# WA: Two Peoples Bay, mojo found



## Daveyak (Oct 6, 2005)

After a long run of fishless trips I was losing the urge to get out on the water again and hadn't been too enthusiastic about heading out Saturday, but a quick look outside this morning revealed the best kayak fishing conditions for weeks. I'd heard plenty of reports, over the last few weeks, of good catches of snapper & salmon with a few tuna around as well so assembled my gear headed east out of town.

I launched into Two Peoples Bay at the leisurely hour of 8:30 and paddled into a light ENE headwind. I picked up a couple of good herring on my light rod with a SX60 lure on the 1 km paddle to South Point, where waves break over some rocks that shelter the inner bay. Once past the point I deployed my sharkshield through a forward scupper hole where I could reach it to turn it off and pull the antenna up if I hooked up to a good pelagic. I put the light rig away and had two Smilin' Jack's lures out as I paddled toward the "Drunken Sailor" bombie, about 500 metres further out.

Within the first 50 metres I had a strike and short run on my lighter rod & as I was bringing that lure in to check the hooks, my other reel started to hum. Quickly grabbed that rod & finished winding in the other lure as I leant back against the load that was stripping line from the Capricorn 4500 reel. I had so been missing this sort of pelagic action! Some minutes later I was pleased to see a solid little bluefin tuna circling under the kayak. Somehow during that action I'd managed to turn off the shark shield & retrieve the antenna, I love it when theory works in practice.

I grabbed the little gaff from the basket behind me and eventually wore the tuna down & got it into a position to lift it aboard. I was ecstatic, my first good sized fish for some time and a desirable and new species for me from the kayak. It later measured at 63cm 

After wrapping the tuna in a damp towel and jamming under a leg, I cast the big lure back out and had paddled only a short distance before I was on again! A different fight this time and soon saw a medium sized salmon with quite a few of its school shadowing it as I worked it closer to my kayak. I got that 66cm fish aboard and hooked a couple more by just casting and retrieving the lure. After only about half an hour of fishing I had two salmon and the tuna aboard and was thinking about heading back to the beach.










I decided to paddle the 400 metres out to a boat anchored near the bombie to see how they were doing and to get an on - water pic of me with my tuna. As I approached the boat one of the blokes lifted a big salmon over the side, they said it went 90cm. These two were fishing near the bombie while their sons were free diving & spearfishing nearby. Once the pics were taken I headed back toward shore, but couldn't resist chucking the lure back out.










On the paddle back to the inner bay I caught and released another 4 decent salmon before paddling around South Point and then having the lure grabbed by something I couldn't turn from a long run before the line parted. So I cast out a smaller SJ lure on my other, lighter rod. Then another fish grabbed that and took off, giving the best fight of the day on the Sienna 4000 & 6 kg mono line. That salmon measured at 84cm, equal to my best salmon ever and 10 cm bigger than my previous kayak PB. :-D

_Mighty little lure (10cm)_

































As you might have gathered, I'm greatly pleased with my efforts. I was only on the water for two hours & paddled less than 5kms in total so the most exercise I got was hanging on to the rod. Sometimes it all just comes together...

Like some of my friends & family, I'm now looking forward to some BBQ & smoked salmon meals. After a sashimi feast today... 8)


----------



## Beekeeper (Aug 20, 2011)

Well done, that man!!!

That was a great result for a couple of hours on the water, Daveyak.

Onyer... Jimbo


----------



## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Dave nice to see the worm has turned after the recent outings, and with a couple of nice fish, well done mate.


----------



## YakCult (Nov 4, 2008)

Looks like you had heaps of fun, Dave!
Great post - well done!


----------



## solatree (May 30, 2008)

Ripper couple of fish Dave - what do you suspect was the unstoppable ? Another tuna perhaps ?


----------



## Daveyak (Oct 6, 2005)

solatree said:


> Ripper couple of fish Dave - what do you suspect was the unstoppable ? Another tuna perhaps ?


Possibly a tuna but most likely a big salmon, they get up to over 90 cm along this coast. A few possibilities, it was in this area on a previous trip where I saw a huge kingfish chasing a hooked bonito I was fighting. But since it was in only about 3 metres of water, my moneys on a salmon. The line was quite frayed near the break point so probably damaged when playing an earlier fish, something I should have noticed and re-rigged.


----------



## Squidley (May 8, 2010)

Good going, I like to see a WA report, there's not enough of them. So you got the tuna on a diving minnow? I thought to boat one of those you needed slugs and fast reels. What a great trip.


----------



## Daveyak (Oct 6, 2005)

Got the tuna on one of these, about 150mm long.









There's been a lot of reports from around here of these tuna accompanying the salmon schools. Once plentiful along this coast, they were nearly fished out by commercial fishers but are now starting to reappear in greater numbers (woohoo!). I suspect the bigger ones might need a different approach to hook them.


----------



## Weyba (Jul 8, 2010)

Dave , well done . Great report . Mojo found . Shame I couldn't enjoy it with you after those other outings. Smilin Jack strikes again.
Cheers,
Mark


----------



## spork (Jan 21, 2012)

Love those days when you have all the fresh fish you need after a couple of hours.
Nice work. Great report.


----------

