# Qld 18/4/14 - another sweet DI trip



## BIGKEV (Aug 18, 2007)

Got home from work around 5pm Thursday arvo, loaded the car and had some dinner leaving home about 7pm. Expected heavy traffic, but it was an excellent trip and arrived on the beach about 9pm. It took a bit to find Scaters camp, he was a little further North than I first thought but eventually found him. Usually on arrival at a Sprocket or Salti camp, the fire will be roaring and a few beers flowing well into the night, but Sam must have got sick of waiting for me and was already asleep in bed. He did got up to greet me, but wasn't up for a beer, so went back to bed whilst I rolled out my swag and had a couple of 'wind down' ales and watched the swell roll in under the light of the full moon.

I was up and more or less packed up early, ready to hit the water before Sam rose. He chose to have some brekky while I was already hitting the shore break. Not sure what happened but messed up my launch video and didn't record any. It was a pretty straight forward launch but I did get one bomb stand up in front of me we'll out the back just as I was contemplating unpacking. Lucky I still had forward momentum and was able to accelerate cause I hit it as it was cresting and came out the back airborne, spewing I missed it on the gopro.

Paddled wide early and picked up a small Spanish almost straight away and the set my sights on a big dog, but couldn't raise any further interest. Caught up with Sam who hadn't had any luck and by 10am I was ready to hit the beach for a bite and refresh before having another go on the run out tide. Came straight in on a couple of nice little waves and put my fish on ice. Sam scored a solid long tail and took a little swim, but surfed in quite well until the shorey caught him.

Headed back out after another easy launch but messed up the with gopro again. With the runout tide the tuna had really come to town, I was hesitant about catching one as I still had plenty from the previous weekend but I also had some friends looking for some. Chased a big dog for a while but once again had no interest shown to my perfectly presented baits, so threw out a soft plastic to drift low in the water. Well, it only took about 5 minutes for the reel to start screaming, this SP technique on the tuna is absolutely criminal. Turned on the gopro and filmed for 30min, I could have had it in earlier but was messing around trying to get some underwater footage and allowed him to start circling, loosened the drag and let him run to change the angles, tightened up and had it back at the yak in a few minutes, tail grabbed and in the hatch.

Another nice little ride back to the beach, pack up and head home. There is sooooooo many people up there at the moment and a heavy police presence, even got breathalised on my way home along the beach, good thing IMO.






Kev


----------



## scater (Nov 24, 2007)

Haha so that's what salti was talking about with the "dry camp". In reality I already had a few beers under my belt and was wary of a sore head in the morning. I'm still pretty unpissfit after two years living in a dry community! 
It was a beautiful couple of days up there and great company. Hard to believe that it was my first time up there considering how close it is. Won't be long before I'm back!









Great video too Kev, who said evos don't surf? Oh and I did watch that epic takeoff over the wave out the back - would have made tremendous video.


----------



## gibsoni (Jun 22, 2009)

Great report Kev.

Care to share what sort of SP's are working for you as dead stick?

How deep are you holding them and in what depth water? i.e. always 5m down, halfway in the column etc

Thanks for sharing.

Iain.


----------



## BIGKEV (Aug 18, 2007)

Hey Iain,

Not sure of the water depth, I let it sink to the bottom. The tuna had been feeding nearby, but weren't in sight when I hooked up. Was just using a 4" zman paddle tail in pearl white on a 3/0, 3/8 ounce head with an E-Grell S10 (6-10kg) rod with a 4000 stradic, 15pd braid and 40pd leader. Using an FG as my connection knot and it copped a hiding yesterday and held well.

Heaps of info on this technique in the longtail fish of the month thread - http://www.akff.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=65065


----------



## Evoids (Jan 10, 2009)

Great vid kev. Looks like an awesome trip.


----------



## BIGKEV (Aug 18, 2007)

scater said:


> who said evos don't surf?


They would be wrong.

Learnt a heap listening to yaqdog at the Straddie comp and have been successfully putting it into practice. Probably the most important thing would have been to keep my body weight forward and keep paddling, resisting the urge to lean back on the wave and thus transfer weight and loose speed/forward momentum in the yak. Just lean forward and paddle hard and the yak stays straight and in front of the wave, simple stuff.

I kept my GPS on me for the returns to the beach and clocked a max speed for the day as 27kph, pretty cool huh? Incidentally, I covered 12klm for the day, mostly at a very slow troll, so a heap of respect to the Carnster travelling out to his Hoo spots. That's well beyond my reach at the moment, maybe with a few more opportunities to paddle, I could build my paddle fitness to that sort of point.

Kev


----------



## BIGKEV (Aug 18, 2007)

salticrak said:


> nice spottie Kev.


Smart arse....

I'm targetting the ciguatera free models


----------



## clarkey (Jan 13, 2009)

Nice work fellas,good to see someone catching a few.


----------



## paulo (Nov 1, 2007)

Very nice Kev. DI is firing atm.


----------



## carnster (May 27, 2008)

Fun times Kev and Sam, worthwhile trip 4 sure. Good 2 c u had the place 2 yourselves as well. I
am still lovin the no frills paddle M8; unbreakable.


----------



## Sprocket (Nov 19, 2008)

salticrak said:


> CAV said:
> 
> 
> > Nice one kev, good to see you getting into them.
> ...


I've heard all about your spot so I went up yesterday with James. 2 tuna that I threw back ready for you two pussies!

Thanks for telling me you were heading up Kev. Bastard


----------



## BIGKEV (Aug 18, 2007)

Sprocket said:


> Thanks for telling me you were heading up Kev. Bastard


When I spoke with you last, I thought you said you were out for this weekend??? I had mentioned my intentions to go in other posts on here and arranged to meet Scater, obviously missed them.....would have loved to have had you up there with us.


----------



## Sprocket (Nov 19, 2008)

BIGKEV said:


> Sprocket said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks for telling me you were heading up Kev. Bastard
> ...


That's ok mate just jealous you had the best of the conditions, and we went to the wrong spot !
I hAd the sneaky day trip in the back of my mind all week but didn't want Salti knowing I was heading up to his shit spot


----------



## Sprocket (Nov 19, 2008)

BIGKEV said:


> Sprocket said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks for telling me you were heading up Kev. Bastard
> ...


That's ok mate just jealous you had the best of the conditions, and we went to the wrong spot !
I hAd the sneaky day trip in the back of my mind all week but didn't want Salti knowing I was heading up to his shit spot


----------



## kayakone (Dec 7, 2010)

BigKev scores again. This has gotta be better than footy.

Can you _please_ leave me one for a couple of weeks time? ;-)


----------

