Launched right on sunrise and tried to troll a couple of HBs as I made my way south, but there was a heap of weed in the water and I gave up after a while.
There were a heap of these worm things swimming around in the floating seagrass, any thought of using them for bait was pretty quickly put to bed when I saw that even the gentlest of touches split them open. Anyone know what they are?
The wind conspired against me with the squid, combining with the tide it blew me out of the squiddy areas and into the channel in the time it took to retrieve just a single cast and I pretty quickly got sick of packing everything away every 5 minuted and paddling back closer to land to start again. Eventually I got one on a whiting; I thought the prong had got snagged again and just ignored it to focus on working a squid jig, but when I bought the bait in the clean the weed off it I felt something moving on the end of the line. A very gentle retrieve (because I wasn't sure how well hooked it was) saw my first squid in the yak where it proceed to redecorate. I got one more for the day on a gold yama.
Eventually I got sick of the wind, and I had some bait so I went close to Red Point, anchored up and put out some whiting baits. Only caught a couple of wrasse, a grass whiting aka bait and a leatherjacket. It was pleasing that the changes I made to the anchor made the process a lot easier, and even though I was close to the rocks I was able to get the anchor up before i came close to drifting into them.
I slowly made my way back to the launching place, stopping to drift for squid here and there, I also did a bit of bottom bashing on the drift in the main channel but only caught another couple of wrasse. Once I got past the red marker I gave up on fishing and headed back. Due to the wind I kept pretty close to land for some shelter, the water was nice and clear and it was good fun checking out the sea floor, I saw a couple of little stingrays and quite a few toadfish.
It was a great way to let off steam after exams, even if the conditions were far from ideal. The kayak handles the rough weather really well, and while I wouldn't intend to push it to it's limits it's reassuring to know that I won't be completely ****** if I get caught out in and unexpected wind change or something. I'd never caught a squid until today so it was good to get that out of the way too. I think Flinders/Shoreham might be a bit easier to fish for them though, as the current at Cleeland was a bit of a nuisance. I ate the bigger squid for dinner, the smaller one is bait for Sunday.
