Been Yakking The Lake Today With Other Yakkers

[arpie]

Hi guys

I'm excited!!! Been paddling for the last few days (except Fri, which was horrible!) Here is my report to the other Yakkers! Sean@crescent was up there too & got into his first bream on lures too!

.............

My weekend started on Thurs with a fishing trip at Little St with Sean@crescent & his wife Sharon. Absolutely superb day - sun was shining, skies were blue, water was calm & clear. Sharon & I had a go in the leases for mullet & on my 2nd cast, my rod broke and I didn't even have a fish on! Suddenly my 2 piece had become a 3 piece! Bugger! I removed the broken bit & continued fishing as I did not have a 2nd rod! Believe it or not, I caught about 10 mullet with it being only half a rod!!! Sharon had a few hits but they managed to evade the hooks. Sean had some hits & follows & was excited about the coming weekend! I paddled back towards the ute & when in the Breckinbridge Channel, I put my 100mm Squidgie Silver Ghost on & flicked (as you do with half a rod!) for flatties. Blow me down, if I don't catch one!! 76cm! I was amazed! I'd virtually done better with a busted rod than with a full rod! Later, we hit the breakwall & I caught 3 blackies (showing Sean & Sharon how to 'do it') & was busted off by a real biggie! Now they are both keen to give blackies a go, too!

Friday was a real 'shit' day (in more ways than one ... the big marquee was tossed 50m away & buckled badly, also demolishing a tent - luckily no-one was injured, altho Sean was nearly whacked in the head by a flying strut) - bucketting with rain, howling winds, chopped up water & generally miserable, but most of us yakkers went out anyway and had a fish! I saw a toadfish & not a lot else! I was rugged up in neoprene trousers & top, with wet weather gear on top - looked like Mr Michelin Man! But I was dry! I headed home to cook dinner for the other half (a non fisher!) and detoured via Little St - it looked 'reasonable' given the weather & I thought 'we should have been here', then I got out of the car at the pool to check out the water! That is when the wind (that did the damage at camp) hit & I was then thinking "bloody glad we didn't come here!'

We all got together later that evening in the common room for pizza & a chat. Weather had calmed by then. It was really great putting faces to names! Amazing how your imagination plays tricks on you! Most were nothing like I had imagined! We were like bees around the honey pot when Mike brought out his lures .... too good an opportunity to pass up!! Everyone reckoned they got the one to catch Bigguth (nickname of the biggest bream!!)

Saturday was a carbon copy of Thursday! Bright & sunny, clear skies & calm water so a few of us gathered at Little St to try the leases in & around 'the Paddock.' I was using a 'bodgey' rod (made of 2 rods in an effort to duplicate my broken one!) I should have just stuck with the broken rod, given my results! I got 3 or 4 mullet & ended up resorting to using one for bait & gave the others away for bait! Even then, I only got a couple of small throwback bream & even resorted to blackie fishing .... got 2 throwbacks!! Not my best fishing result, that is for sure! A guy in a tinnie got a 1m flattie!

Sunday morning, another gorgeous Forster day - I went out at first light (well, almost .... 7.30am at Breck Channel!) with Sean@crescent - he had had success on Sat catching heaps of bream on lures - not bad for a first timer! Now, I am not at all confident with luring bream & was alternating between flicking sps for flatties & luring for bream. Sean had already caught & released a nice bream. The Tailor were eating the sps, so I stuck with the lures for a while. I was just opposite the Barclays 'oyster shop' at the junction of two of the islands where there are some leases. I flicked the Halco 'tricky' scorpion (Bushy's) out & brought it back between the racks a few times thinking there may be something there. At this point, the tide was till going out (just!) Then, I put it past the outside of the posts of the lease & brought it back towards me.

WHACK!! I got a fish on - he put on a performance, shaking it's head & then took off (luckily) into the channel, not back to the posts, & I thought - it is a decent flattie. It was taking line & giving me a hard time, so I grabbed the net to be ready & as it approached the hobie, I said "Holy Sh_t". It's not a flattie, It's a bream!! It's a really big bream!! Finally I got it into the net & let out a "YAHOO!!" Sean thought I'd fallen in, I think! My first real bream on lure!! All others had been foul hooked!

I MAY HAVE CAUGHT BIGGUTH!!! You wouldn't dream of it - It could be the biggest bream!! What an unlucky fish! It was just 1cm bigger than the biggest one so far!!! We had to wait till later in the day to be sure! We phoned it thru & continued fishing for another 3hrs, catching no more, but seeing some gorgeous scenery & works of nature. We ended up getting back to camp about midday. News had spread!!! I was judged the winner!!!! Yeehaa!!

The person with the least amount of skill in luring for bream managed to catch the Big One!!

It really was an eventful weekend (in more ways than one) & has done wonders for me, personally, watching others fish for bream & other species & just checking out all the variations of 'add ons' on many of the yaks. Unfortunately, I didn't get out to that bommie, even tho Sat & Sun were nice & calm - I may just have to leave that for another outing!

I'm Still Excited!!!

Cheers for now

Roberta

Edited November 22, 2008 by Roberta

[henryinnis]

Lovely bream! Don't they just run harder on the lures eh? I love the sp's, can never beat a good yabby shaped one!

Henry

[bobfish]

Wopping bream Roberta, what a way to pick up a pb and a first on lures!!!!

[offtap1]

Congratulations, Great Work and Great looking Fish,Good report, Cheers Dave

[Flattieman]

Well done, Roberta! I reackon you did pretty darn well for the two days with decent weather! I'd be happy with 76cm flattie and BIGGUTH (what was the final measure on it, by the way?). What a great introduction to bream luring!

Flattieman.

PS. You don't happen to have any pics of the 1m flattie, do you?

[mrsswordfisherman]

Nice job Roberta and you should be very pleased with yourself indeed

Cheers mrsswordfisherman

[micksfishn]

niec catch you got there and they run blooy hard to great fun

cheers mick

[Steve07]

That is a beautiful bream and would have been a great fight

good fun to catch both on bait and plastics

and 4 days fishin in a row,thats unreal

[southerly]

Nice fish Roberta.

I see a sounder in the bachground of one of the pics, what have you put in the yak?

Southerly

[mrmoshe]

Roberta...You have the Midas touch when it comes to good fish ...Congrats on the "Biggeth"

That's a mighty bream in any one's book. How long was it?

You yakkers sure had a great few days by the sound of it.

Keep those reports coming in and sorry you broke your rod.

Cheers,

Pete.

[arpie]

Hi guys

Sorry - didn't I tell you the size??? Silly me! He ran to 37cm & weighed only 754g (a bit of a 'slab' I thought, given his length!) I thought that size would have gone 1kg ... mind you, they were the neighbour's scales!

No, I didn't personally see the 1m flattie, but about 3 other yakkers did - I saw them crowded around the boat!

Yep - got a sounder .... Cuda 168 - with a 'shallow water' alarm that reads up to .3m!! Very necessary on a Hobie! I set it to .6m & that gives me time to find deeper water before the pedals/fins hit the deck! I used the sounder for the first time at The Entrance social & was amazed at how shallow it was - even worse than Wallis Lake here!!

Will go out again tomorrow morning whilst the other half is at art! Sean is going out again to test some new water too, before heading back home! He'll be back later in the year to have a go at the blackies!

Funnily enough, the Bushy 'tricky sneaky scorpion' (Halco, I think) doesn't really look like anything in particular, but does have mullet type colouring!

I seriously thought it was a flattie, with big head shakes & all! The smile is still on the dial!!

Cheers

Roberta

Edited November 22, 2008 by Roberta

[Mondo Rock]

Great story Roberta - and even better results!

Soon you'll be braining the bream, you just gotta get yourself a rod that's up to it!!

[Penguin]

Well done on the fishing Roberta and congrats on ur pb Bream

sorry to hear about your busted rod though.

penguin

[sneddo]

Beautiful Bream Roberta....I heard of a few 3/4 to kilo plus fish pulled from the lake over the weekend.

[insolent]

Top fish Roberta and thanks for the report, you and some other Raiders really put the effort into describing the fishing action.

Cheers

Evil

[mark*]

great bream there roberta. well done on the first bream

on lure.

regards mark

[gyropilot]

Fantastic Bream.....congratulations on catching Bigguth !!

Geoff

[Brad Duffell]

wow roberta i love your posts it really really makes me want to go sp fishing for bream now!! what a great weekend you must have had i wont be out for a while and ill be really missing the raiders up at forster next weekend... aahh well

[bobfish]

Hey Roberta,

Ive been checking out yaks for a while now. Ive been reccomended a sit in model but im not sure, sit on seems to be the fad...Im looking at mainly estuary fishing but im thinking of heading outside too. Can you shed some light on the topie for me? Or mabe recommend a model or two?

Cheers Bobfish

[arpie]

Hi Brad

Thanks for your congrats! It was a great weekend. Have a great Gig this weekend - will miss you not being here!! If you get up here any other time, give me a yell & we can hit the water!!!

Hi Bobfish

I think sit ons are favoured more just now (especially for offshore) because they (usually) don't fill with water when you have a spill unless you have left a hatch open! Perception Swing is a very popular offshore yak. I have one of each! My Perception Minnow is a sit in & has really done me proud over the last 4 years & terrific for getting into really skinny/shallow water. You can be in 2" of water! I use it a lot for going into the leases up here & it has had it's little bottom scraped often! If looking at a sit in to go offshore, you would really also need a neoprene skirt (to make it water tight) for going out thru the surf, with your gear stowed inside, but you would be able to remove that until you came back thru the surf.

My 'sit on' is a Hobie (smallest of the series) and the advantage of that one, is the pedal driven paddles! No hands!! Both hands are free to fish (except for occasionally adjusting the rudder handle.) I have a fish finder & it is invaluable in Wallis Lake. It is shallow in a lot of parts, & I set it so I am warned before the pedals hit the sand banks. I was in the Hobie when I caught Bigguth & probably wouldn't have caught him if in the Minnow - I would have had to anchor up the Minnow, made a lot of noise & scared off the fish! With the Hobie, I just paddled around, tossing the lure until Bigguth found it! Mind you, he was the only one to find my lure, so I reckon he must have been starving! With the paddle system, you can also steer any fish you have on away from structure if you think they may bolt! The Outback or revolution (bigger models)are preferred by most as the 'outside' yaks - longer, so able to slice thru the waves & swell where as the smaller craft bob around on top of the waves! Also able to fit whole rod setups in the hull for surf exit & re-entry. Also heavier!

The downside of sit ons is that you often get your bum wet! If it rains, everything gets wet! In my sit in, it is not so bad - the rain does not collect on the seat for some reason but it does on pretty much all sit ons!! Hey - getting wet is all a part of kayaking tho!

Southerly (fishraider member) has a double sit in kayak that allows plenty of storage for gear & stuff & makes some great catches in & around the harbour - gets kingies as well! Don't know if they go out to sea tho! Check out the latest report:

http://fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.ph...mp;hl=southerly

We have quite a few 'yakkers' on Fishraider & I am sure if you put up a 'which yak for me' post, they will all be too pleased to convince you that theirs is best.

Hobies are expensive (because of the pedal technology - just the pedals cost $800, so don't lose them!) , but hobies can be bought more reasonably 2nd hand, but they sell fast. Or check out the dealers for demo models. There are lots of yak dealers on the northern beaches & around the Spit & Brookvale. Drop in on them & see what they offer. Never buy a yak without trying it in the water first!

Basically it depends on how much you want to spend, & I think that relates to how much time you will also spend on the water. They can be a great 'toy' but they are a terrific fish catching craft!!

Cheers

Roberta

Edited May 24, 2007 by Roberta