First Timers Trip

Saturday dawned perfectly for an introductory yak fishing session for a couple of newbies, One being the husband of a woman I work with, “To get him out from under my feet!” and candidate #2 was the neighbour who was a) talked into kayaking by my dearest, then b) Talked into trying kayak fishing by me when she happened to pop over while I was processing one of my recent hauls

So, there we were faced with a flat calm inlet at dawn, a few minutes on the whats and hows of yak fishing, and we pushed off.

I chose a location I knew that held fish – no trophies, but a guaranteed feed and only a few hundred meters from launch point. Figuring that, like kids, get them into plenty of fish early on and they’ll be converted to the darkside

Arrived at the mark, and got them setup with some SPs to bounce around the bottom with the first fish going to the neighbour – She was rapt. It was just legal, but she was thrilled, and into the bag it went. Even though it was small, it gave a good scrap on a cheap kids rod I had lent her. I got a lot of respect for some of these kiddies rods, maybe a bit noodly at times, but you can tie them in knots, so high-sticking aint a worry with newbies…

They Don’t Come Keener Than This Lady!

Shortly after, my spousal unit pulled in a nice 4-5lber – That was enough lessons, time for me to stop fussing over them and get something on the board for me, but try as I might, could I get anything over 35cm? Was not to be and after a steady stream of 30cm pannies, I decided that one would have to go in the sack as some sort of face saver

Since I had the big rig with me, I decided to scoot around the edges of the reef dragging a small squid and see if I could pick up a wee KY for a livie. Plenty of fish flopping around on the surface, but absolutely no interest – They were chewing on whitebait, and my pink squidy was obviously not even close enough. Keep trying…

Then a yell from my wife – She’s got a KY for me! Congratulations were called back, then I paddled over to collect my livie, muttering under my breath all the way

The two neophytes packed it in, #1 had to head back in due to time, unfortunately with a bag full of zero-fish, but refused my offer of one of ours, and #2 had her dinner and was content to just potter around the coast while we fished.

We’d been drifting for about 10 minutes or so, when my wife let out a squeal, I turned around to see her about 500m away surrounded by one of the Bays resident pods of Bottlenose dolphins…Time to bring the livie in!

Remembering the first time I had met dolphins in a yak I paddled through them over to her, knowing she would be fizzing. Fizzing would be an understatement. She was over the moon! ” Didya see THAT?” ” They went right under me!” etc etc

Time was getting on, so decided to call it quits for the morning, Spotted our wayward accomplice cruising around the rocks, so started to mosey on over to meet up and head in…She’d missed the dolphins, but had been in the middle of a big KY boilup which was just as good as far as she was concerned.

A great morning all round.

Noises are already being made from the other side of the fence as to when the next trip is