Kayak fishing for Cobia, Hat Head NSW

Author: josh

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Friday, 21 January 2011 14:08

Written by Josh

Although the Hat Head adventure didn't quite go as planned, ultimately it turned out to be a worthwhile trip that will be the first of many to follow. If not anything else it was worth the effort and recon value of exploring the Hat Head (NSW) area for the first time, which has instantly become one of my favourite kayak fishing spots on the east coast. Unfortunately it was decidedly kayak fishing-unfriendly this day but despite this I did have a few great hook ups and boated a terrific fish: a worthy cobia, being my first ever landed on a kayak, and yet another species to add to the list of victims to the lucky red sardine. 

The first sign that it might not be a good idea to sail all the way to Fish Rock and beyond came when I was about a 3rd of the way there, finding myself in increasingly rising seas, with water standing up and breaking unpredictably. The water was littered with logs, branches and other debris (resulting from recent floods) and blue-bottle stingers dotted the surface everywhere I looked. The more I observed the conditions I realised that a potential surf landing could get ugly and that even reaching my intended destination might get tricky. Conditions were certainly rougher than predictions were suggesting, so I decided to head back for the point and fish for a while to see if seas would flatten out later. They did, although by the time they had enough time had passed for me to start second guessing whether I'd make it before dark. When in doubt, don't head out, so I decided to hang close to the Hat Head point where success soon followed.

I was trolling my lucky Rapala Magnum CD red sardine lure when the rod buckled over, the weight of the strike pulling the Light Speed rod holder backwards. Locked into it's jaws the rod wasn't going anywhere though and moments after furling the sail I snatched the rod from the holder and took up the fight. What felt and looked a little bit like a shark, much to my relief turned out to be a respectable sized cobia. A pretty descent account of itself it gave to, managing to pull one of the trebles (that I'd recently replaced myself) from it's split ring. Luckily the other treble had found a target as well and held secure until I got it into the yak. 

In hind sight I shouldn't have thrown the lure out again without replacing the now missing treble because it did get taken again soon after in the very same spot. This time the fish managed to escape when it surfaced and panicked a few metres from the kayak. It too was a cobia, a little smaller than the one I'd caught earlier. 

Earlier on in the day I also had a solid strike on a Pakula skirted lure, snatched from the surface by what looked to be a mackerel of some description. Unfortunately for me it managed to spit the hook before I got a good look at it. Apparently Spanish mackerel have been caught in the area recently, so going by the way it ran upon strike, it may well have been one of these. 

Upon arriving back at the Hat Head camp site my kayak was attracting a lot of attention, as it was when I'd launched earlier. In fact so many people were oogling over it and asking me questions about it, it quickly felt a lot like being at work so I made the decision to pack up and leave instead of hanging around. There was no way I was going to get any peace and quiet here and being on holiday, thats really all I wanted. Besides, the water was clogged with flood-induced flotsam and now my slowly (but surely) healing hand protested that enough was enough and that it made more sense to bug out. I'll be back. Real soon now...