Mt Martha 4/3

[4liters]

Went for a fish down at Safety Beach today. Launched about 7am which is a pretty late start for me. Looks like they've recently put a load of new sand on the beach; it was very coarse and loose which made wheeling the yak a pain in the arse.

The wind was up a bit higher than I had anticipated but it was from the East so the wind waves weren't too much of a problem. I started my drift once I saw weed on the sounder and eventually found the squid in about 8m. I didn't bother casting, I just left the jigs trailing behind me while I gave the rods the occasional twitch. I got 5 on the first drift and another 3 on the second, plus a couple of tiny ones which I released.

By now I was starting to wonder if the wind was ever going to die down so I headed for the shelter of the cliffs. I had a few half-hearted casts for some more squid to get my bag but gave up on that and decided to anchor up and try for some gars. I was using a quill float with a pea size split shot below the float and an adjustable stopper above. I was using a size 12 longshank. Despite getting a nice slick of tuna oil and breadcrumbs I didn't get a touch on the float rig or the whiting rig I had out as well.

Around midday I headed over to the mussel farm to try for more gars and whiting but got zero interest in the float and a succession of micro pinkies on the whiting rig. I moved so I was casting close to the farm and got sporadic, barely legal pinkies which I released; I also got a sliver trevally which I kept for bait and a 33cm flathead, both on mussel. Then a banjo came and destroyed my paternoster by gut hooking itself on both hooks at once. I was tempted to keep it for shark bait but decided to cut the hooks off and let it go.

The wind had dropped off by early afternoon and sick of catching pinkies I headed to the sand and trolled around for some flatties. Lures were a hot pink stumpjumper and a green tsunami bass lure. I managed to avoid the jetskies which by now were in plague proportions and ended up getting 2 flatties and a pinkie on the stumpjumper and a 1 flatties and a puffer on the bass lure. I kept one of the flathead, the rest were legal but too small to be worth filleting.

By the time I got back to the beach a wedding reception was getting set up in front of the yacht club - they weren't thrilled to have me rock up looking like a tramp, covered in salt and squid ink, and then drag a kayak around their area but I'm sure they'll get over it. Ended up being a reasonable day on the water once the wind died down. It was a bit annoying to miss out on the gars and whiting but that's fishing I suppose. I kind of regret not taking a shark rod, it sounds like small bronzies are all over the place at the moment.

[Nude up]

Sounds like a good day on the water

[Bar002811]

Great job mate was a great day for it!!

[Lightningx]

Nice report. Hope you get into the gars and whiting next time

[poodoo]

Ha ha nice one mate.