Landed Three Snapper today - A small trip report

[Graeme_Hird]

As promised earlier, I said I'd post a pic of some fish once I had photographic proof that snapper will take flies. I got three small ones today, so here's the story of my trip.

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I went out onto Cockburn Sound (in Western Australia) this morning in my kayak hoping to capitalise on the strong winds we had earlier in the week. Rumour has it that winds blow the fish in …

Anyway, I got up really early and launched at about 4.30, hoping to find the fish quickly. As it turns out, I should have slept-in until about 5.30. At around 6.30 (still too dark to fly fish for me), I came across a sniff of midsized fish on the sounder and turned the yak back to drop my SP onto the school. On the first drop, the line started peeling off the spinning outfit in that characteristic snapper hit I'm used to seeing. I flicked the bail arm over and laid into the fish on the 20lb outfit I was using. After about 20 seconds, the leader knot slipped. I'm not going to spell out the words that followed my leader away from the yak …

I tied a new leader on and dropped another SP down on the spin outfit, but the fish had wised up to the fact that this bit of plastic may not be a tasty meal after all. They were there, and they were following my SP down to the bottom, but they just didn't want anything to do with it.

Given that is was getting light enough that I didn't need a glowing SP any longer, I felt it was time to drop a fly onto these fish. I wound in the SP and laid out the sinking fly line. Once I found the fish again, I hit them with the fly, letting it drift down.


[color=font-size:9pt]The fly: a chartreuse on white Clouser with white lead eyes

It didn't take long for these fish - which were by now filling my sounder's screen - to decide: THIS is more like a meal!!! Whack! The rod's tip speared into below the surface and the line thrummed as it moved sideways through the water. I knew I was near a reef, so I was determined not to let the fish have any ground. I gripped the spool as hard as I dared, stopping the fish in its tracks. On the rebound, I was able to claw back line in readiness for its next run. I didn't need to wait long for that, either. Once again the fish dived for the rocks and, as before, I refused to give line. (With a 20lb tippet, I could really give the fish heaps on the 9wt outfit.) In less than 2 minutes, I had the fish up on the surface and subdued. Seeing it was "only small" at around 60cm and that he was very well hooked, I didn't bother with a net and just lifted him in by the leader.

After dispatching and storing the fish, I saw the school had stayed below me, so I quickly dropped the fly back down. Immediately, I was rewarded with another taught line and plunging rod tip as a fish took the fly without any hesitation. Once again, I palmed the spool hard to stop any line pulling out. Again, after a short battle, the smallish (56cm) fish came alongside the yak and I lifted it in by the leader.

I had my bag limit now, but the fish were still around, so I cast the fly back out a few more times. Again, a solid take had me palming the reel and dragging a fish to the surface. This one was lucky he had two greedier friends, and without lifting him from the water, I released the ~60cm fish by flipping the fly out with the pliers. It was turning into a great morning of fishing, and it had all happened in about 30 minutes.

I once again flicked the fly out, and several casts later, I had the last hookup of the morning. Unfortunately, I pulled the hook on this one, but by now, it was time for me to head off anyway.

I had certainly had my best morning of fly fishing ever, landing three fish that Eastern-Staters would be proud of. It's a great feeling landing a fish on a fly I had made myself. I just need that Sage reel I'm waiting on to make the experience even more pleasurable.


[color=font-size:9pt]The two fish I kept and the equipment that did the damage.[/color]


[color=font-size:9pt]A couple of good family meals there.[/color]

Cheers,
Graeme[/color]

[Jeroen]

Great fish, congrats!

[scotty9]

Awesome Fishing from a kayak is definitely on my to-do list, just can't afford one right now!

[Gallah]

Nice fish mate.

I had no luck at all on the weekend (fishing from the shore), which is turning into a bad habit recently. I got one small trout last week in the mountains, but have been coming up empty in the salt the last three trips. I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but I'm out of ideas. Can't even pick up a flathead.

Were you fishing the tides, or just early in the morning?

[Graeme_Hird]

Just the change of light. I find the fish here react much more to that than tides, although a do prefer a rising low tide. However, our tides here in Perth are tiny by comparison to many in the world (range is usually about 0.7m) and we usually only have one high and one low in a 24 hour period.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Gallah]

I've always found they react better to the changing light too, but whatever book I read or DVD I watch, they're always banging on about the tides as if it was the be-all-and-end-all.

I'd go as far to say that I virtually catch nothing in the middle of the day, even with tidal movements.

[Graeme_Hird]

I've always found they react better to the changing light too, but whatever book I read or DVD I watch, they're always banging on about the tides as if it was the be-all-and-end-all.

I'd go as far to say that I virtually catch nothing in the middle of the day, even with tidal movements.

I wouldn't go that far myself. I have caught plenty of snapper here in the middle of the day, but it is harder work. Generally, if I can find them, I can catch them (regardless of the time of day). However, it's harder to find them in the middle of the day.

cheers,
Graeme

[Paul Arden]

Fantastic stuff Graeme, I'm guessing they pull hard on the flyrod

Interesting using the echo sounder. Makes sense! I've had little experience of this. How reliable is it as a fish finder? I have one on my sail boat on a lake here but it only tells me depth.

Cheers, Paul

[Gallah]

Just out of curiosity, what was the fishing technique? Did you cast and retrieve, or was it just dangling the fly at the right depth?

[Graeme_Hird]

Fantastic stuff Graeme, I'm guessing they pull hard on the flyrod

Interesting using the echo sounder. Makes sense! I've had little experience of this. How reliable is it as a fish finder? I have one on my sail boat on a lake here but it only tells me depth.

Cheers, Paul

Ooh, yeah, they pull hard alright. Not as hard as a tuna or queenie though. The difference is that I can get these launching 10 minutes from home, whereas the tuna and queenies are more than a day's drive away.

The sounder is essential equipment for me. The model I have is the Humminbird 798cxi HD SI, which means it has side imaging plus a regular, downwards-looking sonar. That lets me see fish up to 50m each side of me as I travel along in addition to anything beneath me. A school of big snapper looks like this on that SI system:



If I move the cursor onto that speckled blob and hit "Go To", the sounder's GPS guides me onto the spot. It's sight fishing, but using ultrasound to see with. (I'll post an image of the fish when they are below me later.)

As far as the technique goes, I like to find the fish and cast onto them, but sometimes I pass right over the top of the school. When that happens, there's no point casting anywhere, so I perform something like a roll cast without the forecast. That brings the fly to me but I let it sink rather than flick it out.

They nearly always hit the fly/lure on the drop. Something about a morsel drifting slowy down triggers their reaction and they hit it hard. There is nothing subtle about their takes!

cheers,
Graeme

[Gallah]

Great info here. How can you tell how deep they are? And how do you know it's fish and not a clump of seaweed or something?

[Graeme_Hird]

Great info here. How can you tell how deep they are? And how do you know it's fish and not a clump of seaweed or something?

The white dots are the fish, the dark dots next to them are the shadows of the fish on the bottom. That tells me they are close to the bottom and the water here is 9.5m deep.

How do I know they are fish? Experience ....

cheers,
Graeme

[Sudesh]

Hi Graeme...

Great going. Some really nice sized snapper and I am sure they were tasty too :p .

Always thought that fly fishing off the kayak will be difficult. Tried it once in Kenya but battled with line management. How do you manage your line on board?

Thanks
Sudesh

[James de P]

Nice brace there Graeme! Great scrappers and tasty too.

Really interested in your use of the fish finder, and amazed at how compact the side scan system is now, would love to see some more screen shots.

Is it a matter of trial and error working out what is structure and what is fish, or is it fairly evident. The shot you posted was interesting. The "shadow" is quite defined, which I guess you wouldn't get with a bommie or something?

Thanks.

James.

[Graeme_Hird]

Yep, fly fishing from a kayak has certainly presented a few hairy problems for me, given that I'm new to fly fishing. Line management was one problem, as was learning to cast a heavy clouser on a sinking line from a sitting position!

To manage my line, I have two solutions. My preferred one is to sit sideways with both feet in the water. From this position, I can easily strip the running line into the water where it sits nicely. The other method is to utilise a stripping mat I made from a floor mat and cable ties (see below.)



Onto some more screen shots of the fish: this first one shows what the fish look like when I travel directly over them. These fish are BIG (in the 90cm to 100cm range). How do I know? I caught one of them … They didn't show up on the side imaging because they were too close to my line of travel.



Interpreting structure on the side imaging doesn't take long to get a handle on. The one below shows a school of baitfish to my left (and a little to the right) and a bank of rocks sloping towards me on the right. The very bottom right is where the rock wall breached the surface. The upper left is a down image replicating the regular sonar shown in the upper right.



The one below is a ship-launching ramp. It really shows how well the down imaging works for structure (it's hopeless to show fish, so I rarely use it when chasing snapper.)



Cheers,
Graeme