Shark Bay yak fish'n blues

Author: josh

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Sunday, 25 April 2010 16:41

Written by Josh

Timing my arrival to Woody Head (Shark Bay) midday Satuday to near perfection, Holger and Steve were right on hand to help me lift the yak from the roof of my car. Launching into good conditions soon after we then made our way in a vague northward trend, zig-zagging into a northerly most of the way. It was ideal conditions for kayak fishing under sail today, firm winds and calms seas with just over a metre in swell. The plan was to head off to a mark some 5km off to the north and then troll back, which we always had potential to be distracted from. When we started seeing bird activity that's exactly what happened.

We know that there were sharks among the predatory fish lurking underneath - both Holger and I caught glimpse of one and I also sighted some big tuna as well. Unable to catch either despite a couple of hours trying, I was however able to manage a couple of good tailor into the kayak. A couple others were lost as small pilchard style flick bait lures were taken whole and severed at the line. Both fish were keepers and donated to Steve (Balls) who was camping at the park with his family.

It was pretty frustrating chasing tuna around to no avail on Saturday, but that was no where near as frustrating as it was on Sunday, in which I launched into much worse conditions. Steve managed to break a rudder pin at the beach (a result of having the drive get stuck due to improper instalation while trying to launch through small waves) and given a very recent back injury it sounded a lot like he'd decided to give it a miss, so I launched alone. Winds were puffing up rather briskly for this AM hour, belting in from the north and sometimes swinging to westerly. Once again I locvated bird and fish activity - tuna and sharks again - but this time it was much harder keeping up with the action. Not only was it moving quickly, it was moving in exactly the direction I didn't want it to.

As winds grew stronger, so to did my frustration levels, which I finally gave into after a couple of hours. Despite not catching any fish today, at the very least I did get some awesome sailing footage. I was also able to put Holger's spray skirts to the test, in what was an extremely choppy day to do it in. For sure, it as a relatively dry ride by comparison to what I'm use to (in such conditions) so I'd have to say they did their job nicely.