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Well, after counting down the days to the weekend, the time to hit the water in my brand spanking new Espri had come. I had prepared everything the night before because I had a full morning of work to do before being released by SWMBO.
I tied it on to the roof of my car three times. First time it was off centre and the back of the seat well was hitting the roof of my car. The second time it was positioned right but still felt a bit loose. So I undid it all again, put the straps through the grab rails and tightened the ratchets. Now I was ready to go. Put everything into the car, rod check, water check, SP's check, life jacket check, spare change of clothes check, towel check, wife came out and interrupted me with child. I then went and got changed ready to go. One last final check before my mate arrives to make sure I've got everything and there it is my paddle sitting on top of the trailer, lucky!
Kristian arrives and I can't wait to get there. So we are off, from my place we get straight onto the motorway so there isn't much time for a slow speed build up to make sure that kayak will stay on at 100 km/h. Everything holds tight and we arrive at our destination safely.
It was very windy today so we chose to go to our usual spot in the Logan where we take my tinny. Plenty of sheltered spaces to get out of the wind. Launched at about 12:30 PM. My mate says that he has checked the tide guide and it is high tide at 12:30. The logan is about 90 minutes behind so I am thinking that high tide will be here shortly. As we get on the kayaks for my maiden voyage I am looking around thinking, geez it must be a very low high tide. So from the boat ramp we head straight across the creek to get to the deeper channel but we hit a sandbar running across the creek blocking our path. Not wanting to get off my kayak (only just got on it) we decide to back track and go what is no right at the ramp. Paddle, cast, paddle, cast, woohoo had a little flattie follow my SP right back to the kayak but no hook up. Paddle, cast, paddle, cast. Get to the end of this section of the river another dirty great big sandbank, totally exposed, can't get through to the deeper channel. Turn around and head back.
Paddled all the way back past the ramp and around to our normal spot when we are in my tinny. In the wind a bit here getting blown around a bit. Stop on sandbank to remove beer that I spilt from under my seat. Change of lure also, on goes a 3" minnow powerbait in pumpkinseed. Too windy here so go over to little island in middle of creek. First cast with new SP nothing, second cast, I'm on. I yelled out to Kristian to come over and take some photos. Took me so long to get the glove on and finger in its mouth, I was sure he was going to bite through the 8lb mono I was using. But it all worked out. He was just legal at 41 cms but released him as we were not fishing for a feed today. By the time we had released him we were blown about 50 metres from where I caught him.
Paddled back to the spot and said to Kristian. I think it is dead on low tide not high tide. He says yeah I was thinking the same thing. Then he says todays the 15th isn't it. No it's the 22nd was my reply. That'd explain it then. He read last weekends tide's instead of this weekends. Not that it mattered to us.
Five minutes later Kristian had a similar sized flattie at the side of his kayak but as I paddled over to him he managed to spit the hook and gain his freedom, which we would have given him anyway. Paddled around a bit more and then headed back for the ramp. Headed home at 4PM.
A nice enjoyable first paddle and managed to christen my Espri with a (just) legal flattie, stoked!
Sorry for the long post.
I tied it on to the roof of my car three times. First time it was off centre and the back of the seat well was hitting the roof of my car. The second time it was positioned right but still felt a bit loose. So I undid it all again, put the straps through the grab rails and tightened the ratchets. Now I was ready to go. Put everything into the car, rod check, water check, SP's check, life jacket check, spare change of clothes check, towel check, wife came out and interrupted me with child. I then went and got changed ready to go. One last final check before my mate arrives to make sure I've got everything and there it is my paddle sitting on top of the trailer, lucky!
Kristian arrives and I can't wait to get there. So we are off, from my place we get straight onto the motorway so there isn't much time for a slow speed build up to make sure that kayak will stay on at 100 km/h. Everything holds tight and we arrive at our destination safely.
It was very windy today so we chose to go to our usual spot in the Logan where we take my tinny. Plenty of sheltered spaces to get out of the wind. Launched at about 12:30 PM. My mate says that he has checked the tide guide and it is high tide at 12:30. The logan is about 90 minutes behind so I am thinking that high tide will be here shortly. As we get on the kayaks for my maiden voyage I am looking around thinking, geez it must be a very low high tide. So from the boat ramp we head straight across the creek to get to the deeper channel but we hit a sandbar running across the creek blocking our path. Not wanting to get off my kayak (only just got on it) we decide to back track and go what is no right at the ramp. Paddle, cast, paddle, cast, woohoo had a little flattie follow my SP right back to the kayak but no hook up. Paddle, cast, paddle, cast. Get to the end of this section of the river another dirty great big sandbank, totally exposed, can't get through to the deeper channel. Turn around and head back.
Paddled all the way back past the ramp and around to our normal spot when we are in my tinny. In the wind a bit here getting blown around a bit. Stop on sandbank to remove beer that I spilt from under my seat. Change of lure also, on goes a 3" minnow powerbait in pumpkinseed. Too windy here so go over to little island in middle of creek. First cast with new SP nothing, second cast, I'm on. I yelled out to Kristian to come over and take some photos. Took me so long to get the glove on and finger in its mouth, I was sure he was going to bite through the 8lb mono I was using. But it all worked out. He was just legal at 41 cms but released him as we were not fishing for a feed today. By the time we had released him we were blown about 50 metres from where I caught him.
Paddled back to the spot and said to Kristian. I think it is dead on low tide not high tide. He says yeah I was thinking the same thing. Then he says todays the 15th isn't it. No it's the 22nd was my reply. That'd explain it then. He read last weekends tide's instead of this weekends. Not that it mattered to us.
Five minutes later Kristian had a similar sized flattie at the side of his kayak but as I paddled over to him he managed to spit the hook and gain his freedom, which we would have given him anyway. Paddled around a bit more and then headed back for the ramp. Headed home at 4PM.
A nice enjoyable first paddle and managed to christen my Espri with a (just) legal flattie, stoked!
Sorry for the long post.
