The plan was to try and help Gary catch a Cobia or maybe a snapper, so we headed out to the front of the headland and tried to find some yakka (yellowtail)/slimey (slimey mackerel) schools, so we could get us some livebaits.
On the way out to the headland, a pod of small Mack Tuna started to bust up next to me as I fumbled around for my camera in the hull. As luck would have it my rod wasn’t rigged up and by the time I had it rigged the school had moved about 600m North, regrettably I left them to catch up with Gary who had started to jig around a large school or what turned out to be a mix of yakkas and slimies.
After gathering a few baits, we rigged them for trolling and we set off in search of some reef to send down some plastics too.After about 6kms of reef searching we headed back into the shore around the base of the headland where there was more baitfish activity.
I rigged my new Team Daiwa Tierra rod up with a 3in plastic and started to cast it into the wash of the headland, this resulted in several strikes and hookups but each time the fish spat the hook.
Moving into a whitewashed alcove in the rocks, my plastic was bricked by something big, taking line at a fast pace while I tried to palm the spool of my little 2000 size reel to drag whatever it was I had hooked out of the rocks. After a while some colour appeared and there was what I thought were a school of salmon chasing my hooked fish (I also thought this was a salmon) and several other fish flipped out of the way of the net just in time as I netted my fish.
It was at this time I had landed a kingfish! Woo I yelled out and Gary made his way over to me. After a measure and photo I let the little bruiser go back to his mates who could be seen 6m below in the clear, blue water.
We fished this spot for about another 30minutes before we decided to move along the headland North, where we didn’t catch anything else but amused looks from some spectators on the shore, especially when I jumped out of my kayak to land into “2ft of water” which ended up being 6ft of water!
Later on whilst packing away our gear, Gary helped me identify the fish as an Amberjack not the Kingfish I thought it was, as it had sort of a keel on the tail wrist; something a Kingfish does not have and a stubbier nose.
Thankyou to Gary for putting up with me for the day and I’m sorry we didn’t catch many fish (besides the endless numbers of those yellow bait fish) and I hope it was better fishing for you during your holiday in the Northern Rivers.
