I got the day off to a ripping start by getting the car bogged on the beach in the path of the incoming tide. Thankfully an awesome dude who had driven onto the beach to launch his tinny offered to help and after breaking a bunch of my tie down straps we found someone with a chain and my little rice burner was free. By this stage the guy was a bit grumpy, and I couldn't really blame him because I was keeping him from his fishing. I gave him a Yamashita NAEBA and a white Sephia to thank him for his effort. I really hope he caught a shitload of squid on them.
Anyway, with that little drama out of the way I finally got on the water and headed out into about 7m and started drifting. There was a fair size swell coming in from Bass Strait and I was feeling pretty crook if I didn't focus on the horizon, which made fishing difficult. I didn't catch anything and lost a jig, but nearly caught a squid that came up attached to a fish head I was bouncing on the bottom so I knew they were around and put the lack of success down to crap technique (usually a safe bet). Eventually I gave up working the jig, I felt like I was going to puke so I set up a couple of jigs suspended off the bottom and put out a silver whiting on a prong and chilled out for a bit. By this stage it was turning into a ripper day.
Then the fun started, one of the rods buckled over and line started peeling off. Whatever it was was putting on a bit of pressure and the rod was a p**** to get out of the rod holder. Eventually I had a 35cm squid in the yak and the yak had a new coat of paint. A little while later the float went under as something latched onto the whiting, this squid wasn't pinned and dropped off before i could get the net under it. Luckily it came back for a second go as I dropped the whiting down, and a third go after which I finally got it. Interesting that it wasn't put off by the yak or the drift chute, all that happened within a meter of where I was sitting and I would've thought it would be spooked by the big orange thing floating above it.
It continued like that for a few hours until I had 8 squid in the esky. At one point something toothy bit off the squid prong which was a bit annoying but I had a spare and it went back, this time with a bit of wire trace above it. I trolled a hard body for a while but nothing was interested. I has hoped to soak some of the fresh squid in the hope of a gummy or snapper or something but by this stage the wind had picked up and it was getting choppy in addition to the 1.5m swell so I called it a day at about 2pm and headed back to shore.
Ended up with 8 squid, 4 of them around the 35cm mark, the rest were smaller. They've all been cut up into bait and chucked in bags according heads, tubes, tentacles etc. Got about 3kg of fresh bait out of them which is good.
I was a bit worried at the start of the day after the drama of getting the car rescued just meters ahead of the waves, but it turned into a great little session and a good haul of squid. Fishing landbased I've been putting in really big, 12hr+ sessions because the catch rate has been so low, but I think having the kayak means I can get back into the habit of shorter days. I'll definitely be back, it's a good launching spot (when you stick to the compact sand) and there's a heap of squid around. Spending that extra hour at dawn on the water instead of ******* around with the car would probably have been the difference between bagging out and what I ended up with.
Water temp was 16-17C if anyone is interested. Might be a while before the whiting really kick on down that way.
