Surface Snapper

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Surface Snapper

Published on Saturday, 13 August 2011 14:07

Written by Stuart Whitehouse

For various reasons I have not been fishing offshore anywhere near as much as I would like to, one reason being that conditions were not always suitable but... you get that. This week however, I managed to get out twice. The first trip was a short, pre work, trip with friend Greg (Hardplastic) who had to be at work by 8.30. As I drive to the boat ramp at Kings Beach I always pass a school which has one of those digital themometer/clock combos. It said 6 degrees. Damn, and this area is classed as sub-tropical?

I would have stayed out much longer in the calm conditions but the souwester just cut me in two, and even my 5 layers of clothing were not sufficient to keep me warm. Once you get cold out on the water it's pretty difficult to get warm again if the clothing you wore let you get cold in the 1st place. In total I was on the water for about 1.5 hrs including launching and landing so, maybe an hour of actual fishing.

There were plenty of fish showing on the sounder but they didn't seem to want to play the game. With so much bait around I was thinking that they were perhaps, a little too well fed already. Reports from other local yakfishers had been that it had been quiet and just the odd 1 or 2 snapper being caught here and there. Anything is better than a donut in my view. For my 1 hour of fishing I landed 2 legal snapper but, as is my usual custom, I only kept the one that measured over 40cms.

The following day I managed another trip with a different companion, Brian (paddleparra) who met me for a late start at about 8.30. Again we launched from the kings beach ramp and Brian used his AI polynesian style with one outrigger and no mast. The water was notably cleaner this day (11-08-11) and again, there seemed to be plenty of bait around. Like the previous day there were very few birds and no surface activity. The temperature was notably warmer due to the overcast conditions.

We had light winds which picked up to about 10 to 15knots as a change came through but dropped off again later. by lunch time it was almost windless and it had glassed off nicely. We had caught various undersized species and Brian was ahead of me with 2 keepers in the bag. About midday, brian was almost out of earshot when I spotted a snapper of about 6 to 8kg hitting bait on the surface. Having just wound my line up I was ready to cast immediately.

I felt certain that there would be more than one predator hitting this bait school so, within a second or two of seeing the snapper I launched my soft plastic in it's general direction, obviously not expecting to nail the big one but quietly confident that I would get something. It had barely hit the water when WHAM! I was hooked up. The wind picked up briefly and blew me at an odd angle and most of the fight as done with rod in water and line under the yak. I landed a nice health specimen at about 50cm fork length.

This fish punched well about it's weight and had me thinking that I had actually hooked a big one, like the one I had seen on the surface. I battled to keep it from getting to the bottom as it repeatedly stripped line from my 10lb outfit. All in all I think the this fish put up almost as good a fight as this one captured in June of last year.

The fish had been finicky all day and only seemed to favour the smaller plastics. I went through quite an assortment but landed the 50cm model on a 3 inch shrimp that I had picked up from Anaconda sometime ago for $4/pk. They looked similar to the Berkley nuclear chicken colour but very glossy and a little slimey to the touch. Water temp was about 19 degrees and pretty clean and these fish were hitting the surface in about 50 feet of water. I am guessing the overcast conditions worked in our favour. The moon was Waxing Gibbous 95% full.

With more good conditions forecast next week I am planning a couple more trips if the forecast holds. The fish are there, and there are plenty of them. It's just a matter of finding something to peak their interest.

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