Botany Bay & Georges River - Jan 2010

After months of nagging, I finally convinced Gary Brown to ditch the dirty filthy stink boat and join me in a kayak session to find out what true angling is all about! We launched off Silver beach at Kurnell and were greeted with a calm but overcast day.

Gary was a little apprehensive at first and asked a few times if he'd get wet. 'Only if you fall in,' I said. Gary's only other experiences in a similar size craft were two trips in a canoe a few years ago. Both of these ended up with Gary in the drink, so he was hoping not to make it three out of three.

Once in and out on the water, I gave him the run down on the Mirage Drive and the rudder and we quickly moved off to the HWO. The wind was up a little bit but Gary quickly got the hang of it and after 10 minutes without a touch, we moved out to The Sticks. Here we started using smaller SP's: Berkley 3" Bass Minnows (pearl watermelon) and Gulp 2" Shrimps (pepper) rigged on 1/16th TT jigheads.

We quickly landed a few reddies before Gary lands his first legal (just!) fish from a yak - a fiesty Botany Bay Trevally. I had to catch up quickly and hooked up to something that felt very decent. A few good runs and strong surges had me calling it for a treavlly too, but when she came up she'd turned into a nice fat Bream. 37cms fork length and Garys trevally now looks like a tiddler.

We manage another two bream and another trevally before heading back in. Gary said that surprisingly, it was a quite enjoyable morning and nowhere near as bad as he thought it may be. So will he sell his power boat? I don't think so!

The next day I took Lachlan out but the wind picked up so we were only out for 30 minutes. This was enough time for him to land his first ever trevally which we picked up while trolling a couple of Ecogear SX40's. He played it out perfectly and was chuffed at getting a new type of fish. Back on the beach he reminded me about eight times how I didn't catch anything. Cheeky bugga!

After that, we had a few sessions on the Georges River chasing bream and flathead. The bream were about but once again, the flathead eluded us. Well, we did get a few small ones but the bigger specimens have been decidely quite for me this summer. Apart from the big girl I got a few weeks ago, of course.

The bream all fell to HB's, with Jackall Chubbys (shallow divers) and the SX40s being the weapons of choice. Lachlan hasn't quite got the hang of casting just yet but it wont be long before he's got it under control.

I snuck out one morning for a quick trip by myself and managed to find a few bream, this time all on SP's. The main fish of note was taken from a boat hull on a Gulp 2" Shrimp (banana) and really had the gear stretched to it's limit. Twice I had the rod tip right down in the water to keep the line from rubbing on the boat hull. She went 39 cms total length and was easily over a kilo. Back she went and I hope she comes back to me during the Squidgy Comp Georges River round in a couple of weeks time.

On the way back I changed to a blade, hoping for a flattie or two but the final fish of the day was another bream, this one going 35 cms total length. Please, please, please let me get fish like these in the comp!

On Saturday the 21st January it's the St Georges Basin round for the ABT/Hobie Kayak Bream tournament. Visit http://www.hobiefishing.com.au/ or http://www.bream.com.au/ for more details. From reports I've heard, there have been lots of fish about with some absolute horses amongst them. I can't wait. Happy yakkin', everyone!

cheers,

Cid