Of course the night before the BoM was predicting bugger all wind until mid afternoon, but changed their minds overnight and when I woke up at 4am they were now saying there would be 15k winds all day and half meter waves. I toyed with the idea of going to Lnag Lang with Cheater instead but I didn't have much bait and had planned on catching my own so I stuck with the original plan.
I launched just before sunrise, probably not the right thing to do but there is bugger all boat traffic around there and even in the gloom the yak sticks out like dogs balls. Turned out the BoM got it wrong and it was pretty much glassed out until the tide change.
I paddled out to the 5m mark and started drifting, the squid were hard to find but eventually I got a double hookup on the jigs I had tea bagging in the rod holders. Of course this was the opportune moment for one of the reels to **** itself; I started to wind the squid in and the handle just locked up. It felt like a decent squid so I tried to force the handle to turn and heard an ominous crunch from somewhere inside. The reel started turning, but I think the screw that holds the pinion in place sheared off because the spool stopped moving up and down to lay the line. At this point the other rod went off so I dealt with that squid before gingerly winding in the damaged reel. Both had nice size squids, about 25cm or so. I figured for squidding I'd only have a couple of meters of line out and the line lay of the busted reel didn't matter so in it went again. I sacrificed a ratty, chewed up white Sephia to the snags at some point along the way.
Once I had three squid I changed up the rods and started trolling a Kinchou Minnow (never heard of them before but they were 4 for $20 at the Box Hill CA sale) and a 6" ZMan plastic north towards Point Leo. I got one hit on the minnow but no hook up and ended up at my mark without adding to the score. I dropped the anchor, put the baits out and waited. And waited. And waited. Not a nibble, and didn't lose a bait. Never had that happen before in WPB, normally at the very least there is some rubbish picking away to keep you occupied. I gave it about 30min and moved 250m away. Got a nibble straight away at the new spot and shortly after I pulled in a 30cm flattie which was promptly turned into bait. Got a big banjo and a PJ as well.
Then one of the rods went off in a big way. It went for a bit of a run but didn't really fight too hard. There were a few headshakes though and I figured it was a gummy. Sure enough a nice size gummy emerged from the depths, took one look at me and went straight back the way it came, doing a couple of barrel rolls around one of the other lines as it went (at least I think that is what happened, I can't think how else it could have caused such an epic tangle). Eventually I got it to the side of the yak where it went mental, as it was knocking tackle and bait flying I noticed one of the rods move out of the corner of my eye and was only just able to lunge and grab it before it disappeared below. The gummy had somehow got the line caught on it's tail and as it thrashed around it pulled the rod straight out of the holder. The reel was fully submerged so that was the second 260 Slammer out of action for the day. After a bit more ******* around I got a knife through the head of the gummy which calmed it down and I could sort out the mess it had made. The sounder had been knocked right back and was facing straight up, there was line everywhere, bait everywhere and gummy blood splattered all over the shop but I hadn't lost anything over the side and had a 1m gummy to show for it.
I fished for a little while longer, nothing much happened apart from another 32cm flathead and the wind started to pick up so I pulled in the lines at about 3pm and trolled the same lures back towards Shoreham. I got a big hit on both lures but no hook up unfortunately. I thought I caught some weed on the minnow but it turned out to be squid number 4 for the day. It was a slow paddle back into the wind, and by this time the tide had changed and was going against the wind too which made the waves stand up a bit.
It wasn't a huge day, but productive nonetheless. I've got 3 meals worth of fillets out of the gummy and the flathead for me and the grandparents which was good. The squid will be used for bait tomorrow on the gummy hunt down at Inverloch.
good luck tomorrow.
