Tailor on tap, Woody Head NSW

Author: josh

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Sunday, 28 March 2010 19:07

Written by Josh

Paul from Big River tackle did mention that more fish had been getting caught south of Iluka lately, which is why I was at Brooms Head yesterday, though today I decided to check out Woody Head anyway, in hope that time had reversed the situation. It hadn't. If after being at sea for four hours this morning you had told me that I'd end the session with a dozen fish caught I would not have believed it because up until that point I hadn't caught a thing. Col, however, had boated a nice snapper.

I did have a solid strike earlier, which was most definitely a shark - bull or bronzie. I know this not because the lure was chomped clean off the line in typical shark fashion, but also because it occurred just moments after I spotted a shark fin surfacing right in the middle of a baitball. And just a moment after that occurred, Col spotted a shark swim (probably the same one) right past my boat towards my trailing lure... only a second or so before it was snatched. Typical - we were in shark bay after all. We spotted two more sharks throughout the course of the day - another which surfaced it's fin behind Col (which I then chased with a lure) and another that came oh so close to stealing a fish off my line as I pulled it close to the kayak (which is when I switched on the Shark Shield). Sadly, however, neither of us caught one.

There was a reasonable amount of bird activity throughout the morning, though we found it difficult to find fish underneath for the most part. It wasn't until I approached a flock of birds in my last ditch attempt to find fish that I struck gold. What followed was a genuine kayak fishing eureka moment. I had a dozen casts when I reached the birds, resulting in a dozen landed fish. I could have landed a lot more if I'd decided to stay out there, and had I used a metal slug (instead of plastics that I had to keep replacing) my FPM (fish-per-minute) count would have been a lot greater also. A few of those tailor were caught on totally shredded plastics to. I got sick of tying on new ones, so I started casting out mangled lures thinking they might get hit anyway, and they did.

Unfortunately, Col had turned back for land at this stage and it looked as if he was waiting for me to come back in. Fair enough to - by now we'd been out for nearly six hours. Had I wanted to, however, I could have just stayed there and continued catching. A part of me wanted to, but enough was enough (most were returned). These weren't the fish I came in search of.