Kayak expedition ready

Author: josh

Category: Expeditions

Created on Tuesday, 09 November 2010 13:49

Written by Josh

12 months of planning and preparation are drawing to a close and now with only a few more days before embarking on our epic 7 day Fraser Island kayak fishing expedition, the crew are pretty much good to go. 

Paul, Holger and myself have been busily dehydrating fruit, vegetables, beef jerky and in my case (shown in the photo to the right), spaghetti bol. Carl has organised rice-based Indian style dishes to compliment whatever it is we end up eating most nights, which we confidently anticipate being fish. 

With much steeper ambitions than I held the same time last year, I am now far better prepared for capturing media, stills and video. I'm packing a Canon DSLR camera, 2 Gopro HD cams and the peace to resistance, a Sony HDR-CX350VE camcorder and waterproof housing to match. 

At first I was pretty nervous about the fact that  the housing sent to me looked to be the wrong one at first (with only a few days left before departure). But as it turns out, the dealers I bought it through (CameraWorld) got it right when everything else I was looking at (manuals, website, etc) was telling me otherwise. But even though they put a replacement into delivery for me, they insisted I try the camera in the housing anyway and sure enough, it worked perfectly. Sometimes you just can't believe what you read... even if it does come from the horses mouth! 

Kudos to Cameraworld's Meily for being ahead of the game, as well as responding so quickly when I first thought they'd sent the wrong one. I've packed a bunch of memory cards to make sure I don't run out of recording room, a long-life spare battery for the Sony and a solar panel for recharging the GoPro cams, so there'll be no excuses for missing the money shot!

Faced with numerous options for storage of lures my preparations were made fairly easy due to a lure storage solution I arrived at several months ago, specifically for exactly this kind of a trip. That solution was to place cigarette butts over hooks and vacuum seal each lure in it's own pack. There are several reasons why I've taken this approach. One of them being that if sealed this way, not only are the barbs sheathed but the lure is also fully protected from the elements. Of course, this is only really useful until used though, because I can't pack or use a vacuum sealing unit on expedition. So any lure that I use will then be stored in a separate container. Even though I'm only taking a reasonably lean collection of lures, chances are high I won't get around to using at least half of them at all. At least these will be fully protected for the duration and there won't be any messy tangle ups between stored lures. 

I won't be using a tackle box as such for this trip, as the box adds unnecessary weight and bulk. So all of my packed lures are stored in this simple cordura bag, which will fit neatly into the centre hatch, handily accessible. Any lures that I anticipate using for the day will simply be stored in a gear bucket (for quick access) as will any lures that have been used. All of my hooks, swivels and jigheads are all stored in a small plastic box, no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. 

As for breakdown of the lure types that I'm using, my main staple of lures will be Rapala CD Magnum lures (several colours), several Japanese blade styles, a couple of jigging lures, a handful of soft plastics and skirted trolling lures. All up that would account for just over half of what I carried last year (and about a 10th of the weight Carl carried in tackle last year), so pretty light on really, which is easy enough to get away with when you have a fair idea of what to expect. 

I'll be hitting the water tomorrow morning for one last prep trip, mostly to test out the new cam on the water. All going well, I should be packed up and ready to go the following morning. Can't wait!