Balmoral 26/11 - Yaking

[southerly]

Headed out of Balmoral around day break in the yak. Started casting SP's around the first moring of the day, quickly hooking up to a 50cm Flathead, a few more casts and a leather jacket trashed SP had me heading off to another moring. First cast hard against the moring and a 30cm bream slams the Gulp Minnow Grub on the drop. After a solid fight it turns out to be foul hooked.

A few sporadic boils around the boat but no hook ups had me decide to head round Middle Head to try for kings on the channel markers. Tried the Green Middle Head Bouy and the ding dong, some bait holding but no hits, quite a few boats prospecting each of the bouys. Got a nice hit on a SP inside Middle head but the hooks pulled. Continued to troll an SP (thanks to Johnny for that tip - also used a rack raider SP he gave me) and got a solid hook up that ripped 15mtrs of 6lb braid quick time till the hook pulled. Hooked up again while winding the SP in to check the hook but again they pulled. Cheecked the hook and it looked ok.

I changed my SP to a Gulp Alive 3in Minnow in pumpkin seed and shortly after hooked up to a big fish that stayed deep, called it for a big trevally, sadly the hooks pulled again. Next cast and I hooked up again, this time to a nice salmon that just jumped and jumped, after a healthy fight 59cm of Salmon came into the yak (the fly rodders didn't turn a scale for a change).

After getting organised I put a cast hard up against an old boat and get slammed again on the drop. This fights like a big trevally and sure enought 45cm of Trev is landed.

This was turing out to be a fun morning, and how good was the weather. Things slowed a bit and my SP gained a cute skeletal pattern thanks to small leather jakets, as I was running out of time I decided to troll the chewed up SP as it still had its tail intact to the beach, 10 mtrs of paddling and I'm on again to another salmon, this one went 50cm and after a photo opportunity it went back into the water.

The salmon tended to be deep with only sporadic and isolated surface boils, nothing on the sounder. While no kings showed their heads, it was a great moring with some solid fish for 6lb line.

David

[arpie]

Well done Southerly - great mixed bag! Bodes well for the next few months, I reckon!!!

Terrific!

Roberta

[zen801]

Top morning on the water southerly.

I wish i got out there over the weekend.

Might go out for a fish in the next day or so.

Cheers

[coastspinna]

nice one...salmon that size fight hard on the light gear hey

wd enjoyed the post

ian

[Steve07]

well done, sounds like you had heaps of fun out there & some nice fish too!