technically not a doughnut ...

[HenryR]

Two nice sized marine creatures each, or - better sounding I think - a few really tasty meals is definitely not a doughnut but, if when you get to the end of the day the biggest edible critter in the bag came from the bait ground and was the target species there, that sure ain't a plan A style success.

Our plan A was launch at Long Reef. On arrival there the SE swell was throwing up a nasty little shore dump. It pretty much guaranteed getting very wet. In summer that might be fine but we decided to give it a miss.

We hastily made up a plan B. We kept heading north to Pittwater. Less hopeful than Long Reef but we figured, even though we had no idea where to find them, we might still get lucky and run across some winter kings. We loaded the kayaks up and paddled out into the unknown waters. It was still dark. While the sun slowly rose we prospected blindly for squid and yakkas.

When the fresh, live bait bit of plan B failed we switched to plan C. Frozen bait. A cuttlefish picked up on a previous trip and good old plastic. Krause paddled off into the distance towing his lines through the ranks of moored boats. I picked out a point with a bit of a drop off and waited to see if any fish would find me. Neither strategy worked.

Plan D wasn't really ours. Thanks and credit for the little success we had goes to fellow fishraider, Derek who answered the call for help. He filled Krause in on a few things to try. It still took us a while to find what we were looking for but when we did we had a squid almost instantly. An hour and a bit later we had two more squid (over 5 hours since launch time, bait, finally sorted!) and a flattie. With the wind picking up we figured enough was enough and quit just a little bit ahead.

For reference: the flattie in the pic went 49cm.

[Scratchie]

Great report Henry. And that's the beauty of fishing, if plan A,B and C don't work then try D. You still managed something and good on Derek for helping you guys out! 

cheers scratchie!!! 

[big Neil]

You get my vote for anglers of the week even if you had to resort to plan D. The fact that you and Krause head off, in the dark, in unknown territory and in kayaks puts you way in front of most anglers in the determination stakes. Good on you both, I reckon. BN

[Caple666]

you know what they say " when the going gets tough, the tough get going" lol thats a huge squid on the right  still not bad for unknown waters. well done fellas!!

[ARC H]

well done mate goodonya for getting stuff

[Regan]

that is a big squid

good stuff guys

[saltrix]

Nice size squid, and a good flathead as well.

[DerekD]

Hi Henry,

I enjoyed the report. Also glad to hear the instructions made sense and the results speak for themselves. Heard you picked yours up on a hand line. So did how did the bait versus dinner decision with those squid go?

One of these days I hope our schedules match up and I can join you and Krause for a kayak fishing session. I've spent enough time on the phone to Krause that it would be nice to finally put a face to the voice.

Regards,

Derek

[HenryR]

Hi Derek,

Many, many thanks! You so saved our day. I grab squid occasionally when i run across them but this was actually the first time I've set out to catch them and the first time I've caught any big enough to be faced with a dinner or bait dilema. It's a tough one! Ate some, froze some, I did. However .... if it hadn't taken us half a day to get to the squid stage of things, they've have been bait, bait, bait and nothing but bait!

Would be really awesome to line up a Pittwater day sometime. It's one of those places I always think I should go and never do.