Light tackle GT

Author: JayPenfold

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Thursday, 17 November 2011 22:13

Written by Jay 'Yakfisher' Penfold

Light tackle backwater kayak fishing in my neighbourhood doesn't get much better than this. When a hookup like this comes on the third cast of an outing and the mission is a seek a fish for the evening's dinner party (sashimi on the menu), you know it's going to be a quick one. A couple of hundred meters from the boat ramp, not even settled in yet, I put a cast into the middle of the channel, and retrieved. Then a big surface bust up scattering 3-4 inch poddy mullet exploded from the shallows. I put my next cast right on it and the next a metre off and smash! An eighth of an ounce of TT jighead with a 3" Gulp in smelt flavour nailed on the agressive lift-lift-lift. I doubt I have ever seen (or heard) my leader cut through the mill pond still water so incredibly quickly. This fish ran extremely hard from roughly a foot and a half of water, straight across the bow to the opposite bank of the river measuring 3m+ deep even on the just incoming tide. Drag screaming, I pedalled in hot pursuit, the Nitro Ultrabream finesse absolutely working it's 'butt' off.

 Then things became interesting. I knew that the ageing 4lb braid was pretty tired, due for a re-spool, (just waiting on some new Sufix in the mail) and that the leader knot may be well due for a replacement too. As my son and I were being towed upcurrent and down river, losing line at an alarming rate of knots at times, the weeks high wind's trash and debris became visible on the surface. Not just small leaves and rafts of twigs, but tree branches as thick as my thigh and six to eight feet long loomed ahead, spikey twelve foot long spans of bamboo barely visible gave me a heart attack. It was some nail biting angling, I had to hit the pedals pretty hard and heel over to make some extreme turns to avoid the floating log jam and keep my line clear. I am really thankful for some split second decisions to thumb the spool and direct the fish using the awesome bottom end grunt of this rod when the fish took a break from running. I hadn't set the tightest of drags, and when this angry thug took line, it really took it. Eventually the fish tired and held wide of the Revo, refusing to come close enough, holding barely at 'colour' depth. My son dutifuly handed me the net as the fish came within striking distance and one attempt saw 1.75kg's of stunning, perfect sashimi grade GT come aboard. Photographs taken, the kill and bleed cut made, we headed for home quickly. A total of 20 minutes on the water was about all my 5 year old son's attention span was up for any ways and this fish needed to find a fridge, pronto.

I noticed upon filleting the fish, blood had pooled on one side, an undesireable result for sashimi grade flesh. Picking the brains of an ex Navy chef (Dazza1966), he advised me to hang the fish next time, for at least 5 minutes to allow the fish to bleed out properly. The other bonus being that the fish gets no curves in the footwell enabling a cleaner filleting job to be made before the fish passes through rigour: no calving of cells trying to flatten the fish. So we have devised a method to work on the Revo, adaptable to other craft, a subject for another post.

The fish was filleted with a high degree of precision maximizing yield and absolute care, skinned, boned, bloodlines removed and treated to some new recipies I have been exposed to under Taka, our most excellent Japanese chef at work. The hours in the kitchen executing these dishes were many but so very worth it.

The recipes will follow! Each dish was designed as just three or four mouthfuls as a degustation menu, but informal at that.

Post script: The following morning I managed to lose a much bigger Trev on the same outfit, in exactly the same spot at dawn. I'll be back tomorrow AM for more of the same! The Trevs are on and I'll snatch any moment to chase them on light tackle, it's so exhillarating.