There was a frost this morning … by the sea. Now THAT’s cold. Any thought that there may be fish on the chew was a sign of desperate optimism. So it was that I sought to prove my desperation. After fuelling the engine with leftover tortellini, I loaded the Adventure and headed to Local No 4 at slovenly hour (being two hours after gentlemen’s hour). I figured that the bright sunshine may take the chill out of the lake and the lockjaw out of the fish.
My sounder told me it was 11oC at 11am. That was with my hull in bright sunshine. Who was I kidding? The wind was blowing about 5 knots from the NW. The northern shoreline would be the go.
I was astonished to see two other kayakers flicking mist as they cast a km away … in MY local. How dare they. No toll, no submissions in triplicate, not even so much as an ‘if it pleases you sire’. I headed straight for them to check if their passports were stamped. The wind changes to SW half way there, the optimum worst wind for the lake. I trolled an sx48 at high speed as I travelled the km or so across to my honey pot, that was already stuffed with twenty sticky fingers.
They turned out to be two locals from Kianga (no visa required). They told me that they fish the lake often. Dave was one, but I missed the name of his mate. Dave peruses AKFF but has never joined. They had had some success tossing cheap blades around the dropoff. Dave had a nice 40cm bream and a few smaller models. He was getting hits at regular intervals. His mate had done somewhat better, closer to the northern bank. After exchanging local information, particularly about snapper reef locations (as if that would be of any use to me) I pedalled off to give he and his quarry some peace.
I settled into drifting and flicking my G5IJSCLICPN at various points of the dropoff. Other than a few tiny touches, I had no action for the first hour. I headed to the shallows of the northern shore, brightly lit by the dazzling winter sun. It was the first time I’ve seen the bottom in this section. It was peppered with nipper holes and flathead lies, but there wasn’t a fish to be seen nor felt. Another hour passed, Dave and his mate departed for a lap of the western shore, but not before a sea eagle showed us the ropes by plucking a fish from the waters no more than 30m from us.
I was left by myself, pondering how little a cloudless sky and a winter sun can warm a South Coast lake. The shallows had by now increased to 12 oC.
It had glassed out. I could see the occasional boil back near the dropoff. The water is devoid of mullet, so bream were the likely culprits. Maybe my snapper plastics were finally scaring them rather than luring them as they should. Maybe it was time to turn to Squidgy wrigglers instead. Nah! After all, I was targeting flathead. If I had thought more carefully then I would have switched to bream lures to give myself a greater chance of a flathead bycatch.
By 1pm, all alone on the glassy surface, a hundred casts down and yet to have a decent touch, I had to accept the inevitable. After a lifetime of having but two doughnuts, I was about to score my third in a row. It serves me right for masquerading briefly as a kayak fisherman in the heady month of May. I munched on some cheese and biscuits while contemplating an early retreat.
But I continued to follow the subtle boils. The dropoff just wasn’t working for me. I headed past it into the shallows to the east, fishing 1.5m to a clearly visible bottom. I began to get the tiniest taps, barely perceptible through 20m of taught braid. A set of taps led to barely noticeable weight. I struck.
Whooooshka!
Tight line peeled from the Ci4. The ferocity of the initial run told me flathead. I backed off the drag a couple of clicks to counter the flathead psychosis than ran rife through this lake. A powerful battle led to a boil about 20m away. The colour was difficult to identify, masked by the tannins. The fight was solid and consistent, too consistent for a flathead. Sure enough the second rise confirmed a bream, a typically large specimen. What followed was perhaps the stiffest fight I’ve yet had from the kayak. It spied the ivory dune hull and went berserk. It headed straight under me, bowing the rod tip into the water and tapping the underwater hull. I was quick enough to raise the Mirage fins, but the rudder remained an obstacle worth fearing. I somehow managed to keep it clear until the Bream changed direction. It surface again and my heart missed a beat.
It was huge.
The bream in this lake have never ceased to amaze me. This one went past amazement to astonishment. It was broad, round and oh so fat. Now spent it was lazily snaking just below the surface, but my 2kg outfit just seemed incapably of lifting it to the net. Surely I wouldn’t lose it now. I needed a measure. Finally, I thrutched it into the net.
It was virtually impossible to lift and balance it one handed for the photo. Instead, I laid it across my lap like the snapper it deserved to be. It lay their motionless as if to soak up the thawing rays. I was sure it was the mythical half a metre of bream.
It took me four measures to prove it wasn’t. In fact it was no bigger than my previous PB of 47cm. Length really is no substitute for weight. This was a much bigger fish than my PB, just not in the one statistic I could confirm. I managed to hold it one handed without popping a bicep, then released it with gratitude.
I returned to the shallows from which I’d drifted. A few more subtle taps raised the blood pressure. A couple of flicks and it got smashed on the drop. A more typical fight and another bream was subdued. At a mere 40cm it was a comparative tiddler, less than average for these waters as astonishing as that is.
I spent another 30 minutes or so flicking in the shallows. I dropped another two, and disturbed a bull shark mimicking bream foraging near the surface. A was satisfied. It was time to depart.
I took the chance to gain a bit of fitness. The wind had since swung through NE to SE. I decided to paddle rather than pedal my return diagonally into the wind. My lungs filled with crisp, satisfying sea air. Eagles soared and my mind soared with them. I dared to dream and my dreams dared with me. Like brooding winter bream, doughnuts only come in pairs.
