The Local Adventures of Worleybird

Something that we’ve wanted to do for a while is paddle out to ‘Split Solitary island’, offshore near coffs Harbour. It’s only 3km offshore but most of the marks around the island are about 4km offshore from saphire. This is a bit of a slog in my bus of a kayak so I’ve never made the trip. Even though i’ve travelled further offshore in my kayak previously I’d been saving this trip for when my parents were up as I could use one of the their hobie revos, making the trip far more inviting. This last week was when it all happened. It didn’t look like the weather would be kind as the only day that looked good (friday) was the only day I had to work!! After a call on wed from the boss, things were looking up. The fri trip had been moved to next wed so I was now free on friday and the weather was looking good. After a few calls and messages we’d only been able to rustle up one other contender (juztaylor).

Lined up and ready to go, our island destination in the background.

At 5:30am on fri we lined up on saphire beach ready for a hectic shore break launch and a bit of a paddle. All of us got out through the surf without too much drama. We got out past the saphire reefs, dropped our trolling lines and set off for an island that was far closer to other islands than the name would suggest!!  On the way out dad had a sizeable fish take his BIG (25ishcm) lure and it went for a run or two before rejecting the lure as nutritionally useless and leaving dad with his lure but no fish. As we paddled around the sanctuary zone on the western side of the island, I caught the obligatory bonito for the trip, and so with runs on board and the threat of more with the addition of dead calm conditions it was looking up for the rest of the morning!! We all know something had to happen cause it just doesn’t come that easy (for some of us anyway).

Almost exactly at the time we reached “split” the wind picked up from the NW effectively pinning us to a small zone on the lee side of the island to fish. This was not great as the majority of the lee side was sanctuary zone and the main marks we had were actually 1km east of the island. We persisted in the wind as we’d made a big trip out there we may as well make the most of it. If anyone want the marks, I’m happy part with the lat and longs of the healthiest population of red rock cod on the east coast, possibly all of australia. We had no trouble swiftly and efficiently having the tails of our plastics removed within the first few casts of replacing them and if you were lucky you might even catch a RRC or 7 while your at it!!! I got over that and decided to throw a metal into the wash and got several nice hits from leaping tailor and then caught a RRC on the halco twister!!! :bb: oh well back to the plastic but still in the wash and I finally pulled out a “sport fish”! A small silver trevor.

After this we got over the one spot so dad decided to troll around the whole island and I decided to paddle around and drift along the northern side of the island. I was flicking plastics into the wash and had a couple of hits then bang, a proper take and a little run. I thought probably a tailor cause it came to the boat easy as but as soon as it got to the boat I determined it was a kingy and he determined I wasn’t friendly and took off. After a few nice runs and a good, unusually clean fight I had him to the boat. Only small (50cm) but more fun than RRC!! I could be mean at this point and mention that Juz was only able to get 1 fish, a RRC, to the kayak all day but I won’t be that mean……….. I WILL still mention it, but I’ll also add that JUZ, at the same time I got that kingy, hooked up TWO of them!! :ll: The first one took his plastic on his bream rod and 1000 size reel!!! Whilst fighting that fish, he also hooked up on his hard body that was still out the back! To Juz’s credit, he kept the kingy on the bream rod for quite a while before the inevitable “oh no” was heard in the back ground as I fought my fish. By that time the other fish had shredded the trolling rod’s leader around the reef, so it was a double “oh no” for Juz!!

50cm rat king is 1000% more fun than RRC.

After a couple more drifts past the wash, a few follows and some extra gear adopted by the reef, Juz decided to work his way in and back home. Dad and I decided at that point to head out toward this mark that I had about 900m east. The wind dropped down and the conditions were perfect, although i was unsure whether this mark would turn ok. Turned out a top mark, a very large area of peaks and gutters coming up to about 10ft and down to 70ft. There was plenty of bait schools and it didn’t take long to bring a fish to the yak, only it was a RRC!! :sad1: There was a few more of them and some more plastic tails bitten off so we headed back towards the island. On the way back I had a very large mouth engulf my lure and the tail attached to that mouth decided to propel that mouth as far away from my kayak as possible. I couldn’t even get the rod out of the holder for the first run and when I finally got it out i’d lost a fair bit of line. I began playing the fish. He had several runs, head shaking and peeling off line as I chased with the hobie. I finally got closer to the fish till I ended up a bit too straight up and down on the fish. He had started to come up when……nothing…. he was gone. I still had the lure, he’d just thrown the hooks :doubt: . I was spewing. Exactly the same thing had happened to me with that lure on my last trip off sawtell. I think it’s time to replace the trebles!!! With that i’d kinda decided that this trip was over with no fish to show for the trip and a long 4km paddle home. On my way back I dropped into the island and got another rat king before continuing home. When I was about 1km from shore i started trying to contact dad on the radio as I could see him. The radios were breaking up a bit and worked out dad was down the beach a bit but I was trying to work out exactly where he was when my trolling rod jumped into life again. A quick look at the sounder showed that I was over a very boring bottom, flat, 35ft deep and sandy. I immediately thought a bigger bonito may be responsible or maybe a tuna or salmon but it was fighting down the bottom and had a lot of head shakes. After about 7 or 8 mins he came up to the boat and i saw that glimpse of red. “oh no a giant red rock cod!!!!” ….just kidding… It was a very nice snapper just to save a trip at the last minute. I estimated about 4kg but when I got home it measured closer to 5 at 4.9kg. A very happy end to a long day.

Benchtop size 4.9kg snapper ready for the table.

The beach landing was very hectic with a very fierce shore break which I only just managed to avoid. Dad ended up hurting his knee in the shorey when the wave pushed his kayak into his leg after getting out! I don’t have any in situ pics of the snapper so Juz or dad might be able to put one up. Stephen

This is a report from months ago.  Just wanted to post it as it shows the diversity of fish that we get here.

Well finally I got out for a fish in my kayak.  This was the first trip in my kayak and offshore for while.  I’ll keep it short as I don’t remember a lot about the day other than it was full of variety.

I paddled out to pig island off coffs harbour.  It started fairly calm but there was a bit of swell and the wind came up a bit once I was out.  I was just keen to get into some fish, especially the kingies that were there last time I went out there.  It ended up one of those classic mixed bags you get sometimes when fishing.  I ended up catching over 7 species.  All in exactly the same way. Plastics retrieved erratically from the wash around the northern side of the island.  It was great to see the variety.  Nothing massive but I was able to keep a kingy and a got a decent salmon that threw the hooks at the boat.  All up a good day but a bit too much sun on the legs.  Now you can just oogle the pics!!

Leading up to christmas it had been windy everyday with NE sea breezes!!  I was hanging to get a fish offshore but haven’t had a chance.  So on boxing day I decide i’m gonna get out for a fish no matter what the weather, just probably not offshore.  I organise with a mate to paddle right up Pine creek and chase some bass, GTs and Jacks in the arvo.  

By the time that comes around it had started raining and I get that phone call:  “are we still gonna go out??” i.e ‘it’s looking a bit too wet!’.  I say that I’m going out no matter what but suggest that we should maybe go out somewhere that we can stay closer to the launch (to appease those who are less convinced!!!)  We decide same launch just stay in bonville creek.

I was getting my stuff into the car and it starts to rain harder and I get another call:  “How about now?  You still going out?  In this??”.  I re-affirm my position: “Yep still going out”, but realising the tone behind the phone call I also offer the option of piking with no ramifications of name calling etc if my mate doesn’t want to go.  That option is quickly taken and confirmed and I am now open to going where ever I want at whatever time.  This new availability of choices turns out to be not a freeing development, as I then fiddled for over an hour and ummed and aaahed about where to go.  After long deliberations I decide to head to the top of a local creek on the basis of a successful trip and report on this section of river by adrian.

Finally I get on the water around 5ish.  The water was very fresh (and felt like a bath at about 26 degrees!!) and so I decide to head downstream.  I had my basscada topcrawler on my big rod and my new hawk lure (fake chubby) on the little rod.  The fish were just spooking from the surface lures so I stuck with the little rod and got a couple of bream. I was throwing the chubby replica around in about two feet of water over a little gravel race and got a few hits.  I could see a fair few bream cruising around, so I was mostly just sight fishing, looking for fish then casting at them.  Intently looking around for movement I see a dark shape come up onto the gravel bed.  “there’s one!!!”  oh.  That’s pretty big!   oh.  That’s a bull shark!!!  He was about 1m long and just cruised straight up to my kayak, hung around for a bit nearly right under me and then just kept cruising around the shallows.  I threw a popper near it and it came up and had a good look but didn’t take it straight away and I didn’t really persist as it would be an unfair fight with my overkill 12lb leader!!! He stayed around for a bit until I turned on my camera, then he went back into the deeper pool of course!!!.  

Blurry $5.95 fake chubby

Oh well, that was cool, and worth the rain (it wasn’t too wet).  After that I had a few casts at some snags then decided to head upstream where i’d had more success in the past.  By the time I’d dragged up the first couple of gravel races it was starting to get dark so I moved back to the surface lures.  I started to get bream hits on the basscada nearly every cast but I only had single hooks and they weren’t hooking up, and they gave up after a few hits each cast.  I threw the cheap chubby at a snag to try and get a hook up and I did immediately except that this fish was long and thrashed around on the surface, a nice little flatty in the fresh water!!!

Nice flatty from the sweet water.

I continued up the creek and got a big surface hit/boof about 100m up from the flatty.  It was definitely a bass.  I had a few more casts at the snag. Didn’t get the bass but got a a persistent little bream.

persistent fella with a big stomach!

Now it was totally dark and things started to heat up.  I paddled a few hundred metres upstream to a tree covered pool with steep sides that had usually produced in the past.  It was quite hard to cast as it was pitch black and there are lots of trees hanging down to the water in spots.  First cast under the trees got a nice hit.  I paused, no follow up hit so I twitched the basscada a bit then continued the crawling retrieve.  No strike, so I cast back into the same spot.  I wound about 2 feet and then smack!!!!   I was on.  Everything tightened up and line began to pull off the reel and I was promptly pulled straight in under the trees.  Trying to keep my rod low to keep it from snagging I copped a face full of branches while keeping the fish from going back into the logs below!!  I was able to push myself out of the branches and then bring the fish in to the yak while out in the clear.  He put up a nice fight but kept it clean and came into the net with a bit of prompting!  When he laid down next to a ruler he was 43cm, my pb bass!!! Got some pics and now he’s currently back out there adding cm by cm so that I can get him when he’s over 50cm!!!  

PB bass- 43cm and nice and healthy looking.

mmmmm that's a tasty looking basscada!

After that I was running out of time but for the next 30 mins I got at least a hit from every place I tried (mostly bream hits) and got another two bass (both around 34cm) and a bream. 

Another feisty little bass - 34cm

It’s great to be back into some bass for the first time this summer and great to find them again healthy and fat in my local!!  It was also cool to catch flathead, bream, bass AND see a bull shark all within a few hundred metres of each other!!