# NSW. Long Reef newbie. 28Dec12



## sunshiner (Feb 22, 2006)

I was glad I'd brought my yak down here as its availability gave me better ways to kill time while temporarily ensconsed in Sydney. Even better, I had an opportunity to experience the fishing situation faced by kayak fishers who live here.

And so it was that I found myself at Fisherman's Beach very early this morning. This protected and NE facing beach is a favourite launch point for Sydneysiders wanting to fish Long Reef, which lies to its east and north east, within a couple of kilometres.

I'd carried out a recce of the beach a week or so ago, knowing that a fishing trip from here was a strong possibility. I'd found a wash point complete with tap to which I could attach my washdown hose but also noted that the parking fees are frightening to anyone from my neck of the woods. Never mind, I was informed of a parking work-around by the local yakkers who'd invited me. In the end, following their advice, I parked legally, didn't have to pay at all and suffered minimal disruption to my planned launch arrangements.









Fisherman's Beach. Pay parking bays are provided immediately SW of the boat ramp.

SBD had set a RV time of 05:15 approx and well before this time I'd unloaded my yak and left it on the beach just west of the ramp. Meanwhile SBD and avayak were catching livies elsewhere, intending, as per their usual practice, to transport the live baits in large aerated drums which they transferred from their cars to their Hobie yaks. I witnessed this complex transfer process later, when they'd arrived to set up to go proper fishing. There's a lot of meticulous preparation required to get live yakkas to the waiting kingies of Long Reef. Not only this, but wrassemagnet was out in the bay working on catching squid to use as live baits. I could see him in the gradually improving light and hoped he was being successful (he was).

After meeting SBD and avayak I left them to their final preparations and opted to launch immediately to have a warm up paddle in the confines of the little bay which the beach faces.









Launch time. The boat ramp is just to the right. Note that the date/time stamp for this pic only is Queensland time.

As SBD said, they're very lucky to have such a launch spot directly into the ocean. Imagine if we had one at Sunshine Beach like this! Soon I was paddling out to meet wrassemagnet, who was scaring the crap out of the squid from his recently acquired pointy, lengthy and bright green Stealth (pic later).

Wrassemagnet is also a squid magnet and proved it by showing me a couple of his catch, being kept alive by imprisonment in various containers adapted to the purpose. He also, in passing, mentioned that there would likely be snapper scrounging around in this little bay, whose depth was only 5-8m. This news had me paddling around in a futile attempt to score one or two on a trolled hard body.

At length the prelaunch preparations of avayak and SBD were complete, and they could be seen heading out to us. Under their tutelage I followed them out into the fishing grounds, only some 1500m or so out.

They fish water from 10-20m depth using any of several techniques and the target is always kingies. I was rigged with my Noosa gear, either hard bodied lures or soft plastics. I'd even left the wire traces on, intent on establishing whether Long Reef fish ignore them, as Noosa fish appear to do.

Immediately we could see "baitfish" (could have been jellyfish) on the fishfinders. Larger, more individual traces were also visible so my companions confidently and correctly forecast that kingies were present. Woohoo!

After watching proceedings carefully for a while I concluded that possibly my SPs would be accepted by the denizens below so started working them much as I do in Noosa. This resulted in the first keeper fish of the day (I think) which snaffled my wire-traced 4 inch SP.









I hasten to add that the only reason it was a keeper was that the NSW legal min length is 30cm. This little guy was about 32cm. Released.

Then SBD, avayak and wrassemagnet found the kingies and called me over by radio. Bent rods and furious jigging and other fishing activities could be seen. Clearly there was some action underway but the few fish which I saw come to the surface were quickly released as undersized. I'd been persisting with my SP as I had no other appropriate offering in my inventory. Shortly, I too was battling either a monster and fast swimming snapper or a kingie. Guess which. My fish had gone for the bottom for the third time when the line went slack. Broken wire trace. This particular home made trace was overdue for retirement having been in successful action on numerous occasions over the last couple of months. Well at least my new carbontech drag washers had performed well.

The action continued, spasmodically but relentlessly. The stinkies started to follow SBD and Co around, much as I was.









The general scene, looking south.

All of my companions were fighting and releasing fish but it was clear that there was no massing of the kingies. Rather, individual fish were being hooked over a fairly small area. So I worked this area over until at last I took another kingie hit, again on SP. This fish put up a solid fight on the 6kg gear I was using but it was gradually defeated, as witnessed by SBD, who'd seen all of this stuff thousands of times before. Without measuring it I could see that it wasn't obviously a keeper and SBD confirmed this so back he went, after spending a very short time in my fishbox.

I was now satisfied that there was nothing wrong with my technique and so perhaps had passed Grade One in kingie catching. So I relaxed and decided to get a few pics. Wrassemagnet's Irish Stealth presented a fittimg subject so here he is, perhaps dealing with yet another rat king, or maybe re-rigging after being worked over.









Jim's new boat, ready for St Pat's Day.

On approaching SBD again, soon afterward, I was present when he hooked up to another rat, well within camera range.

















The second one slightly over exposed, but the content is OK, as SBD would say.

Dave now offered me a lump of fresh Long Reef cuttlefish in order to demonstrate that such bait is better than SPs. I accepted with alacrity, proferring my extended paddle as a tray. "Don't drop it", growled Dave and I didn't. I cut the cuttly lump into two pieces initially and rerigged my heavy outfit to cope with the expected big kingies. On the way back up the drift line I let this cuttly-loaded outfit trail out the back and I swear that it went off about 15 secs after I started to move it through the water. I'd put a jig head on this line, and impaled the flag of cuttly on that. I don't even think that this fish (almost certainly another rat king) was hooked but held onto the cuttlefish fragment until I got it close to the boat then with a final tug, ripped it off the hook. No sign of the cuttlefish bait remained. This left me with one piece which I trimmed into two delicious looking "tentacles". The first of these produced two very small snapper, in quick time, and the last produced this, which would have been better being caught by wrassemagnet.









This is the first "butcher's prick" I've seen in years. Unknown in Noosa, thankfully.

By now the wind was increasing in strength and my leave pass was in danger of expiring, with no reserve of brownie points to bolster my survival chances. Simultaneously, my companions of the day indicated that they'd also be happy to head in, so we did, riding the stiffening north easterly to a happy landing at our start point.

On the beach avayak generously offered me his only keeper, explaining that he and SBD had enough kingie cutlets from the recent past. I grabbed the offer, especially as I knew I could put the fish to very good use in the next couple of days. Thanks, Gary.

We finished up at the Upper Crust for a pie and coffee, joined by Occy, in mufti.

Of these four guys, the only one I'd met before was Occy. Nevertheless, it was clear that AKFF allowed us to sit around the coffee table like old pals, chatting about yak fishing and whatever else came along, and a couple of them did. Thanks to all for your patience and help today.

Thanks for reading AKFFers. Tight lines.


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## carnster (May 27, 2008)

Fun times Kev, your reputation precedes you wherever you go.


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## dru (Dec 13, 2008)

Great to see all the planning come off. Welcome to Sydney!


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## scater (Nov 24, 2007)

Great stuff Kev, but where are the kingy photos?


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## blueyak (Jan 20, 2009)

Good to see you got a taste of sydney's kingfish.


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## kayakone (Dec 7, 2010)

Good onya Sydney to welcome Kev. He was _supposed_ to outdo you, but you can't have everything, first time around. Just pray he doesn't move in permanently. 

Great report Kev, as always.

trev


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## paulthetaffy (Jan 27, 2010)

Great report Kev and glad that longy didn't dissapont you. Looked like a cracker morning and i was hoping you managed to get amongst the kings. I've had my leave pass revoked due to a sick newborn, so I'll have to catch you next time.

Jim, I didn't realize that you had started targeting squid in the bay with success. For some reason nobody ever bothers as we assume there's none there. I think I'll be spending an hour squidding in future rather than doing the round trip to manly for yakkas. How far out do you find them?

Paul


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## Wrassemagnet (Oct 17, 2007)

A nice day of firsts for me today.

First time I caught squid at Longy after several attempts to locate the buggers. I'll send you a PM with the mark that produced for me today Paul. Then I'll have to kill you 

The live bait tube I've rigged up from a tennis ball container and a barrel sinker works a treat. The picture is from it's trial run last week at Malabar (didn't take any photos of the squid today).









squid are happier when they have a room with a view

First time at Longy with the 575. All it needs is a better paddler 

First time meeting several guys I've known of and feel very lucky now to have met in person - Kev the Sunshiner legend (bastard leave my wrasse alone), Paul one of the ski patrol legends (thanks for taking the time to say hi and make me feel welcome - looking forward to burning the pork more with you man), and Micka (Yakattack) on his beautiful Edgewater who has been coaching me behind the scenes for some time now with tons of advice about squidding, using them as livebaits, and best times and tide to target the big mother kings (how'd you go today mate?)

First time meeting Tim aka Tomsawyer - we're practically neighbours Tim, good times ahead dude.

First time hooking Australia with PE4 braid and 80lb leader. Dave giggled and asked me how I planned to get out of this one without a mirage drive. I told him he'd just have to be useful for once and bust me off himself, and so he did, his thighs rippling away as he pumped those pedals for me. Snapped it at the hook (gee I love that PR knot). I've now tied a few rigs in 40lb Fluorocarbon for days when I'm fishing without a mate in a hobie.









The twin hook rig that Dave's thighs rescued. Note the SJ-38's are recommended for 47lb "intensity" jigging so they are not wimpy hooks! They have a solid ring for an eye, slightly angled and very short shank so I think they're perfect as lead hooks for live baits. I've put a new one in the picture so you can see what they look like before Dave works them over.

We all got onto plenty of rats and one keeper for Gary which he did well landing as it took his livey while he was fighting another one on his jigging outfit. Both of these dudes always amaze me with the sheer tonnage of fish they hook and land per session, truly awesome.









Gary with his double hookup









Dave with a nicely bent rod

Thanks for helping me get the 575 onto the trailer Occy, hopefully I'll be able to repay the favour one day soon.

And afterwards my first Mexican pie was "had" (to quote that giant of pie "having", Dave, who demolishes whole pie shops in a single sitting). And it was very very good. Especially as I am assured by Dave and Gary that at this time of the year none of the calories stick.

Happy days indeed.


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## avayak (May 23, 2007)

Great day out on the water with you Kev and thanks to Occy for teeing it up.
A well crafted report and pictures Kev. I'm impressed that you can write so well just after a morning session, I battle to string two coherent words together, usually I just point to the pie I want.
Our early morning livie session came of as we did catch a livie. Dave actually caught the only two but fumbled his one and it self released. 
Jim brought along his new squeeze "T.O.W." and what a tall girl she is. I tried not to be caught staring but couldn't help snatching a few discrete glances. It felt sort of wrong?
Longie is an extensive reef system and the kings are often on the move. The first half of the session can be spent paddling around trying to find where they are holing up. Fortunately the current that has been running over the last few trips was still flowing, keeping the kings at the leading edge of the reef so it didn't take long before Kev was dropped into the action. Over the morning the fish would turned on hitting jigs, squid and livies. Panning around at the other guys there were bent rods in all directions and then, the switch would be flicked off and nothing would temp them. Longie often smiles on newbies and I'm happy that Kev got to experience classic Longie conditions.
Great to meet Occy for the first time at the Upper Crust and Tom Sawer Tim.
How good is it to meet another yakker and talk around a table with the ease of old friends.
Enjoy the rest of the trip Sunshiner.


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## tomsawya (Mar 31, 2011)

It was nice to meet you all and have a chat over a pie and a coffee at the end of the session. No doubt I'll see you out there again!

Tim


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## DAC (Aug 29, 2008)

Sounds like a great session. 
Well written accounts by all, thanks fellas.
I'm in for a Long run. Yay surgery!
Can't wait.


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