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Kayak Camp/Comp - the report

benno573

By benno573
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benno573 Rising Star

benno573

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ok, i'll kick this off...

arrived at the campsite at about 8:45, only to find us shut out with no key owing to angus's mechanical dramas. so went and picked the key up from canungra (1:15 round trip) and we all headed down. set up camp, had lunch and hit the water. very tough fishing all round, weather was looking ominous. malcom came up trumps for the day with a 40.5cm bass earning him a new viking profish!!! :woohoo:

headed back to camp to fillet the catch and cook up dinner. a few of the boys headed out and some good bass of 45cm were caught, thankfully, everyone made it back before the storm... just.

today, a few sore heads (malcom! :P ) and a gusty 30kn SW turned a few people off fishing, however, some more intrepid folk (not me) headed out and were rewarded. the biggest bass of the trip was landed at 49cm, with another of 45cm also caught. jeff f and i decided to fish off the bank and i got a 41cm bass and a nice tandanus (dewfish). there's dinner sorted. also meant that i was tied for first in overall combined length for bass over the two days!!! :woohoo:

prizes were handed out, camps were packed up and everyone went home.

i'll leave it up to gus to give the full list of prizes etc, but i am soooooo stoked with my new live fibre rod!!!! can't wait to brain a few fish with it!

thanks heaps to viking kayaks, searing tackle and sports tution for the weekend.

benno <'>-<

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benno573 Rising Star

benno573

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hahaha... how could i forget...

the camp was an old scout camp, looked seldom used. there was a shed and undercover area with lighting wired in. however, there was no external switch to turn said lights on. and the key to open the gate didn't open the shed :angry: . hmmm... so with the help of a few, the shed was broken into (took the door panel off) and a generator was hooked up. eureka!!! we have lights!!! :lol: a bit of minor amateur criminal behaviour was very helpful in this instance.

benno <'>-<

and the fact kriso got his pajero dirty.... :blink: :ohmy: :silly: it was alleged someone worte their name in the dust on the side. no idea who... :whistle:

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fishyman Newbie

fishyman

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man i am soo tired haha.

to cut a long story short, first day i scored a 40cm bass on a G Vibe which saw me miss out on another profish by half a centimetre (happy to lose to you malcom:P) it was really tought for lure fishing and shrimps seemed the way to go. Second day i only got a tiddler on a TT Switchblade maybe going 15ish.

got back and everyone had left haha but i did win a lure pack for my efforts (Thanks Angus)

good to meet you all and have a fish. pitty the fish didnt hit the lures as much as i would have liked.

but it was a good camp. Now i cant wait for the charter :woohoo:

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Terry H Newbie

Terry H

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ok thanks benno for kicking it off :D

Lee was a bit late in getting to my place to finish a few mods to my yak like installing the sounder RAM moutn and rod holders :laugh:

But eventually we all loaded up into the VIP Car and headed off to Hinze. We joked to Angus in an SMS something like "you can't start, VIPs aren't there yet!" and further jokes about how we have $10,000 in fishing gear in a $500-1000 car. (which wouldn't be too far off! :P)

After a quick trip down to hinze we scraped our way down to the boat ramp, watching some of the guys like Kriso and Angus cringing and laughing at the VIP Car going down this dirt track with the exhaust copping a flogging on the various bumps.

So us 'VIPs' had gotten there late, but thankfully we didn't miss any fishing, other than Angus getting a 55cm rock... Everyone else had set up tents but we decided that we'd do it after fishing.

The day started off slow for quite a few, except James who trolled up 2 or 3 bass shortly after starting. There were a few fish appearing on the sounder, but I couldn't think of any 3-4m divers to use so ignored them :laugh: I have that 1-2 and 5-10m area well covered though :laugh:

A few of us continued up into a little inlet, where fishyman hooked up to one of the biggest of the day. I still think I could have stretched yours out to win mate :P

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-Fi.jpg

Before too long Lee had hooked two bass in this inlet on a lipless crank. Heres one:

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-Le.jpg

We started to work our way back, and I was in one of the inlets near the boat ramp when it started to rain.

“Yep I’m on!†“ooo.. maybe not†“oh yep, oh noâ€Â. This little fella hit the lure pretty hard, but that was about all he did.

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-Te.jpg

I make it back before it rains too hard, and quickly put my seat in the front storage hatch... You know to save it getting wet?? :P

Anyway, I think it turns out the guys didn’t have a key for the shed, so some 'alternative' means of access were required and after some 'tweaking' we had lights. By this stage the rain had stopped so we went to go put up the VIP tent in the dark, albeit after removing all the parts from their plastic wrappings etc. (Brand new tent:P)

After dinner I noticed the moon was out and there were clear skies – perfect! Lets go for a night time yak to catch some bass :D

So James, Ash, Bretto and I head on down to the water, and jump in the yaks to begin flicking surface lures around in the hope of a few bass.

It wasn’t too long before Ash got cold feet and decided the warmth of the fire was for him, so he and James headed off, leaving just Bretto and I. It wasn’t before too long and I listen to my outback copy of the jitterbug walking along when.. swipe! Haha some action at least, didn’t feel it though :(

What’s good is at this time, it’s pretty quiet so everyone can hear the surface activity :) I paused the retrieve in a hope the bass would come back but he didn’t. We continued down the grassy edge, working the various surface lures. I think Bretto had a fizzer on at this stage. It wasn’t too much further down when swipe! Another miss, once again I left the lure there to see if he would come back but he didn’t.

Bretto looks back and points out the fog.. great it’s about to really get cold now. The moon goes behind a cloud, I flick out the jitterbug copy, begin the retrieve swipe! I leave it..... bam! Yep I’m on now, you beauty! :woohoo: Drag comes off my 4lbs custom special and I instantly know it’s a decent fish (I’m sure Kevin and dan can tell you – I’m not afraid to have a heavy drag) There’s no snags around so I ease off the drag a little, and after a nice little fight I boat a healthy look bass measuring in at 43cm total length. Time check: 10:50pm. Technically speaking, should be Saturday :P But ‘rules’ were explained to us – lucky for Malcolm!

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-3.jpg

It’s by this stage Bretto realises these jitterbug type lures are going alright, so he puts his own on. Some weird colour combination for night time, but hey, I think its all in the action and noise anyway. A bit further down we can hear some thunder – how far away is the boat ramp?? Hopefully not too far away. Being the keen eyed fisherman that I am, I was watching Brettos jitterbug walking back, keeping an eye on mine as well when BAM! Whammo, Bretto’s on, and holy crap that was a big strike. Sadly it seems Bretto was more occupied watching other bits of darkness than his lure :P so he missed a good view :( “What do you think it is, could be a small toga†I comment to Bretto, hoping to see this fish jump. Geez, that was a huge strike for a bass if it was!

This one gave him some stick, but visibly swam downwards, and ran circles around his yak and then after a nice fight this beauty was landed:

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-1.jpg

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-2.jpg

Double lucky for Malcolm, this fella was caught around 11:15, and went 45cm total length – a new PB for Bretto! I think this was also first time fishes on jitterbugs for both, or at least at night. First lure caught fish at night and on a jitterbug or jitterbug copy for me :) Ah well. I'm sure Malcolm will be happy with his new yak - although I'm sure Bretto wouldn't have minded:P

We make it up to the boat ramp I put my seat back into the front hatch and head up to the campsite. I busted out the camera to prove our claims of fame, all while Malcolm is saying out loud something like “oh f***!†Then it starts to pour down and we all scoot off to our various tents.

Morning breaks, and geez, it’s a bit bright in here isn’t it boys? Turns out the VIP tent fell apart during the night, the top cover was somewhere other than on the tent, Lee’s 3rd of the tent had a duck pond in one end of it and his 3rd has also collapsed on him for an extra blanket. Good thing it didn’t rain after it blew off!!

We had some food and wondered if it was worth going out for a fish. We thought Angus was out there since he wasn’t at camp, turns out he was having a snooze!

So a couple of us head up to his tent, slowly take the tent poles out, unclip them from the tent and just as the net hit him he opened his eyes and saw me :( Time to roll him up in his tent and get the hell out of there! :laugh:

We got down to the boat ramp to see that: everyone's yak and seat are drenched... but wait! I pull the scupper out of the seat area, drain the water, and pull a nice dry seat out for me to sit on :laugh:. We jumped onto the water, had a fish and sadly didn’t get anything else. Got to the boat ramp and only saw fishyman and his dad as they were getting their yaks on the roof to head off.

My Fish: 20cm and 43cm bass.

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shortie Newbie

shortie

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The trip was awesome.

Booze awesome

company awesome

The wind and rain (Awesome)

The yakking awesome (Im buying a yak but in the meantime got someone to borrow a shiny new profish off) Well done Malcolm.

But most importantly Thanks to:

Angus

Steve Wilkes and crew (Great food and support)

Alex (Wow mate thanks very genourous of you to bring all the yaks and equipment some of us needed.)

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username_taken Newbie

username_taken

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Big fat zero for me, and we found out why Malcolm was able to catch the biggest fish on saturday, he drinks like one!

big thanks to benno for sharing his tent after I discovered that I had managed to leave my tent at home ( had pegs, poles, groundsheet, and fly, just no bloody tent ).

Thanks to Angus and Steve for a great weekend! I reckon next time we skip the kayaks and just motor around in Steve's electric canoes though, maybe he can put us through one of his survivor courses :D

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STU Newbie

STU

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Good weekend apart from the weather and great to catch up with everyone :) I got a big zero for the weekend I think I will stick to boats:P didnt want to brave the winds today for a fish especialy after my dismal effort the first day.

Congrats to malcom on the winning the yak, lucky you got it the first day cause I dont think after the night on the piss would of helped today:P

Heres a pic of one of jimmybobs 39cm bass he got the first day:woohoo: [img size=499]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/Jimmybob__s_39cm___kayak_camp_003_AFO.jpg

post-1103-144598458382_thumb.jpg

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shortie Newbie

shortie

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STU wrote:

Good weekend apart from the weather and great to catch up with everyone :) I got a big zero for the weekend I think I will stick to boats:P didnt want to brave the winds today for a fish especialy after my dismal effort the first day.

Congrats to malcom on the winning the yak, lucky you got it the first day cause I dont think after the night on the piss would of helped today:P

Heres a pic of one of jimmybobs 39cm bass he got the first day:woohoo: [img size=499]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/Jimmybob__s_39cm___kayak_camp_003_AFO.jpg

Is he happy. Nive fish

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bretto Newbie

bretto

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Well it was a slow first day for me with only to hits and a bust up on a snag. It was a trip for pb's for me though. Got a pb 45cm fish on a jitterbug at night along side terry and his 43cm bass, after finally getting my lure in the water and not in the reeds I got smashed and was so happy to land the fish :laugh: :laugh:

Headed out not so early today and thought I would try bait fishing as I had never done so in the fresh. Turned out to be a good idea after getting smashed on the first drop by a 36.5cm fish. A few minute later chris got a 44cm and took it home for dinner. Not long after I smashed my 45cm pb fish out of the water with a 46.5cm Bass. :)

I had another drop and struggled against the wind to try and keep my shrimp stationary on the bottom. A lull in the wind came and then I was literally almost flipped out of the yak as a monster hinze bass smashed the rod that was in the holder. After an impressive fight I saw what I thought was close to a fifty but on the measure it was 49.5cm. So close but stoked with another upgrade on my Pb :cheer: :cheer:

Got another fish at 45cm on the shrimp and one on the troll back that went 15cm.

Was an awesome trip and thankyou to all involved in the organisation and running of the trip. It is one I will not forget anytime soon.

My Tally: 45cm on jitterbug

36.5, 46.5, 49, 45cm on shrimp

15cm on tilsan bass

[img size=499]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/kayak02.JPG

46.5cm Bass

post-2675-144598458396_thumb.jpg

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bretto Newbie

bretto

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TerryH wrote:

Nice Brett, well done mate:)

Can't believe you broke a PB so many times in one trip :laugh: Top stuff.

Pics of the night session turned out well. The you tell the story is much more exciting than mine :P . It makes me wanna go fishing again.

So happy on the pb's. Cant wait to get back out there mate. Dont forget your pb surface bass mate. That thing wet hard and was fat too.

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bretto Newbie

bretto

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STU wrote:

Thats great bretto I should of went out again didnt sound to bad after all 49.5cm from hinze is a great bass.

Was tuff out there with the wind though. I got pretty wet but once the sun got up it was alright. Was well worth the effort.

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Terry H Newbie

Terry H

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bretto wrote:

TerryH wrote:
Nice Brett, well done mate:)

Can't believe you broke a PB so many times in one trip :laugh: Top stuff.

Pics of the night session turned out well. The you tell the story is much more exciting than mine :P . It makes me wanna go fishing again.

So happy on the pb's. Cant wait to get back out there mate. Dont forget your pb surface bass mate. That thing wet hard and was fat too.

Na, forgot about my one at borumba which was 44 - that one from hinze was probably built better though.

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rayke1938 Experienced

rayke1938

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TerryH wrote:

ok thanks benno for kicking it off :D

Lee was a bit late in getting to my place to finish a few mods to my yak like installing the sounder RAM moutn and rod holders :laugh:

But eventually we all loaded up into the VIP Car and headed off to Hinze. We joked to Angus in an SMS something like "you can't start, VIPs aren't there yet!" and further jokes about how we have $10,000 in fishing gear in a $500-1000 car. (which wouldn't be too far off! :P)

After a quick trip down to hinze we scraped our way down to the boat ramp, watching some of the guys like Kriso and Angus cringing and laughing at the VIP Car going down this dirt track with the exhaust copping a flogging on the various bumps.

So us 'VIPs' had gotten there late, but thankfully we didn't miss any fishing, other than Angus getting a 55cm rock... Everyone else had set up tents but we decided that we'd do it after fishing.

The day started off slow for quite a few, except James who trolled up 2 or 3 bass shortly after starting. There were a few fish appearing on the sounder, but I couldn't think of any 3-4m divers to use so ignored them :laugh: I have that 1-2 and 5-10m area well covered though :laugh:

A few of us continued up into a little inlet, where fishyman hooked up to one of the biggest of the day. I still think I could have stretched yours out to win mate :P

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-Fi.jpg

Before too long Lee had hooked two bass in this inlet on a lipless crank. Heres one:

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-Le.jpg

We started to work our way back, and I was in one of the inlets near the boat ramp when it started to rain.

“Yep I’m on!†“ooo.. maybe not†“oh yep, oh noâ€Â. This little fella hit the lure pretty hard, but that was about all he did.

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-Te.jpg

I make it back before it rains too hard, and quickly put my seat in the front storage hatch... You know to save it getting wet?? :P

Anyway, I think it turns out the guys didn’t have a key for the shed, so some 'alternative' means of access were required and after some 'tweaking' we had lights. By this stage the rain had stopped so we went to go put up the VIP tent in the dark, albeit after removing all the parts from their plastic wrappings etc. (Brand new tent:P)

After dinner I noticed the moon was out and there were clear skies – perfect! Lets go for a night time yak to catch some bass :D

So James, Ash, Bretto and I head on down to the water, and jump in the yaks to begin flicking surface lures around in the hope of a few bass.

It wasn’t too long before Ash got cold feet and decided the warmth of the fire was for him, so he and James headed off, leaving just Bretto and I. It wasn’t before too long and I listen to my outback copy of the jitterbug walking along when.. swipe! Haha some action at least, didn’t feel it though :(

What’s good is at this time, it’s pretty quiet so everyone can hear the surface activity :) I paused the retrieve in a hope the bass would come back but he didn’t. We continued down the grassy edge, working the various surface lures. I think Bretto had a fizzer on at this stage. It wasn’t too much further down when swipe! Another miss, once again I left the lure there to see if he would come back but he didn’t.

Bretto looks back and points out the fog.. great it’s about to really get cold now. The moon goes behind a cloud, I flick out the jitterbug copy, begin the retrieve swipe! I leave it..... bam! Yep I’m on now, you beauty! :woohoo: Drag comes off my 4lbs custom special and I instantly know it’s a decent fish (I’m sure Kevin and dan can tell you – I’m not afraid to have a heavy drag) There’s no snags around so I ease off the drag a little, and after a nice little fight I boat a healthy look bass measuring in at 43cm total length. Time check: 10:50pm. Technically speaking, should be Saturday :P But ‘rules’ were explained to us – lucky for Malcolm!

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-3.jpg

It’s by this stage Bretto realises these jitterbug type lures are going alright, so he puts his own on. Some weird colour combination for night time, but hey, I think its all in the action and noise anyway. A bit further down we can hear some thunder – how far away is the boat ramp?? Hopefully not too far away. Being the keen eyed fisherman that I am, I was watching Brettos jitterbug walking back, keeping an eye on mine as well when BAM! Whammo, Bretto’s on, and holy crap that was a big strike. Sadly it seems Bretto was more occupied watching other bits of darkness than his lure :P so he missed a good view :( “What do you think it is, could be a small toga†I comment to Bretto, hoping to see this fish jump. Geez, that was a huge strike for a bass if it was!

This one gave him some stick, but visibly swam downwards, and ran circles around his yak and then after a nice fight this beauty was landed:

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-1.jpg

17-05-2008-HinzeDam-AFOKayakCamp-2.jpg

Double lucky for Malcolm, this fella was caught around 11:15, and went 45cm total length – a new PB for Bretto! I think this was also first time fishes on jitterbugs for both, or at least at night. First lure caught fish at night and on a jitterbug or jitterbug copy for me :) Ah well. I'm sure Malcolm will be happy with his new yak - although I'm sure Bretto wouldn't have minded:P

We make it up to the boat ramp I put my seat back into the front hatch and head up to the campsite. I busted out the camera to prove our claims of fame, all while Malcolm is saying out loud something like “oh f***!†Then it starts to pour down and we all scoot off to our various tents.

Morning breaks, and geez, it’s a bit bright in here isn’t it boys? Turns out the VIP tent fell apart during the night, the top cover was somewhere other than on the tent, Lee’s 3rd of the tent had a duck pond in one end of it and his 3rd has also collapsed on him for an extra blanket. Good thing it didn’t rain after it blew off!!

We had some food and wondered if it was worth going out for a fish. We thought Angus was out there since he wasn’t at camp, turns out he was having a snooze!

So a couple of us head up to his tent, slowly take the tent poles out, unclip them from the tent and just as the net hit him he opened his eyes and saw me :( Time to roll him up in his tent and get the hell out of there! :laugh:

We got down to the boat ramp to see that: everyone's yak and seat are drenched... but wait! I pull the scupper out of the seat area, drain the water, and pull a nice dry seat out for me to sit on :laugh:. We jumped onto the water, had a fish and sadly didn’t get anything else. Got to the boat ramp and only saw fishyman and his dad as they were getting their yaks on the roof to head off.

My Fish: 20cm and 43cm bass.

Gee those NSW mats photograph well. They are just the right size too.

Glad to see so many good fish caught after my miserable effort on Friday and the doom and gloom posts on the site about the weather.

Cheers

Ray

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maxi Newbie

maxi

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it looked terrible from where i was sitting nice and warm, thinking about you blokes getting smashed. am very happy that all had a great time with pb's broken and firsts gotten with no dramas but a wet bed and kayak seats hahahaaaaa... great read blokes.... awesome fun it seems.....

Maxi

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Rocket75 Newbie

Rocket75

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Sooo happy for you all that the Bass came to the party.

Congrats to Mal on winning the yak, and to all who caught their PB and or their first ever Bass.

I thought you may have all been blown away and drenched, but like troopers, you fished (and drank and slept) on:)

Good to see that there were some good sized animals taken, 49.5cm is a great fish for Hinze, well done Bretto.

Look forward to more details and pics emerging as attendees recover;)

Rocket

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fishyman Newbie

fishyman

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spose i should put in dads bit since he probably wont do it.

he caught 11 bass the first day, which included 9 on shrimp and 2 small ones on lures. He christend his new rod first drop with a nice 39cm only to be outdone by two 40cm later on.

day two saw him score a bit donut :(

he won a lure pack for his efforts on day one and would like to thank everyone involved

Thanks

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kriso Newbie

kriso

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i had a blast, i caught nothin but had a great time sittin round the fire sinking piss unitll it pissed down at like 11:30pm! the i found out i should put more effort into removing the rocks before i put my tent up and also take the bottle caps outa your pockects before you go to sleep hahaha dead set not even one of shultzy's bikini chicks coulda got me on the water this morning!

had a blast cheers Angus, steve &co

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