Towed into strife, Clarence Coast

Author: josh

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Saturday, 26 December 2009 07:47

Written by Josh

With not much better to do I took to the water on Xmas day, launching at Woody Head (NSW) with a plan to sail due east, drop a bait into the deep for a bit and then troll back. It didn't turn out that way though because I decided to investigate a collection of marks on the way out and rather than sailing straight out to the east, I spent the first hour hugging the coastline. I trolled southwards down to outside the mouth of the Clarence, thinking recent rains might have pushed some of the river biomass out into the entrance. There was a distinct lack of fish arches on the sounder though so I prepared myself to troll out into the nth east and set sail. But just as I was picking up speed my heavy trolling line started screaming in bursts. I knew immediately that this was going to be a good fight but had no idea what I'd hooked.

What followed was the toughest fight I've had to date, partly because the water was high and choppy, winds were roaring in from the north (continually pushing me back towards the rocks) and my adversary was not only stronger than almost anything else I've ever hooked, but also more determined than I was. It didn't take long for me to discount the hook up as being a fish, mainly because it didn't take long for it to surface enough for me to detect colour - dark grey on top, bright white underneath. That's as much information I could glean for the next arm-bruising hour, because even though I was able to repeatedly bring the beast within a few metres of the yak, the water was too rough and green for me to identify it. For the most part I was pretty positive I was dealing with a shark, either foul hooked or much bigger than I was use to catching. The brilliance of the white of it's belly had me wondering just what kind of species of shark it was.

It was terribly anti-climactic when I realised that I had in fact hooked a manta-ray with a wing span of about 5'. Up till now I'd convinced myself it was a shark, and if under 5', I was going to keep it for the table. But I had no intention of hooking a mata ray. Sadly, I was unable to retrieve the lure - it was just too strong and simply would not let me get it close enough to remove the treble, which had fouled hooked into it's wing. I cut the line off close and let it go. On the up side, it should survive OK - there was no damage to it's mouth (it'll feed OK, and take it from me, it still had swimming power) and the treble will rust out fairly quickly. It was a regrettable catch, however memorable.

Throughout the fight the beast tried numerous tactics, the first of which being to swim for the rocky shoreline. This became rather precarious pretty quickly as a 2 metre swell was crashing in waves and the danger of being picked up and thrown into the rocks became apparent. I had no choice but to aim for the sea and pedal hard, tightening my drag and towing the beast out of harms way. It then decided to swim big laps around the kayak. I could see it's dark outline on the surface as it continued to do this and after a while it felt like I was being circled. But I wasn't - it was pulling hard. At one point it started moving further south and with the wind and seas moving in the same direction it wasn't long before it had dragged me further south than I was comfortable being (north winds were quite strong).

Sailing back involved a lot of broad tacks and forward momentum was slow at best. It wasn't until I'd reached the point at Woody Head that the wind swung around from north to easterly and it quickly pushed me into the surf zone that typically fires up at the heads. Navigating my way through this under full sail was nothing short of exhilarating and I'm angry at myself for not filming it. Part of the time I was absolutely flying, surfing waves with the power of wind surging me forward. I was looking behind as much as I was forward, reading waves as they rolled in. I sailed through on an angle, deliberately missing the scarier looking waves and catching those that looked like they'd get me out of the hot-zone faster. it was like playing a video game - great fun, but nerve wracking with all the gear on board.