With a 5am wakeup I made my way down to the Sailing Club boatramp at Ballina on the Richmond River to meet up with a fellow yak fisher and KFDU member Dwayne.
We readied and launched our yaks; myself a Hobie Revolution and Dwayne a Hobie Pro Angler, I have seen one of these kayaks before at the Lismore Camping and Outdoor show but to see one rigged up and in use for fishing was interesting.
The plan was to head over to an area called Mobs Bay, a bay enclosed by what locals call the 'Porpoise Wall' and try and land some flathead and possibly a bream on lures.
While fishing his lure Dwayne got the life scared out of him as a small pod of resident dolphins surfaced next to him, they hung around for a while most likely allowing their calves to chase the enourmous schools of herring that were present.
Pulling up at the entrance to Mobs Bay, herring were being busted up by small Tailor which shredded our softplastics.
I ended up landing a small flathead of about 28cm on a Banana Prawn Gulp Shrimp, a short time later a 24cm Tailor ended up joining the flathead on the catch list. Changing to a Nuclear Chicken Gulp Shrimp I ended up with another flathead of 31cm on the next cast.
We ended up moving over to the back of Mobs Bay casting our plastics near the small rockwall seperating the main Bay and the minor Bay behind it.
Fishing the bank side of the wall we snagged up several times on the wall and a nearby shipwreck, but no hits or fish. So we ventured onto the river side of the wall and began to fish the sand close to the rocks. With my 3rd cast came up tight against something with some go.
Landing a flathead of 52cm influenced Dwayne who was still on the bank side to come around and try his luck.
As I released my fish his soft plastic was smashed by a 64cm flathead, after a few pics Dwayne was struggling to choose whether to keep the fish for dinner. Deciding on let such a nice fish go, the fish swam happily away.
But again another fish decided to jump on Dwayne's plastic and he decided to keep this fish, the largest of the day at 67cm.
It was at this time Dwayne received a call and decided to return to the ramp and allow his children and relatives to have a pedal on the yak, so we said our goodbyes and parted, so I continued fishing.
Peddaling to the main training wall, I fished along the rock wall with a Gulp Shrimp which proved successful with a 40cm flathead which I decided to give to some nearby fisherman who said they were down on there luck when I queried earlier.
Another few runs to no avail and I decided to leave the fishing to the others on the river.
It was a great session and I was glad I went, thanks to Dwayne for posting up the Trip Ad it was good to meet up for a fish another forum lurker!
