queensland Taking a knife to a gun fight: sad tale from Wello

[tomca]

With a magic day forecast the plan was to fish Wellington Point from sunrise to mid morning on a rising tide. On arrival at the boat ramp at 4am there was a light westerly blowing and the moon was still high. I figured fishing would be tough so took a 1-3kg spin rod with4lb on a 1000 reel and a 2-4kg rod with 6lb........big mistake!

My day consisted of straightened trebles, busted leaders and being spooled twice

The others did a little better or had similar tales of woe.

KAF's first fish on the troll with a halco scorpion, a tribute to you Rocket

He's on again after sunrise

not something I could have finessed off the reef with my silly string! :pinch:

Grant showing us he can catch one too

A new avatar perhaps?

I was the sweetlip king, but even a few of them managed to keep my lures for jewellery

Zimman and his hugely discounted Damiki products were the favourite of most of the fish

Then the afternoon shift arrived :blush:

narrowly avoiding a donut seconds before calling it a day

KAF caught one too

Damiki Armorshads do it again

[tomca]

There were about 8 AFOers on the water, I'm sure the rest will add their stories and pics soon.

[sweresy]

love it Tom, you tupperware folk always seem to get into the fish!! cheers

[kiwifisho]

Awesome report Tom, well done to everyone.

Kiwi

[Zim man]

nice stuff tomca, your message to me made me jealous as am stuck at home this week with chores.

gotta love the armor shads. Did the 4.5 inch monster mikis do damage as well?

[tomca]

I left my big plastics at home Rob :blush:

The 2.5" monstermiki's were getting some serious love from the baby squire and sweetlip, so I started using the red armorshads and picking up bigger fish, including several unstoppables. Almedy14 and riopio had some success with the their bigger Damiki's, I'm sure they will add to the report later

[eg_vtec]

quality stuff. thanks for sharing

[Keen-as-fisho]

It was an enjoyable day, until I had to get the coffees after loading up The morning started of sensationaly as soon as the drag was set it was running. The first fish was boated, a 32cm squire which was released after a happy snap, above. We continued on trolling to the destination and landing several more squire. I had chossen my barra rod to troll with loaded with 20lb fins, my new Tcurve revolution rod with a Daiwa Legalis loaded with 10lb fireline and my 'heavy' bream setup, 4lb fins, which comes on every trip.

As we hit Hybers I hooked up to a decent squire that had plenty of grunt, but after a short battle it was boated and was a respectable 53cm

I too had a few straightened trebles and unstoppables, so I have upgraded the trebles to owner trebles and next time hopefully I will at least see the fish.

I also managed a first today, a whiting on a blade which whent 25cm :woohoo:

This was the catch of the day

Towards mid morning the 3 inch armour shads really came into effect. I used the moibe, gold fleck and green colours.

29cm sweetlip on gold fleck armour shad

31cm squire on the green armour shad

And the pic of the cod in Tomcas post was caught on a moibe armour shad it whent 38.5cm.

It glassed out by 10am and started getting fairly warm so we called it a day.

My final tally of keepers that I kept was the 53cm squire and cod and thanks to Tom for the donation of sweetip and a nice mosses perch

[51MPL]

awsome work denny.. you make me reconsider saving for a boat and getting a yak haha!

[Perky]

Great effort guys, smashing them on the damikis. It suprised me to when i got a few whiting on blades, but yeah they seem to love them.

[tomca]

It was an enjoyable day, until I had to get the coffees after loading up

:laugh: Can't wait for kreels report

[billp]

Some nice fish there guys, I was fishing a little to heavy I think with 12lb line, may have been a bit to noticeable for the bigger ones. I was fishing to shallow for the time of day as well. Always next time.

[Freshy]

Sweet boys... loving the pics

Funny that Tom, that's something I say to my clients all of the time... Don't bring a knife to a gun fight!!!

Brett

[Nickers]

It was an enjoyable day, until I had to get the coffees after loading up

:laugh: Can't wait for kreels report

Where are the pics of the new additions to your kayak Den?

[Keen-as-fisho]

It was an enjoyable day, until I had to get the coffees after loading up

:laugh: Can't wait for kreels report

Where are the pics of the new additions to your kayak Den?

I haven't taken any He could've at least picked a better colour.

[Scope]

Top report there guys, some good pics too

[kreel]

What's the collective term for a group of AFOers? ... a flock, ... a gaggle?

There was a MURDER of AFO Yakkers yesterday for a session at Wello. Tacklebox and I decided to let the lads stumble about in the pre-dawn hours before arriving at a liesurely 5:30am.

"Mac" introduced himself while we were removing the yaks from the roof racks - I suspect it won't be long before he joins the dark side and invests in some tupperware.

We also noticed 2 other yakkers pass us on the way to the ramp, only to find out later they are "Almedy14" and "Riopio" who had answered the call and were here to join our swelling numbers on the water.

We met up with the lads - Billp (good to meet you mate), Pussca, Keen-as and GrantH at Huybers. Grant and Denis were having a good morning catching fish while Pussca was having an equally good morning telling us why he wasn't catching any... "but (he) hooked up to some unstoppables". There were masses of bait fish around so the fish were spoiled for choice.

tBox out-fished me (again), first it was a nice Gold Spot Cod at 29cm using traditional measuring techniques or around 35cm using the new space-age techniques Keen-as and Pussca are using.

Next was a healthy looking Squire that was on the small side even for the KAF/Pussca technique so it was returned.

Followed by a nice flounder

Then later in the morning tBox made short work of a 38cm (Kreel technique), 55cm (KAF/Pussca technique) Squire that was taken back for Mr and Mrs tBox senior for their dinns.

As I said earlier the bay was full of bait-fish and the turtles were out in numbers to get their share as well.

Conditions were tough as you can see, so it was about time I put a line in the water - and up comes a 44.5 cm (Kreel technique), 1 metre (KAF/Pssca technique) Gold Spot Cod - thats it in the top right of the shot - we forgot to get a photo of KAFs - pity that. I'd done enough work for the morning and it was off for a coffee and to admire the HMS Ladyboy (post coming)

[bootyinblue]

Sweet boys... loving the pics

Funny that Tom, that's something I say to my clients all of the time... Don't bring a knife to a gun fight!!!

Brett

I second that quote, but can add my own one as 'If you are going to fight me, feel free to take off your shirt as it only makes the barbs stick in better'

Great pics there, but not sure 3 abreast, each with 2 lines out is in the spirit of fishing.......LOL

[tomca]

seriously Booty, who do I see at the academy to volunteer to be practiced on

[dassa]

I thinking all is good in the world when that bloke t/box and KAF out fish kreel and pussca again :P

[Do$tylz]

good trip guys. Tomca was nice enough to call and rub it in while I was doing it tough at the Golcy canals. Shoulda joined you guys out there.

[dan25]

Awesome stuff guys, awesome pics especially of the glassed out water, looks unreal out there, will definetely have to head out there sometime

[Fishguts]

glaaaaaass ou,u guys were fishing a mirror! gotta be stoked with the conditions

[ahmedy14]

Two words: Lovely day indeed.

KAF, Tomca(Pussca), Tacklebox, Kreel, Grant, Billp, (and i think that's everybody) it was really great meet y'all and to add some blood to the 'Murder of Yakkers'. Was even better to have broken my yak fishing virginity. oh yeah.

Seriously if I didn't catch a fish, I probably would have continued yakking into the horizon, never to be seen again, well at least for two years after which I'd feature on Nine news for being the first person to travel across the world on a yak, having not relieved myself once, and having survived with only a few packets of damiki plastics and some hardbodies as food.

But really, cannot wait for the next session.

I and Riopio caught a bit more than several but unfortunately didn’t land any keepers, although we did get hooked on one or two possible take-homers. Not to forget two unstoppables by Rio. What did the most damage? The Damiki Monster Mikis, Vaults and a River to Sea HB.

With all the heat going on about birds on one of the other reports in the forum I won’t mention anything about them… *hint*. Okay okay, what the heck,I’ll just let it out. ................ We saw some birds building a nest.: ..... Wait but what's that thing underneath the birds wing? oh its just a just one of its babies.

Pictures will come up soon from Rio.

Ciao

[riopio]

Ahmedy and I, the noob yakkers, were also at Wello point that morning. After seeing Tomca's invite we were keen to get our first fish on our newly aquired yaks. With such awesome weather and water conditions I was already having fun just being there.

We were on the water by 5am, paddled out past the beacons and started trolling towards huybers (if thats the correct name for the red beacon). Got a double hookup on the way and christened the yaks with little squire. When we got to huybers we were amazed at how many other yakkers were out there. I started flicking the big monster mikis from zimman and they were getting smashed by the squire. Ahmedy was using a damiki vault and that too was getting hit. Was having fun catching the little snapper until a bird decided he wanted in on the action and went for my little crankbait. Luckily Tomca was there to the rescue, and with some high tech equipment (i.e. a blue cloth) and good beak-dodging skills he was able to free the little guy.

Once the action died down we trolled back along the drop off. We havent got fishfinders so we used the positions of the boats and other yaks as a guide to where the drop off probably was. Haha I know we need to get sounders.

Got a small greenredfunnylookingfish on the way and a pint sized silverfishwithbrownstripes (still working on my fish ID skills). Then we drifted back and forth for the next few hours. Ahmedy caught some tailor but unfortunately dropped a good sized one boatside (partly due to my bad lipgrip skills). Yes we also need a net.

I had two runs that went like this..reel screams for 6seconds then stops -> try my best to reel it in -> can barely seem to move the thing at all! Some cod jetting in to cover maybe?

All in all it was a fun session despite not getting any fish for the dinner table (had to settle for Nandos). Was good to meet some of the AFO pros: kreel, tacklebox, keen as fisho, tomca. Thanks for the great tips and thanks for catching the legal fish and leaving us with the smallies. And thanks for the Wello invite Tomca, now Im addicted to yak fishing and struggling to study for exams!

Dont have a camera so only managed to get a few pics with the phone. Yip one more thing for the shopping list. Now lets see if i can figure out how to attach pics...

No rain!

First yak fish

Squire

Ahmedy's not that big, he's just wearing his pfd under his jacket.

No thats not my lure. Its my PB silverfishwithbrownstripes (what is it?)

[attachment]C:\fakepath\IMAG0194.jpg[/attachment]

[ahmedy14]

some good as pictures there rio. lol I didnt realize how huge i looked

[kreel]

Rio from what I can see on my iPod, the fish in the last two pics are both Squire (young Snapper). It was good to see you guys out there, it certainly sounded like you had a good time. I hope you join us on more yakking adventures. Nice pics by the way.

[Scope]

Cyclists of the sea are getting some healthy numbers out there - perhaps Anna will start making the yakkers pay rego :laugh: :laugh: :whistle:

[tugger]

great weekend for it fellas and solid snap Den, ah Tom when will you learn playing with string when you can use rope hahaha

better luck next time

[Keen-as-fisho]

Cyclists of the sea are getting some healthy numbers out there - perhaps Anna will start making the yakkers pay rego :laugh: :laugh: :whistle:

Wont be much longer

Nice meeting you Ahmedy and Rio hope to see you guys on the drink again As for kitting out your yaks, Ebay is your friend.

[yotzaa]

Quality report and some great fish boated!!! :cheer:

well done everyone.

[kreel]

Cyclists of the sea are getting some healthy numbers out there - perhaps Anna will start making the yakkers pay rego :laugh: :laugh: :whistle:

Wont be much longer

Nice meeting you Ahmedy and Rio hope to see you guys on the drink again As for kitting out your yaks, Ebay is your friend.

...and if you're really eager Keen-as can lend you his Bedazzler kit to make your yaks look real pretty! :laugh: :laugh: