My new ride: Hobie Revolution and a Grunter Bream

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My new ride: Hobie Revolution and a Grunter Bream

Published on Friday, 12 February 2010 19:27

Written by Jay Penfold

My new ride arrived this morning. A red 2010 model Hobie Revolution, delivered all the way from the guys at Maclean Outdoors. From the second Doug and I unloaded it from the rooftop of his car, this boat has exceeded all my expectations. the fit and finish, the attention to detail, the colour, the build quality.

Getting 'Verus' as I have named her (after a company I'd invested in and made a Hobie's worth of proft, latin for true or real), into the water was a breeze with the heavy duty cart. I don't drive and live over a KM from the river. Lugging her through the main street of Mullumbimby certainly raised some eyebrows and made for a delayed start after answering the usual questions. Launched at the Mill Street "boat ramp" (a glorified gravel goat track) which was pretty treacherous and muddy after the heavy recent rains.

My heart pounded pretty quickly as I slid the Mirage drive into te slot and took off. Somebody described the Hobie as the "Harley Davidson of the Kayak world". First time in the saddle and thats exactly how I'd describe it. After playing around with the pedal strokes a bit, I settled into a nice solid cruise, occaisionally going for a sprint or two passing by areas that seldom held fish. I love the way this baby accelerates and gets out of the water on the short fast strokes. When under a little speed she really turns on a dime, can't wait to fit the sailing rudder.

After the recent rains I didn't really hold much hope of decent fish either, taking only minimal gear and a fair sized celebratory hangover so the fishing was pretty half arsed. So when I tossed a plastic at some bankside cover I was very surprised to find line peeling off the reel on the drop at such a huge rate of knots. I had to tighten the drag and give chase. This is where the craft came into it's own. Being able to give chase and keep what I could only assume was a Jack or Trevally. What eventually surfaced was 38 centimeters of angry Grunter Bream. Cheeky thing had tried to bust off around the the Mirage fins and did a pretty good job of torturing the 8lb fluorocarbon leader.

It did take me a while to identify this fish, At first when I saw colour I thought it was a stonking bream. Then I noticed the fish didn't have the big, rough lutjanid style teeth, and seemed just too heavy for a bream. The striking colouration of bands of blue dots was the give away, but the clincher was the very loud grunts this fish made everytime I tried to get my hand near it. The only fish to grace the yak.

I had only planned a quick trip to "the elbow", a distance of about 5km away, but got a little carried away. With the tide at my back and the wind light and variable, I kept going until I reached Brunswick heads, a return journey of 25km. I do not recommend doing such a large distance on your maiden voyage, for anyone entertaining it. I was not prepared for the distance: could have carried much more water and should have taken lunch and some extra sunscreen would have helped.

There are many things I have to improve. The first thing will be catch management. As H can tell you, catching the keep is one thing, keeping the catch is another. I am notorious for taking nice fish only to have the escape from a bag or tether or slip like soap from my hands. I have settled on using a "fridge bag" with frozen bricks in the forward hatch as a lightweight cheap and easy to clean/replace arrangement. Towing the catch in a catch bag created extra unwanted drag and probably didn't keep the fish in the best possible condition.

Tomorrow I will feel so damned sore, sunburned and tired, but nothing can wipe the smile off my face right now.