Proving new yak fish'n turf

Author: spooled1

Category: Technique & strategies

Created on Monday, 19 April 2010 17:25

Written by Dan

While kayak fishing off the shores of Byron Bay I recently landed a Spanish and snapper on a double hookup. I was working a chunk of unknown (to me) territory. As I got the hit, I punched a waypoint straight into the GPS and started following a procedure that worked a treat on the snapper last season.

My plan was to focus on this specific GPS mark and see if that school of snapper I stumbled upon was a fluke or whether they were holding in that position while visiting the inshore reefs. Given the super fast current and the following wind on the double hookup day, I was given a really good benchmark for a comparison because on the next test day there was no current and a 10-15 knot southerly wind blowing me on the exact same drift path but in the opposite direction. In effect, I was able to reverse my path from North to South and then South to North to narrow down the mark.

As I lined up for the first drift, I saw similar fishlike blobs on my GPS in the zone around my newest mark but kept paddling about 500m upwind and crossed two more decent waypoints that I know hold snapper at this time. I spun the yak around, sent out the drougue and started flicking SP's ahead of the drift. As I crossed my first snapper mark I felt a bump, just wide of the 2nd mark I had a strong run but lost the fish. Things went quiet until about 15 metres from the newest waypoint when I landed a nice 4.5kg snapper. This was a good sign because my newest mark was now increasingly reliable and my original marks were tested again for positive result. Rather than travel 500m back and possibly catch something at the more familiar marks, I made an 80m run back from the newest strike zone and figured this would allow for a few drops using concentrated drifts over the fresh area.

I zoomed in the track map on my GPS and planned on running the exact same path in the first pass. Afterwards I'd go a few metres wide either side of the original track and then start filling the blanks for the next 45 minutes to completely pepper the strike zone. About 20 minutes and six short drifts later I hooked and landed a 48cm snapper. There were couple more fruitless drifts with the odd bump but I'm now feeling particularly good about this mark because it lines up perfectly with two other proven snapper marks that run on a direct N-S or S-N drift line which will make excellent long drifts on windier days or when the stronger currents hit.

The last time I hit that waypoint I had a SE drift direction on an outgoing tide lumped up by a strong SE wind. When I landed a 6kg spanish and 5kg mack tuna on that path, the fish were triangulated to bite in most drift angles and tides at least at this time of year. Not a bad result but if I had a snapper run that session I would have been a lot happier because I would have proven the mark without a doubt. As a waypoint, it needs to be tested one or two more times before I call it a reliable but at this stage, it's looking pretty good.