one.

This was only a small one, There was some nice ones out there.

After this had happened my Snapper rod came up tight (which I had left in the holder) and I thought you ripper I'm on, lend back on the rod and set the hook, whatever it was took a bit of line and then nothing. Drat a Stingray I thought as I put as much pressure on the 'ray' as I could, the rod had a serious bend in it and I was putting some major hurt on the ray but it wasn't budging, much to the amusement of Tingles. I gave up after what seemed at least 10 minutes and had to break it off but at least I knew my reel and line (15lb) was more than up to the challenge and the knots held.

Trying to put some hurt on the Ray.

Over the course of the morning of flicking it right out leaving it till it was right near the bottom and hopping it back I managed a total of 12 Squid, while trying for some whiting as I had given up on the Snapper idea I also managed a few others, a Leatherjacket and a Wrasse which I had heard tasted all right - they were wrong!

Not to bad considering.

Dave also had some success and we trolled along the coast over to the jetty and back again where I dropped a good Snook while trolling a squidgy bloodworm wriggler.

It got quite sloppy and it's always good to make sure you can be seen on the water, These flags certainly help when the swell is getting up.

Dave alias 'Tingles'  in the swell, great idea to be as visible as possible.

After a safe beach landing we had a breather and then it was the horrid task of getting the yaks over the soft sand up the steep ramp to the cars and I only had my normal trolley. Thankful Dave was able to help me over the sand, once we got them up there we had to catch our breath - well I did anyway.

So although I didn't end up getting my target fish of snapper, by trying a few different things still ended up catching a feed, having great time with a mate and getting out on the water, good times all-round.

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