# Tas: Little Swanport, Tas 24th Oct



## mattmoki (Aug 4, 2009)

After failing to wake up when the alarm radio went off, I finally lurched out of bed at 0450. The original plan was to be on the road at 0500, but 0520 was pretty close I guess.

The destination was Little Swanport, about 90 mins drive from Hobart.

The rough idea was to meet up with other AKFF members.. Blaen, vertigrator, Scott, Dave3573, and Dan29 .. at the bridge over the Little Swanport river, and then check out the top of the estuary for Bream. In the end vertigrator and Dan29 (and his 10 yr old son in his Hobie Sport) came downstream while Blaen, Scott, Dave3573 & I launched t the main boat ramp near the estuary mouth.

Dave3573 & Scott were already in the water and about 500m off when we arrived. Blaen very kindly lent me a lure and an environet, and we set off. After figuring out that the main channel wasn't where we were heading, we worked our way over to it and put our lines out. Within a few minutes I had an Aussie Salmon, which was my first ever fish on a hard-body lure.

I guess I should mention at this point that I'm not likely to have my own fishing TV show in the foreseeable future - in fact I'm very much a novice at both kayak & bream fishing. Mainly your basic bait fisherman, and pretty much the only type of lure I've used is a squid jig. I do use plastics but don't know much about them. After my son caught a flattie with a dried apricot I was thinking about focussing totally on the preserved fruit technique. Unfortunately my experiments at creating a diving minnow with a couple of trebles, a date & coconut body and a bib constructed from dried banana failed miserably, and I lost interest.

So that's why I could have driven home after that first salmon and counted the day a success!

I didn't though, and soon Blaen & I met Scott & Dave3573. Dave3573 gave me a bit of soft plastic sandwormy stuff which I caught a couple more salmon with, and then we decided the plan for the rest of the day. We parted ways with Blaen who opted to work another spot and head home earlier. Scott, Dave3573 & I then paddled for a bit under an hour until we spied the others on the shore, about 2/3 of the way up the system.

I then got to meet Vertigrator, Dan29 and son. They had caught some good bream on their way down from the top of the estuary. I had a pleasant lunch yakking about 'yakking, and having all my dumb questions patiently answered.

As it happened, it was a bit of a Hobiefest, and I learnt lots by seeing how the others had 'pimped' theirs in different ways.
So, as well as learning some lure techniques from the other (way more experienced and serious) fishermen, it was really good to actually see some of the gear I had read about. I was startled to see that Dave3573 had a small TV on his boat, which he said he used exclusively to 'look at bottom'. I presumed this was a dodgy movie he had downloaded from the interweb so I tactfully changed the subject.

The fishing continued, and Scott caught (& released!) a couple of biggies over 40cm, and I flailed around trying to get a bream. I did get another nice salmon, but after a while we split up to work opposite sides of a low-lying island & flats area. Eventually the two parties met up again, and I enjoyed listening to some amusing insults being exchanged. We then said goodbyes, and Scot, Dave3573 & I worked out way back to the cars near the estuary mouth.

Some of the time on the way back we had 15-20 knot headwinds, which was even more fun when that was combined with having to paddle, rudder up, over some very shallow bits! As a learner driver I found it tiring, frustrating and challenging .. and I loved every last second of it!

I got nothing until nearly the end when I caught .. yep, another salmon! I'm not sure if the other guys got any bream on the way back, but Dave3573 caught an excellent salmon in the deep channel back towards the main boat ramp.

All up we were on the water for more or less 7 or 8 hours and paddled about, um, oh I dunno .. let's just say more kilometres than I have ever paddled before. I can also now officially say that I am a true kayak fisherman, but not because I have a 'yak and have caught fish in it. I can proudly say this because I have lost my first knife overboard! I can't wait to get out on the water again, and hopefully with any or all of the above crew - thanks for everything guys - I had a great time!

The Pix ..


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## Scott (Aug 29, 2005)

Hi Matt, it was good to meet you and share a great day on the water. Dave and i had instant success on the Salmon finding a large feeding school and hooking pretty much a salmon every cast. At one stage i had the record of three casts without a hookup but i think Dave stretched this to 5 casts before we caught enough and released enough of the school to put them down. I did keep 8 or so to rig up as seven giller baits as well as cut baits for gummies. I was fishing a 1kg 5 foot graphite stick which was a relic of my ANSA days. With a 2lb fluro leader the salmon put up a great fight.

We met up with Mat and John and i pedaled back to the car to put my fish on ice before heading upstream to where we thought the bream would be. We ended up meeting up with the other guys who had had success on bream with the biggest being a 43cm to the fork. By this stage the glassy conditions had gone with around 15 knots of wind. After a chat why we had lunch we stared heading upstream again. I chose to cast a ecogear mw62f on my 2kg outfit against a shallow shoreline that the waves were breaking on like i would for trout. On my 4th cast i had a solid take and the bream screamed out into deeper water swiiming underneath my yak, narrowly avoiding my mirage drive. I slammed the tip of the rod in the water and managed to get the line around the rudder allowing me to put some pressure on the fish. After a spirited fight the best bream i had caught in ages slid into my net. I measured it a 425mm to the fork and admired its thick shoulders and its general excellent conditioning before sliding it back into the water. It was a beautiful bronze colour from its time upstream.

After another couple of casts i again hooked up to another nice bream but this one fought in a funny matter, splashing on the surface in the couple of inches of water i hooked it in. When it saw the landing net it decided to get out of there but i netted it a few minutes later. It was another beautifully conditioned bream with a fork length of 415mm. After that i went over to the other guys and we continued to head upstream. I started mocking Dave who normally outfishes me. I christened him the salmon king as he continued to catch salmon after salmon instead of bream. The bream were patchy and we found a few more in the next hour before we decided to brave the 15-20 knot winds and head back to the mount of the river. Due to the mere inches of water we had to travel through we abandoned the mirage drives and broke out the paddles.

We had another look for bream round halfway to the mouth but all we got was a few more salmon with the salmon king catching most of them. At one stage we paddled past three guys in a tinny with a huge motor on the back that had obviously ran ashore while hooning around and were stuck on the rocks and busy bailing water out of the hull. We though of asking them if they wanted a tow but instead settled on laughing to ourselves as we traveled past them. We had a final attempt at a fish where the big school of Salmon was in the morning with another nice salmon falling to Matt and a the best salmon of the day at 2 or so kilos being landed by the Salmon king after a lengthy fight. All in all a top day on the water in the company of a great bunch of blokes.


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## Ado (Mar 31, 2008)

Great report guys, especially Matt. Brilliant photos to-boot. Catching a fistfull of salmon is a pretty good start Matt. Beats my redfin :lol: . But it seems you're missing out on the best part of kayak fishing .... buying lures. Get to Big-W and get into it. If you continue to fish, write and photograph like that you will be well rewarded.


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## vertigrator (Jul 25, 2006)

We found a few more patches of bream on the way back upstream. And they were pulling very hard once they got themselves into the main current of the channel. This was a very different situation to when we fished the area a few months ago. Dave & I found some schools of smaller bream between 25-35cm that would only eat soft plastics fished super slow on the bottom. This time they were mostly taking bard body lures up in shallows and near the banks with the smallest fish at 34cm and my biggest going 40cm.

This is one great little system, full of bream of all sizes and some awesone by catch of salmon, salmon, more salmon and the ocassional trevally.


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## Blaen (Jul 4, 2006)

Great report Matt,

I ended up off of the water (and out of the wind at about 12:00), just a few salmon kept to make fish cakes with, the kids loved them 

BTW THat's the last time I loan you a lure, "here try this" I said, "it never fails on salmon", I said and sure enough he outfishes me three to one  8)

It was good to get back into the yak after such a long break and also very good to catch up with a few AKFF'ers. Sorry I didn't come all the way up the river Dan and Vert, next time.

And a few more photos


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## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Nice reports from the apple isle fellers.


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