I have wanted to catch snappers for several years now but never got around to do some research on the species behaviour and go target them. For quite a while, I was mainly doing landbased fishing. Then I got my first kayak but was only fishing inshore. You can find Australian Snappers in estuaries but most of the time they are juveniles specimen.
I have tried offshore fishing several times but never got very lucky. I think the extra freedom offered by the kayak although is an advantage can also be a problem because I tend to explore too much and go to many new areas instead of scrutinising just a few. But I enjoy the outdoors and discovering new places so catching a fish or not is not important.
I met Ben at the Wu Xing Dao Kung Fu class and he is also a keen kayak fisherman. We went on Saturday morning off Pearl Beach heading towards Lion Island. 5.40 the alarm rang and I went prepping the gears. It was very foggy outside.
After about 25 minutes drive, I got to the location and Ben and I pulled our kayaks to the beach.
The sea was super calm all week and launching was smooth. At the point, Ben caught a nice Tailor, then we headed towards the island.
We spent a lot of time around the Island but could not catch anything but tiny things. So we decided to go back and try our luck for some Flatheads. Ben caught three of them I think but two jumped out of his net. So he ended the day with two nice fish.
The best I could get that day was this undersized Snapper.
It was a lovely day out on the water with a mate.
The next morning, I woke at 4, before the alarm that was set at 5.30 am but I just stayed in bed trying in vain to fall back asleep. I decided to go to Norah Head trying my luck for a bigger Snapper. The cloud formation was amazing today.
It was a tad colder than the day before but as the sun went higher in the sky it was getting very warm. I pedalled my Hobie Revolution 11 towards the bommie, the sky was cluttered with patches of clouds making it very dramatic.
As I got midway to the bommie, I noticed the bottom of the ocean was rising suddenly and then dropped off again. Must be a reef or some kind of structure and then, arches appeared on the sounder, fish!
So I quickly dropped a Snapper rig with cubes of frozen Pilchards, few minutes later my reel was hissing. It was big! I managed to bring it up and it was my first ever legal Australians Snapper at 47cm.
I was stoked! I tried to catch some more but without a GPS plotter, I couldn’t come back to the mark as I was drifting and wasted some precious time. I will have to remember to bring my handheld GPS or upgrade my fishfinder with one that has a built-in plotter.
It was a great weekend and it’s now time to cook the fish 🐟😊