I woke to my alarm, it was early, really early, 5:30 am early. Why am I awake? Why is my alarm going off? It's not a work day! 
I looked out the window, it was dark, it was foggy and I reckon it was fairly cold.
Several thoughts skipped through my head until the right one was grasped, 'it's Saturday! Big Day Out on the Yak, fishing.' I got out of bed.
The car was already packed so I threw the Yak on to the YTV, grabbed my travel mug of Columbia's' best and set off.
The shop on the way to my launch spot was not open yet, no problems, there is one more i pass, I hope they sell bait. Lucky they did but didn't have much in the way of food so my lunch was going to be 2 Turkish delights and some chicken flavoured Shapes. I had enough drinks already.
I launched at 7:06 am, a bit later than I wanted.
It took me over 2 hours to reach my favourite fishing spot, about 11 km from where i launched. I was paddling about 3.5-4 knots on the way there and thanks to no wind and a favourable swell about 4-5 knots on the way home.
I was there at last and so many fishy spots, so many i have never fished when being land based in the past.
I anchored up using my new anchor system, and cast a prawn. Instant bites but nothing big.
Re-bait and cast again. WHACK! Big but no hook up. Another prawn and BAM!! I'm on. No point winding in, this fish is taking line.
- I was thinking about KG's so much i forgot about the local Skippys.
I didn't have a measure on me but the two long sides of the Environet are 40cm and the short side is about 36cm.
I'm using a Shimano sonic pro 692 2 piece graphite rod, 4-6kg. (7ft 2 piece and NOT whippy. I bought this rod recently to target KG whiting. I don't care what the Pro's say, I know what catches bait sucking KG's, 30cm leader max and a rod that lets you feel the slightest suck, ie: NOT whippy) I have a Shimano Sienna 4000FD reel with 4 kg braid, Line System 4.5 kg (10lb) fluorocarbon leader because I love this stuff. I had the drag set just right, which means it was nearly too tight for what I expected.
I was a bit slow in releasing this Skippy, he did survive though, so i think all his mates had nicked off. Then.... BAM!! BAM!! Now this has the right feeling, KG feeling.
Up comes a beautiful 40cm + KG..
So there are fish her, great, i up anchored and moved to my next spot. Prawn and BAM!! another KG.
Next spot, prawn BAM!! KG. None were as big as the first 40-45cm kg but all were over 35cm. I got a measure on my way home,
I tried another 2 spots with the same result, nice KG's.
I didn't want to paddle home into a SW so i left about 12 pm and paddled outside the reef and to my surprise the water was glassy and i could count the grains of sand from 15 m. It took me the same time, about 2hrs 15 min, to get home but I didn't paddle anywhere near as hard.
I got back to Cockburn Sound to accompany a dolphin for a while.
All up i paddled about 23km today, which is why its taken me 4 hours to write this lol, I keep falling asleep.
Here are some pic's of my yak.
Its the only yak I have paddled and i love it. Heaps of in hull storage, could do with a few more pockets apart from the ones beside my feet.
Stand by for pic's of my sounder install next weekend.
- Huge FWD compartment means lots of FWd boyancy. I will go surfing soon, test it out. No submarining here. hehehe
- My new anchor system, simple, cheap, adjustable for depth and floating. PM me if you cant figure it out.
