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Saturday morning arrived and I had successfully negotiated with the missus to have the car all day (a very rare occurence, as it would interfere with her going shopping). :wink:
Loaded up the Yak and all the gear, then headed off to the beautiful Huon River to launch. Only about a 30 minute drive, but an enjoyable one as the countryside is very pretty. I got to the ramp, kitted up the Yak and took her to the water's edge, the water was flat and pristine with that tanine colour it is known for. The prospects of a fish were good, a guy fishing from the pontoon next to the boat ramp pointed out a large Brown Trout swimming about just under his feet, it looked about 50 to 60 cm long. He had just caught a 1.5 kg Brown from the same spot. My confidence grew.
My plan was to pedall up for a while and then come back down with the current casting into some of the overhangs and skinny water on the way back. I cast off and pedalled up stream for about 2 hours trolling RMG Scorpians and a coulpe of different SX40s, only stopping to change colours a couple of times after chatting to a couple of guys in stinkboats about what was working for them and answering the curious questions about how a Hobie worked. A very friendly mob on the water that day and very curtious about water sharing too. 8)
After 2 hours of heading up stream and passsing a few likely spots and small off shoots of the river I decided it was time to head back down stream slowly. The conditions on the river were still fantastic, I could see fish chasing small Baitfish in towards the banks of the river and see them tailing around the edges. I reeled in the trolling rig when suddenly the line went taut, far too taut to be a fish, I had snagged on a submerged log, stupidly I used the weight on the line to turn me around abit. TWANG went the line and the baitcaster reel's spool sudenely turned into an incredible bird's nest, 10 minutes of playing with it and I still couldn't sort out the tangle, so I decided to pack it into the hatch on just work with the spinning outfit on my journey back. I was going to do this anyway.
Working my way back down the river, I cast in towards a large rock on the river's edge, a notorious haunt of some very large resident Brown's. The cast I thought was perfect the Lure landed just short of the rock, I started to retrieve and noticed the lure was swimming a bit oddly from the feel of the rod. Then I looked at the rod tip, or rather where the rod tip should have been, the last 2 inches of the tip were missing and I had discovered why the lure was swimming oddly. Sure enough on retrieving the lure the tip was there just infront of the SX40, that looked just like the little baitfish I saw getting chased earlier.
I retireved the tip and decided I would still enjoy my time on the water, so I pedalled slowly back down the river taking in the wonder around me, trolling a SX40 on a handline. What? You didn't think I was going to let not having a rod stop me? :wink:
Anyway the score for the day was no fish, one huge mess of a tangle and the tip of my beloved Soft Plastics in my pocket. I regret paying over $200 for a rod that breaks for what appears to be no reason, it gets treated better than I do at home and even has it's own hard bodied rod case, so it's back into Spot On - The Fishing Connection this afternoon to see what can be done with it.
So maybe the score should be:
John - 0
Fish - 2
Loaded up the Yak and all the gear, then headed off to the beautiful Huon River to launch. Only about a 30 minute drive, but an enjoyable one as the countryside is very pretty. I got to the ramp, kitted up the Yak and took her to the water's edge, the water was flat and pristine with that tanine colour it is known for. The prospects of a fish were good, a guy fishing from the pontoon next to the boat ramp pointed out a large Brown Trout swimming about just under his feet, it looked about 50 to 60 cm long. He had just caught a 1.5 kg Brown from the same spot. My confidence grew.
My plan was to pedall up for a while and then come back down with the current casting into some of the overhangs and skinny water on the way back. I cast off and pedalled up stream for about 2 hours trolling RMG Scorpians and a coulpe of different SX40s, only stopping to change colours a couple of times after chatting to a couple of guys in stinkboats about what was working for them and answering the curious questions about how a Hobie worked. A very friendly mob on the water that day and very curtious about water sharing too. 8)
After 2 hours of heading up stream and passsing a few likely spots and small off shoots of the river I decided it was time to head back down stream slowly. The conditions on the river were still fantastic, I could see fish chasing small Baitfish in towards the banks of the river and see them tailing around the edges. I reeled in the trolling rig when suddenly the line went taut, far too taut to be a fish, I had snagged on a submerged log, stupidly I used the weight on the line to turn me around abit. TWANG went the line and the baitcaster reel's spool sudenely turned into an incredible bird's nest, 10 minutes of playing with it and I still couldn't sort out the tangle, so I decided to pack it into the hatch on just work with the spinning outfit on my journey back. I was going to do this anyway.
Working my way back down the river, I cast in towards a large rock on the river's edge, a notorious haunt of some very large resident Brown's. The cast I thought was perfect the Lure landed just short of the rock, I started to retrieve and noticed the lure was swimming a bit oddly from the feel of the rod. Then I looked at the rod tip, or rather where the rod tip should have been, the last 2 inches of the tip were missing and I had discovered why the lure was swimming oddly. Sure enough on retrieving the lure the tip was there just infront of the SX40, that looked just like the little baitfish I saw getting chased earlier.
I retireved the tip and decided I would still enjoy my time on the water, so I pedalled slowly back down the river taking in the wonder around me, trolling a SX40 on a handline. What? You didn't think I was going to let not having a rod stop me? :wink:
Anyway the score for the day was no fish, one huge mess of a tangle and the tip of my beloved Soft Plastics in my pocket. I regret paying over $200 for a rod that breaks for what appears to be no reason, it gets treated better than I do at home and even has it's own hard bodied rod case, so it's back into Spot On - The Fishing Connection this afternoon to see what can be done with it.
So maybe the score should be:
John - 0
Fish - 2
