Noosa Yakkers News, October 2014

Base pic: Misty morning, Laguna Bay, 29Oct14 (pic by sunshiner)

PUBLISHED 04NOVEMBER14

Hi there yakkers

Communication, critical to success of humans working together for a common goal, is what makes Noosa Yakkers a viable group. Reading this small online publication you are reaping the benefit of the efforts of Noosa Yakkers members who have gone to some trouble to share information about kayak fishing which perhaps entertains, and certainly informs you. This information is shared primarily so that Noosa Yakkers' members have a better chance of catching fish from your kayak in the Noosa area.

So, how long since you provided useful kayak fishing information to your fellow Noosa Yakkers? Within the group we have numerous ways of sharing info. Firstly, at the most timely level, is information contributed as it is happening with your radio on our own channel while out on fishing trips. To your companions, your announcement of the capture of a snapper or sweetlip or other species is not just idle bragging (a little bragging is surely OK and gets the competitive spirit going), it's also confirmation that fish are present and biting. So pass on a little more info such as approximately where you are, the depth you're in, and the technique used to get the hookup. And of course, please turn your radio on as soon as you launch so that you can help your mates if they call for assistance and to share the fishing info. Remember also that on-water and on-beach pictures are worth the small trouble necessary so if you have a camera with you, take a few shots, as they will sometimes be even better than words to pass on the info about your fishing trip, even if it is after the event.

Once you're ashore (and for some, even while on the water) you have the ability to tell us all about your trip and experiences via your smartphone, tablet and computer. While the simplest and easiest method is to use the group email facility, accessible only to members, one problem with email is that the information conveyed is seldom stored for future reference and another is that a deluge of unwanted emails is usually not welcomed by recipients. So better to send your email about your trip to one or two of the committee members and ask that the info be published in our blog. Note that we are always happy to have ordinary members contribute to the blog (and this newsletter) and quite a few have taken up this offer and have been given clearance to post their information directly to the blog. If you are interested in doing this just contact a committee member and you'll soon be on the way to blogging directly (some useful computing skills will be acquired in the process).

Then, of course, there's our Facebook page which is available only to Noosa Yakkers (through gemini). At this time we have 46 members who are able to communicate within the group using Facebook. Some are regular contributors while others seem content just to hang around and soak up the info. It's very noticeable that timely and useful information, such as the presence of feeding pelagics in Laguna Bay as weeksie passed on during October using Facebook, is appearing very quickly on our Facebook facility. If you're a Facebook user or lurker I recommend you consider joining our Facebook page. As for me, I was not involved with Facebook at all until this page was created. I joined up just to find out how it worked and whether it is useful, and still my FB activities are restricted to that single page. So clearly you don't have to do the whole range of life-dominating Facebook stuff if you sign up with Facebook. Want to be part of it? Just contact one of the committee members (Matt, mainly).

So, to reiterate my first point, Noosa Yakkers thrives on useful yak fishing info and everyone can contribute. Next time you're out there and catch something interesting or find out something you reckon would be useful to fellow members consider passing on the info. Think about how often you've used the info passed on willingly by fellow yakkers in our blog, by email and on our Facebook page, then make the small effort to spread the word.

See you (and hear you!) on the water

Kev (sunshiner)



G'Day Yakkers,

Looks like it's been a reasonable month of fishing with six official outings and a number of decent fish caught and one incredible fish hooked but not landed by one of our members. This was achieved in a fairly windy month with a DIP average of 12.7 knots and a strongest of 50 knots.

DeeCee kicked things off with a couple of fresh water trips; one on the Maroochy River and the other on Ewen Maddock Dam. The river trip resulted in a single 35cm flathead, but the EMD trip resulted in a number of quality bass. All fish were released to fight another day.

Picturesque Maroochy River

DeeCee's 35cm flathead caught in the Maroochy River

The largest of DeeCee's four bass caught in EMD - all four were between 25-30cm

Mid month Pedro and Jimbo headed out to A-Bay and JS respectively with Jimbo landing a keeper 40cm Squire and Pedro two keeper Sweetlip two Flathead and a Squid. No pics unfortunately.

The 24th saw a small flotilla head out to Jew Shoal. The Bonito had been hanging around a while and Diesel landed a 55cm specimen, but honours of the day went to the mighty Sunshiner who landed a 65cm Snapper and a 43cm Sweetlip on his usual soft plastic rigs.

Sunshiner's 65cm Snapper caught on a soft plastic at Jew Shoal

Sweeties, Snapper and Bonito caught at Jew Shoal

With some nice fish under the belt, Sunshiner gave Jew Shoal another crack on the 29th joined briefly by Weeksie. Sunshiner again came up trumps this time with a very decent 57cm Snapper.

Sunshiner's artistic shot of his 57cm Snapper caught at JS on a soft plastic

On the last day of the month, four yakkers hit the open water in search of some fishy treats and they were not disappointed. There had been reports of small kingies around and Tunny collected some hard evidence.

Kingies has been reported in the bay. Tunny picked up this little fella.

The Bonito were still kicking around and both Diesel and Sunshiner picked one up each. Diesel came out the winner with what looks like a new NY record. No size was mentioned in the report but from the brag mat it looks to be in the high 50s. Sunshiner also bagged his third Snapper in as many trips, this one a bit smaller than the others at 47cm and Josh boated a keeper Grassie.

Sunshiner's Bonito caught at Jew Shoal on a trolled HLP.

A nice haul from Jew Shoal

Josh, Tunny, Diesel

And that's it for the official recorded trips. I think there was a trip I was involved in that did not get written up, but only Pedro came away with anything and this may have been due to the incredible number of hours he puts in but also that he takes the time to catch livies. Anyone looking to improve their catch rate should perhaps consider the livie option.

A few people including Sunshiner have tipped an early pelagic season and with some unconfirmed reports of spotties in the bay November could turn out to be a good month if the wind will play ball.

There is one more tidbit… NY member Tarzan hooked but didn't land a Marlin up at the Boneyard on the North Shore. Anyone looking for more info on this story can go here: Boneyard Marlin. Note you will need to signup before you can view the articles.

Tarzan hooked up to a leaping Marlin at the Boneyard.
Just to note the NY committee recommends wearing a PFD at all times when out kayak fishing.

That's it for this month. Good luck for November everyone.

Redwood

No new members this month (maybe we've peaked?).

Matt (gemini)



No new record claims for October, but from a read of the last TR of the month, one should be forthcoming.

Doc Dog

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The Committee (in callsign order)







From top left, doctor dog, eyetag, gemini, jaro, jimbo, pedro, redwood, sunshiner, turtleboy.

Noosa Yakkers News, September 2014

Base pic: Mahatma, Tunny & Redwod out at Jew Shoal 12Sep14 (pic by Redwood)

PUBLISHED 03OCTOBER14

G'Day Yakkers,
The internet service in Sicily is shithouse, even more shithouse than Australia, which is why I am putting the NY newsletter together instead of Kev this month. Hope your travels are going well Kev!

At last the fishing has picked up and it seems the winter fish we like to catch have been returning slowly to the reefs. The river has also been producing some action (better action than off-shore some would say) with a few river monsters being caught, but more of that in the in the individual reports to come below.

The pelican rescue

On a river trip in early August I hooked a Pelican by accident. The Pelican was still attached to my line and I though if I kept it attached perhaps it could be caught and the lure removed. At the time I called some wildlife numbers and eventually spoke to a lady who lived in Noosa Waters and said she could come over and try to help. Before the conversation ended the Pelican had another crack at getting free and this time was successful as the mono leader snapped. I told the lady and she said she thought the Pelican would die if the lure was embedded and became infected. She was right, but there was nothing I could do as the bird had flown off. I thought that was the end of that.

About 6 weeks later I received a call from the same lady saying that they had finally captured the bird and removed the lure. She then went on to explain the lengths to which they had gone to do this.

Initially she and another person had tracked the Pelican down as it was still hanging around Munna Point Bridge. They tried to capture it themselves but this proved difficult as the birds are not only skittish but very smart. Apparently pelicans can recognise you, so much so that if you've scared it off with one attempt, you have to leave the area and return in different clothing if  you wanted to have another go! The bird proved to be too wily for them so they then contacted Australia Zoo, who did come, but unfortunately came at a time when the Pelican was not around. They then contacted Wildlife Rescue in Brisbane, who incredibly made the trip up and were successful in capturing the bird and removing the lure. It seems the Pelican was not injured by the lure, so perhaps it was just wound around it's leg. Well done wildlife people! I must admit that I was not brave enough to ask for my Gold Bomber back and this may have been why I didn't catch a Barrumundi a few ago. Oh no wait, that's because I don't know where spot X is.

Just a reminder that if you're trolling past birds or anything else that you might not want hooked or tangled, reel in and redeploy once you're past whatever it is.

Lithium-ion powered sounders - the future?

I'm not sure it's news but I thought I might tell you about my efforts to install a sounder into my Stealth Evo. I bought the sounder last Christmas (but I didn't give it away the very next day), so it's rolling up to a year and the thing is still not in. Why's this? Because I'm not very good at this type of thing and also because I've been battling with the concept that I need to carry around a large lead weight to power it. I bought a Garmin 300c, which as I found out subsequently is a bit of an energy hog using a max 1Amp whereas the Lowrance equivalent uses a third to a quarter of that power. This means that using a small 1.7amh SLA the unit would run for about 2 hours, which is not really enough. I could use a bigger battery, but then options for where it can go become problematic. Sunshiner has his installed on the sidewall of the main fish box which is a good place, but would get in the way of where I store my rods and other gear. Others have decided to put the battery in the dry hatch behind the seat, which is also a good spot but complicates the installation as you now have to get wires from the dry hatch to the fish box. I contacted Dennis T, from the AU Stealth distributors, as I know he has the same sounder and he said his solution was to install a small recessed battery box (fits a 1.7amh SLA) in the sidewall of the main fish hatch, and then take out 2 batteries which would then give you +- 4 hours run time.

I thought there must be another way and after doing some research decided to attempt to use lithium-ion batteries. There's been a lot of bad press about these batteries catching fire, but from the research I did it seems the fire incidents are not common and besides, if you take a mobile phone with you on the water you're taking a lithium-ion battery with you in any case. One precaution you could take is to use the lower powered li-on batteries as it seems the more energy they try to get out of them, the higher the risk of the battery doing something you don't want it to do. I only found this out after I ordered my batteries which are the highest capacity on the market. I did however order the best available quality batteries which are made by Panasonic instead of going with the cheaper options out there.

I originally ordered 2x 18650 Keeppower 3400mAh 3.7V batteries and a two bay Nitecore i2 Intellicharger. This was a mistake as the Garmin needs at least 10 volts to power up, so I should have bought the 4 bay charger and 4 batteries which came as a pack from Urban Outback and would have been cheaper than ordering them separately. I ordered another 2 batteries and then a 4 bay battery box from China which took more than 4 weeks to arrive. When it arrived I rigged it all up to test how long the batteries would last with the sounder set to demo mode and the transducer plugged in. I ran it for 16 hours and the volts were down to 15.3V before I went to bed and when I woke in the morning the unit was dead, but I'm sure it would have run for at least another 4 hours. This means the 4x 3400mAh batteries which, weigh 217 grams including the battery box, will run for about 20 hours. Of course I still need to waterproof the batteries and with the Dolfin waterproof box the total weight is 450 grams. You could also use 3 batteries and a smaller case which would be even lighter and still provide 10 hours plus operating time. The light weight and low profile mean I have a number of mounting options and I think I'm going to go for one closest to the unit, which is on the underside of the hatch lid (it's a flush mount lid with the face of the sounder tilted up and importantly I think, the cables are on the inside to avoid water splashes). If it does catch fire I'l be able to get to it quickly ;). I'm hoping to have this puppy in the yak in the next week or so and it better help my fishing given the effort and expense.

The future of fishing kayaks?

Spotted this baby in BCF. I'll let you decide if this is the future of fishing kayaks.



Tim (Redwood)

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G'Day Yakkers me again,

Thank goodness the fishing has finally picked up! I could try and speculate as to why, but I'd most likely be wrong. What I do know is that the reef fish have taken up residence again at the yak reachable reefs; Sunshine, Jew Shoal, Little Halls have all been producing fish for those in contention. Tuna have also been about as Diesel found out the hard way. A report from the newspaper had two rock fishos picking up a 26kg Blue Fin off the Noosa Headland Reserve! If you've ever done any rock fishing you'll know that's some feat.

Pedro and Eyetag kicked things off with a successful outing to Sunshine Reef with both bagging Squire and Grassies.



Mahatma, Tunny and myself headed to Jew Shoal on the 12th  with Mahatma picking up the only keeper: a Squire.

Mahatma with what might be his fist keeper Snapper of a yak

On the way back I came across some bait fish about 1.5km off the beach, which I decided to film. I'm still unsure of the species but think it may be Frog Mouth Pilchards.



Six yakkers had a crack at Jew Shoal a week later (Diesel, Mahatma, Stormin, Red Greg, Carlo and Jaro). Diesel saw the only action of the day hooking a Long Tail but had his fair share of drama trying to bring it in. First his reel broke which meant he had to try and land it by hand (not easy with a Long Tail). He managed to get it boat side but a mistimed gaffing exercise saw the Tuna break free and head for the hills.

The reefs may have been producing some OK fish, but the river was the better place to be IMO. I headed out for a sneaky one on the 20th and picked up a Big Eye Trevally and dropped a few more. I also landed a 70cm Jewie, but as per my previous three Jewie catches I had to release it as it was undersize. The Jew was taken on a R2S HBL.

Redwood's 70cm Jew caught in the rock wall channel at the river mouth.

The very next night Eyetag also headed out on the river but with ever so slightly better results. He was able to catch Big Eye Trevally at will, however the big story was still to come. Eyetag headed to the infamous spot X where he picked up not one, but two trophy size Burramundi on a Gold Bomber. These catches are spectacular in a number of ways. Congrats Eyetag.

Eyetag's first Barra of the night

The second

I headed out on the river again the next night, but was only able to pick up a few more BET's.

Nearing the end of the month Tunny, Eyetag and Diesel headed offshore. Diesel landed three Snapper at Jew Shoal with the largest 50cm and Tunny two 40cm Snapper. Eyetag was testing out his arm and only trolled. I'm not sure what Diesel was using for bait, but both Tunny's Snapper were caught on Electric Chicken softies.



The last trip of the month saw Pedro bagging a couple of Grassies and myself bagging my first Grassie and what turned out to be a Needleskin Queenfish, also a first. The Grassies were all caught on pillies. The Queenfish was foud hooked and I mistook it for a Schoolie releasing it as I thought it had to be 50cm.

30-40cm Needleskin Queenfish

That's it for the fishing report this month.

Tim (Redwood)



September streaked past us way too fast for my liking. The kids are already talking about xmas, and I'm unsure that I want to hear such crazy talk just yet. At least it's warming up though, which means more bums on yak seats, and therefore more fish in the hatches!

We have two new members for September, which takes us to a grand total of 117. We now also have 43 members using the Facebook group.

Let's see who has joined the fray this month...

Jonathan Steele (Sparkman)

Jonathan is a 34 year old IT consultant from Murrumba Downs. He is very keen to gain some experience with us while paddling his Stealth Evo 465.






Grant Smith (Gasyak)

Grant is a 50 year old estimator from Buderim. He paddles a Viking Espri, and has a little over a year worth of experience on the water.

Matt (gemini)

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Noosa Yakkers Record Fish Report September 2014

Well Eyetag has done it again. Not content with catching one Barra to equal his last year’s record he has to go out and smash it by a whole 9 cms. The record to beat is now 96cm.

The pure precision of repeating “the holy grail”  feat in local fishing almost 12 months to the day just about blew your humble scribe away. 

The timing was one thing but the line class was something else 8 lb braid for a fish of this size has me scratching for superlatives to describe Eyetag's obvious skill and determination and all this with his bicep barely recovered from serious injury.

Spot X will no doubt be the source of much speculation and attention when the next new moon coincides with a runout tide. 

Eyetag's 96cm Barra smashing his own record by 9cm

So even if we “Noosa Yakkers” cannot get outside to fish off shore  there are obviously trophy fish to be had in the river and lake system if you have the skill patience and persistence. 

If Eyetags efforts are not enough to convince you then get onto Facebook and follow “Precision Fishing”.

Happy fishing and tight lines.

Doctor Dog 

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The Committee (in callsign order)







From top left, doctor dog, eyetag, gemini, jaro, jimbo, pedro, redwood, sunshiner, turtleboy.