So off I went at 7:30am, pedalling towards Burnside. The calm wind made the pedal to Burnside so much easier and in no time I reached the north end of Burnside.
I began casting a small popper near some bommies and on the 4th casts, the popper was smashed by a fish! Fish ON! Reeled the fish in and it was a nice Queenfish. Not very big but gave a good fight.
Pedalled back to the spot and began casting again. As I was popping the lure back, a big fish jumped at the lure but missed it, instead it caught a bit of the braid line and zoomed past me! I quickly reeled in line and with another leap, it untangled itself. That action got my heart racing! Further casts yielded nothing. I moved to another side of the bommie and began popping again. Again, I saw a few fish follow the popper back to the kayak but were not keen on taking it. So I slowed down my popping sequence. Pop-pop-long pause..... this time, the fish hit the lure when it was stationary! Fish ON! Reeled the fish in and it was another Brassy Trevally. The popper nicely lodged in its mouth!
Things quietened down after that so I proceeded to the south end of Burnside. Again, I cast lures of all types the whole day until after lunch and there were not takers.
Switched back to the baitcaster and rigged up a jighead with a red-tailed paddle tail. Bottom bouncing the jig got me a few bites but whenever I try to set the hook, I'd come up empty. Reeled back to check the soft plastic, and the red tail has been bitten off! Put on another paddle tail and same thing happen. Felt the nibbles and reeled back to find missing section of the tail. I lost about 5 soft plastics due to these nibbles and missing tails. I'm guessing there must be some fish with sharp teeth down there that has a fancy for the red tail section of the soft plastic.
Was on my 2nd last soft plastic when I felt a slight bump on the jighead. Didn't feel like the last few nibbles that I had and the line became slightly slack. I started to reel in a bit when suddenly the rod loaded up and I could feel a fish at the end of the line. Reeled and reeled and finally the fish surfaced. It was another Queenfish! Reeled him to the side of the kayak to take some underwater video. After I finished video-ing the fish, just as I was going to lift him out onto my kayak, the fish flapped around and the hook fell off! Fish swam away....... Luckily I had some video of him!
Some screen captures from the video
In the midst of the unexpected hookup, I apparently forgot to strike to set the hook into the fish. This was the reason the fish could throw the hook at the end of the fight. Oh well, at least he's on video!
Had a few more hits on the soft plastic but didn't get any proper hookups. Switched back to tossing stickbaits, poppers and lures. Cast until arms were aching! Saw a baitfish school just nearby and pedalled there quickly. Tossed poppers and stickbaits at the edge of the school but nothing seems interested. Drifted back to the bommies and cast out my Crystal Minnow once again. 3 reels and a fish jumped on the lure. I was caught unaware and was slow to reel. The fish dashed straight down into some rocks and had me snagged. I free-spooled the reel and waited. A minute later, I gave a yank and felt the fish free! Quickly reeled but the fish had me snagged again on some structure near the surface. I pulled and the braid snapped! Darn it! I could still see my white/red lure just under the surface and I quickly pedalled there only to find the fish swimming down into the depths, with my lure in tow...............
Tied a new Crystal Minnow on and began trolling again. Went up and down the stretch about 5 times again with no hits. The other anglers caught some small Barracuda, Queenfish, Groupers, Longtoms and other fish. Nothing big was biting today.
With that last bit of action and the skies turning grey, I began pedalling back. Light rain began just as I reached the north end of Burnside and the wind picked up. Seas became choppy and swells were forming. Made the channel crossing in real windy conditions and we were supposed to beach the kayaks at the boat mooring beach. Just so happens that when we reached the beach, it was low tide and we had to beach the kayaks and drag it about 30m up to and above the high tide line. This is so that we can put the kayaks back on the boat for transport back to Exmouth tomorrow. I could manage the Outback on my own because I didn't have much gear on it. But those Pro Angler kayaks were really heavy, especially if they were fully kitted with stuff and gear. Takes 2 persons to carry it up to the tide line!
I spotted some mini crabs at the sand flats where we were beaching the kayaks. They looked kinda cute with their purple backs and orange feet/claws.
Once we had all the kayaks beached, Jim arrived on the ATV to bring our fishing gear back to the House while we walked back. It was a tiring walk back, especially after a whole day of pedalling on the kayak.
Had a cold beer once we reached the House and I went for a shower. The rain became heavier just as I started showering. The rain just continued and we had to have our dinner indoors instead. A bloke named Steve, whom I found out later was the owner of the tackle shop I bought my lures from, came over to the Island on his boat to help with loading the kayaks for the trip back to Exmouth tomorrow. While we were at Burnside, he took Brett and his wife fishing at another location and they managed to catch a very big Snapper. John also contributed a few Mangrove Jacks he caught in the mangroves for dinner.
After dinner, it was time to see who won the 'privilege' of wearing the pink dress for topping the 'Wall of Shame'. I managed to gather 7 points (from losing lures) and the majority were in the 10-15 points range for things like breaking someone else's rod (10pts), breaking the MirageDrive (5pts), inflating your own PFD accidently (3pts), losing a fish grip with the fish attached (3pts), crossing someone's fishing line (1pt), breaking House rules (1pt). After tallying up the points, the 'winner' was Scott Coghlan! Lots of banter and the alcohol was flowing very freely! It was a hilarious night to end the fishing trip!
Lounged around after dinner hoping that the rain would stop but noooo....... it just continued! So had to head back to the cabin in the rain and dry off before sleeping.
The plan for tomorrow was to start early (as the weather forecast was predicting worse weather by afternoon), pack up all our stuff and have it ready for Jim to bring to the boat mooring using the ATV. Then we'll walk to the boat mooring to load the kayaks onto the 2 boats and head back to Exmouth.
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