# SA: - Snapper and a Grumpy OldDood



## OldDood

Sorry guys no Snapper photos just a bloody annoyed OldDood. :-x

Due to the Snapper frenzy in metro Adelaide there are a few local yakkers that are taking really stupid risks.
Foreword - If you want to kill yourself that is your problem. But I could bet my butt as soon as someone hurts themselves due to there own stupidity our nanny state government is going to bring out some legislation which will prevent the dumb ones from hurting themselves and will also stop the majority of us that try to manage the risks from doing what we enjoy.
E.g. They will ban all yakkers from going out in the dark or something even more bloody restrictive!

Just one recent example -
Last night there were two yakkers sitting in the dark with no bloody lights at all.:-x
The sea was flat calm and perfect for boats to set their throttle to maximum.
Its not bloody rocket science!

Please everybody carry at least the minimum safety gear and make sure you have a fall back plan for any contingency.
Kayaking is inherently risky and you need a plan to manage the risks.
I suppose the next step would be to ask the water police to start doing spot checks but that would be an absolutely last resort and we should be able to self regulate I hope.

Sorry for the rant but I can foresee a death in the not to distant future from a) Hit by a boat. b). A drowning c). Hypothermia
They are only bloody fish!


----------



## Zilch

OldDood said:


> Last night there were two yakkers sitting in the dark with *no bloody lights at all*.:-x
> The sea was flat calm and perfect for boats to set their throttle to maximum.
> Its not bloody rocket science!


 :shock: :twisted:

Steve


----------



## solatree

OldDood said:


> Last night there were two yakkers sitting in the dark with no bloody lights at all.


Bloody stupid - one of the greatest risks you can take on our waters. And its also in breach of Harbors and Navigation Act. Risking a fine is one thing - but don't risk your life.


----------



## Ubolt

You know it makes sense. By law any craft out after dark has to have single overhead all around white light. Another thought I've had is the snapper have been around for a while surprised there hasn't been a shark encounter.


----------



## Squidley

That is really dumb, especially with all the extra traffic. It's not like the mandatory and the necessary list of gear is that long or expensive.


----------



## Ubolt

What is the mandatory equipment kayakers have to carry. Better double check I have it all


----------



## Squidley

For how close we are it's a PFD and an all round light after dark


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Man you're grumpy!! Great call though. They were there for at least another half hour after you headed in and it was pitch black by then. To top it off they headed back Glenelg way (ie towards the nearest marina and boat ramp). I could hear them but no way i could even make out their outline. Very stupid indeed.


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Ubolt said:


> Another thought I've had is the snapper have been around for a while surprised there hasn't been a shark encounter.


You have never seen someone pack up as quickly as i did last night when the shark shield low battery alarm started!


----------



## Murphysegg

Looking at the Posts on a certain other Forum it looks as though a few more ill prepared Yaks are going to be pulled out of hibernation due to the lure of the recent Snapper activity. Unfortunately i suspect they don't even know this website exists & the valuable info contained within.


----------



## Squidley

GlenelgKiller said:


> Ubolt said:
> 
> 
> 
> Another thought I've had is the snapper have been around for a while surprised there hasn't been a shark encounter.
> 
> 
> 
> You have never seen someone pack up as quickly as i did last night when the shark shield low battery alarm started!
Click to expand...

It's funny the effect the beeping has after you get one


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Murphysegg said:


> Looking at the Posts on a certain other Forum it looks as though a few more ill prepared Yaks are going to be pulled out of hibernation due to the lure of the recent Snapper activity. Unfortunately i suspect they don't even know this website exists & the valuable info contained within.


Know the one you mean and they are generally lake fishers. There are a few experienced guys there trying to steer them right though. Safety not a key topic as it is here


----------



## keenfisho

I agree bloody stupid and yeah we try to tell people re safety as much as we can


----------



## OldDood

Squidley said:


> For how close we are it's a PFD and an all round light after dark


Thanks for your support guys-

Regulations for SA as follows from 
http://www.sa.gov.au/subject/Transport% ... +equipment
(PS - I would never go out without an anchor just in case I was disabled somehow e.g. Slipped disc, occupational hazard for old bastards like me.)

It is a bit confusing as it does not seem to mention semi-protected water where kayaks are concerned.
Maybe Andy Solatree can interpret for us?


----------



## keenfisho

Out of interest Im pretty sure I have safety equip covered but what are the current requirement for SA waters in the yak


----------



## keenfisho

Thanks beat me too it


----------



## solatree




----------



## keenfisho

Cheers sola tree that makes it easier for people


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Agree entirely with OldDood's call out on always carrying an anchor. Also the rope can double as a towline. I always have a headlamp on board also as backup / supplementary light.


----------



## GlenelgKiller

keenfisho said:


> Cheers sola tree that makes it easier for people


Hey KF, i hadn't picked up you had joined. Welcome!


----------



## Murphysegg

I suppose we can only lead by example. I know i wouldn't feel at all comfortable out there without lights. If anything i may revisit my light setup again just to be sure it's adequate. You can't miss Drew when he's lit up ;-)


----------



## keenfisho

Cheers GK was a member on here few years ago but couldn't remember login so rejoined


----------



## Squidley

Murphysegg said:


> You can't miss Drew when he's lit up ;-)


He may have the stability of an AI but he really shouldn't be drinking that much out on the water


----------



## Berger

OldDood said:


> Foreword - If you want to kill yourself that is your problem. But I could bet my butt as soon as someone hurts themselves due to there own stupidity our nanny state government is going to bring out some legislation which will prevent the dumb ones from hurting themselves and will also stop the majority of us that try to manage the risks from doing what we enjoy.
> !


Oh for the good old days where evolutionary forces killed the dumb ones.


----------



## OldDood

Berger said:


> OldDood said:
> 
> 
> 
> Foreword - If you want to kill yourself that is your problem. But I could bet my butt as soon as someone hurts themselves due to there own stupidity our nanny state government is going to bring out some legislation which will prevent the dumb ones from hurting themselves and will also stop the majority of us that try to manage the risks from doing what we enjoy.
> !
> 
> 
> 
> Oh for the good old days where evolutionary forces killed the dumb ones.
Click to expand...

That is great information Berger!!! :lol: 
I have been wondering for over 50 years why I always have a coughing fit when I go swimming.  
So I am supposed to hold my breath when my head is covered? :lol: 
I am not convinced so I am going to go stick my head in a bucket of *boiling* water right now. For *30 minutes *just to make sure you are correct!!!
There is nothing else I need to be warned about is there? :?


----------



## Samboman

Yep good topic oldDood, saftey must always come first IMO.... There is no way I'd be out the at night with no white light, PDF or shark shield... Was good to see you out there the other day 

*****


----------



## solatree

Samboman said:


> Was good to see you out there the other day  *****


Its always good to see the OldDood - although there are some bits he's treated me to recently that I'd rather not have seen :shock:- very impressive nonetheless :lol:


----------



## OldDood

solatree said:


> Samboman said:
> 
> 
> 
> Was good to see you out there the other day  *****
> 
> 
> 
> Its always good to see the OldDood - although there are some bits he's treated me to recently that I'd rather not have seen :shock:- very impressive nonetheless :lol:
Click to expand...

You must have very good eyesight Andy! Theres nothing I have thats worth bragging about. :lol:


----------



## Berger

OldDood said:


> I have been wondering for over 50 years why I always have a coughing fit when I go swimming.
> So I am supposed to hold my breath when my head is covered? :lol:
> I am not conviced so I am going to go stick my head in a bucket of *boiling* water right now. For *30 minutes *just to make sure you are correct!!!
> There is nothing else I need to be warned about is there? :?


Haha! You must come from that tough vintage of Australians who learnt early in life not to do stupid things. I read somewhere there are three paths to wisdom: foresight (the best), imitation (the easiest) or experience (the hardest). Is the government suggesting there's now a fourth? The Nanny State?

Glenelgkiller,
I'm glad I'm not the only one concerned about sharks. My thought path goes something like this: hook a fish, struggling snapper, fish blood in the water, an inquisitive nudge from a shark, and whoops you're A over T in the water with feet kicking trying to get your yak upright and your body back in, intact. Hmmm.


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Haha, i have tried to train my mind not to follow those kind of thought paths. I always us a net at night though so i dont lose a hand to a toothy critter making a late lunge!


----------



## Zilch

OldDood said:


> You must have very good eyesight Andy! Theres nothing I have thats worth bragging about. :lol:


Warning to all, never ask another yakker if Mark (OldDood) is on the water, reply ;-) "you mean the the guy over their with a big knobby red" :lol:

Steve


----------



## Berger

Glenelgkiller. Sorry to prompt the thought. When I learnt how to scuba diver, the instructor gave this "gem" of advice.

_Always go with a mate. And take a knife.
Then if a shark approaches, you stab your mate and he can't swim as fast as you._

That instructor is now in Qld! Hahaha!


----------



## Squidley

They call him The Rugger Tugger


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Berger said:


> That instructor is now in Qld! Hahaha!


Ran out of mates down here?


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Zilch said:


> OldDood said:
> 
> 
> 
> You must have very good eyesight Andy! Theres nothing I have thats worth bragging about. :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> Warning to all, never ask another yakker if Mark (OldDood) is on the water, reply ;-) "you mean the the guy over their with a big knobby red" :lol:
> 
> Steve
Click to expand...

Wow! He snuck on me the other night, didnt even know he was there until he whistled. Disturbing


----------



## solatree

GlenelgKiller said:


> He snuck on me the other night, didnt even know he was there until he whistled. Disturbing


You didn't smell anything fishy first ? Thats how I usually find him in the dark....that and the ocassional twinkle noise.


----------



## Zilch

GlenelgKiller said:


> Haha, i have tried to train my mind not to follow those kind of thought paths. I always us a net at night though so i dont lose a hand to a toothy critter making a late lunge!


The snapper boating experiences I have had over the years, for me anyway have been in metro shallow water you will sometimes get Hammerhead Sharks attacking your snapper while on the deeper metro drops the Whites simply take the whole snapper and they normally end up near the surface and simply take a tried snapper that has been fought for a period.

Click on the photos if you wish to enlarge.



















Steve


----------



## OldDood

@ Berger - I luv your philosophy. :lol: I am also a firm believer in Charles Darwin. Put em all in a barrel and let natural selection run its course. :lol:

@ Solatree - Trust you to turn the conversation from fishing tackle to my wedding tackle. :lol:


----------



## Drewboy

Squidley said:


> Murphysegg said:
> 
> 
> 
> You can't miss Drew when he's lit up ;-)
> 
> 
> 
> He may have the stability of an AI but he really shouldn't be drinking that much out on the water
Click to expand...

With help from Old Dood and Ian(Commandah),
My light has a 2 way switch and optional capability.
I've designed it primarily for safety with the possibility of a boat/jet ski incident,
It does a good impression of a Christmas tree on one setting and a std marine light on the other.
But it is rarely used whilst fishing on the bright setting 'cos it's too bright and would probably scare the fish away.
Good peace of mind though when I hear a motor approaching.
Oh and Squidley, you are welcome to join me for an evening tipple when I fit the drinks cabinet on the trampoline. :lol:


----------



## BATMAN

There is no way I would be on a yak at night (and maybe even day!) off Adelaide considering that young fella that got taken out by two great whites just off the main beach in Adelaide a few years back.........no way man!

If I lived down there I would probably own a boat or a Adventure Island....not sure if that would give me much comfort but I am shit scared of dem ******'s! Although I do enjoy watching them on Telly!


----------



## Squidley

Most of us out after dark sport Shark Shields. Luckily a lot of the fish are getting caught during the day anyway. Drew, that'd be a mod you just have to post here. Speaking of DIY, Olddood was telling me about a spotlighting rig he'd made for his outback...wouldn't mind seeing that Mark


----------



## Zilch

Squidley said:


> Drew, that'd be a mod you just have to post here.


Agree 

I have seen Drew's light on and actually thought it was way too bright but I now suspect that was before he did his mod.

Steve


----------



## Murphysegg

Be carefull out there guys. I think we had a large visitor tonight. :? Something sizeable breached about 20m's away & the Snaps switched off instantly. Seems to be a lot of Rays in the area as well.


----------



## OldDood

Murphysegg said:


> Be carefull out there guys. I think we had a large visitor tonight. :? Something sizeable breached about 20m's away & the Snaps switched off instantly. Seems to be a lot of Rays in the area as well.


Thanks for the heads up Jason. Could it have just been a dolphin?
Shark shield will be on charge tonight, I am not keen on being the bait.


----------



## Murphysegg

> Could it have just been a dolphin?


Possibly. One of the lads who was closest to it thought it was much larger though. It was chasing something & did create a series of small waves as if a tinny had just passed by. Do dolphins feed at night? i have no idea. It may have been a large ray. Needless to say my SS promptly got switched on. :?

We carried on fishing for another hr without any issues, but the area appeared to shutdown. A couple of us appeared to be getting a few biteoffs earlier in the evening rather than bustoffs , so i gather these could possibly have been small sharks. Plus some hook ups to scavenging rays which we made no attempt to try & play.

I suppose it's inevitable larger predatory creatures will be around with the concentration of burley the areas had deposited over the last couple of weeks.


----------



## Ubolt

I hooked a ray when I was out on Monday and had a very short run which resulted in a break fish would barely have travelled five metres only was a about one second I did wonder at the time if it was a bite off. there were a few dolphins around on Monday they can spook the fish. In my experience from snapper fishing over Arno bay on the shallow reefs if you have a ray hanging around it can put the snapper off the bite. Several times me or my old man will hook the ray and it will tear off and then straight away someone else in the boat will hook up to snapper. I think the same applies with port jacksons
Tight lines and charged shark shields everyone


----------



## keenfisho

Murphysegg said:


> Be carefull out there guys. I think we had a large visitor tonight. :? Something sizeable breached about 20m's away & the Snaps switched off instantly. Seems to be a lot of Rays in the area as well.


Interesting I went out Friday morning and just past the shore break I looked up and thought I saw a large shape with fin a fair way out but thought just my imagination as was first time in ocean for awhile.....maybe not
We were out there for hour and a half with no worries. My mate had one missed run I scored a 68cm snapper then it did go quite not even another bait lost


----------



## GlenelgKiller

Very interesting. I had what i initially thought was a bite off early on tues evening, back past the leader. Called out to OldDood and we both put the SS's on. Lost a few more that night as they wrapped me around reef so assumed the first time was the same, did feel different though.

In saying that i would have boated and released close to 8 for the evening, playing them in on relatively light line, and had plenty of berley out. We were all fishing in fairly tight concentration and didnt hear of any other issues. It was very still, did see a pod of dolphins nearby right on dusk.


----------



## Rockster

keenfisho said:


> Murphysegg said:
> 
> 
> 
> Be carefull out there guys. I think we had a large visitor tonight. :? Something sizeable breached about 20m's away & the Snaps switched off instantly. Seems to be a lot of Rays in the area as well.
> 
> 
> 
> Interesting I went out Friday morning and just past the shore break I looked up and thought I saw a large shape with fin a fair way out but thought just my imagination as was first time in ocean for awhile.....maybe not
> We were out there for hour and a half with no worries. My mate had one missed run I scored a 68cm snapper then it did go quite not even another bait lost
Click to expand...

There are a few dolphins abou but also there is a seal hanging around the area. Not sure if he fishes at night near the surface though. During the day he will float around with one flipper in the air, makes you look twice coz from a distance looks much like a fin. :shock: 
Cheers
Bob


----------



## GlenelgKiller

There are a couple of resident seals at the Glenelg Blocks, usually sunning themselves in the morning. One is quite large. Not sure if they hunt at night but when i have watched them out there the main noise they make is exhaling.


----------



## Drewboy

Murphysegg said:


> Be carefull out there guys. I think we had a large visitor tonight. :? Something sizeable breached about 20m's away & the Snaps switched off instantly. Seems to be a lot of Rays in the area as well.


On one hand it is good to have the occasional boat around for safety when an aggressive shark could be prowling.
But than there is overkill.
What you might call a busy spot for a Saturday night. Never seen so many boats in the one place before.
Even Zilch said "this is rediculous" when he noticed the 15th boat pull up and drop anchor 40 feet from me. :roll:


----------



## kayakone

Looks like Scarborough (Qld - 20 km N of Brisbane) on a weekend.

trev


----------



## keenfisho

I have a funny feeling the stink boats are sick of being shown up by us yakkers :lol:


----------



## Zilch

Drewboy said:


> Even Zilch said "this is rediculous" when he noticed the 15th boat pull up and drop anchor 40 feet from me. :roll:


I think their was definetly more boats than yaks on spot "X" and nearly all of them were their before we arrived (15 min before Drewboy). I guess people do believe the fishing reports at the end of the tv news. Just a few of the boats their.










At the end of the session we even had a ;-) really old dude (Dood) come over and hang onto the side of the boat for a chat.

Got to admit though, boats do have one wee advantage over fishing from a yak :lol: .

We could of easily cleaned up a boat on our way in, as it had no port light working. We mentioned it to the skipper back at the ramp but he wasn't interested and simply wanted to get out of their in one hell of a hurry (suspicious).



keenfisho said:


> I have a funny feeling the stink boats are sick of being shown up by us yakkers :lol:


Probably true but in my case last night I was lucky enough to witness the captain's (Greg) young daughter Aleesha being given a hooked snapper (70cm) to play and land, in my opinion this was worth more than any of us (boats or yaks) catching heaps or even landing that prize size one.

Steve


----------



## redmist

I'm pretty certain it was a shark other night :shock: . The snapper bite was pretty hot on spot x and turned off straight away after we had something quite large breach about 30 metres behind us in the darkness and remain on top of the water for about 20 seconds. It was big enough to create decent size waves and there was no distinct "air blow" that you get with the dolphins. My flight or fight radar was ticking over big time, i'm pretty sure it was the man in the grey suit.
Was thinking with the amount of bust off's on both snaps and rays (i had only cut Jason's line not much earlier when an unstoppable ray was steaming out in the same direction where the noise came from) that could make an easier meal for a toothy critter.

On a brighter note i got 2 x PB's at 73 and 72 which was a blast and got home in time to see the crows roll the dockers


----------



## CommandAh

I much admire your light set up mark. Would you consider listing the parts and a simple drawing so I could build something similar. Got my new AI roof racks and 2002 Prado this weekend.


----------



## OldDood

CommandAh said:


> I much admire your light set up mark. Would you consider listing the parts and a simple drawing so I could build something similar. Got my new AI roof racks and 2002 Prado this weekend.


Looking forward to seeing your AI.
The led light source is a Eveready - LED Light Part Number: PCK3AAWK 
The diffuser part I removed from a $6 camping lantern I got from Sam's Warehouse on Smart road, Modbury. (Chinese crap  )
The pole is just a piece of PVC water pipe, a screwed adaptor and a screwed end cap (20mm I think)
I hope this helps


----------



## GlenelgKiller

You forgot the schematic Mark.....


----------

