Kayaking
OLD
Budds Beach was a blast BRISBANE
Troy Brown
It’s tough to say goodbye, but luckily for myself and fellow members of the Qld Hobie Crew, our penultimate meet and greet for the year was
a multitude of parking places along the waterfront in the morning. Once parked, you can haul your kayak to the single boat ramp, or simply wheel your kayak straight over the sand. Even at low tide, provided you’re not pulling a massively overloaded kayak,
flats. Still, exceptional kayak anglers often spend more time moving than fishing, narrowing their window of opportunity while seeking the best fishing grounds. As I had a sleepless night and needed to be onshore early to set up our presentation
my drive well and another overboard, so I didn’t worry about amassing points for our friendly competition. Others were faring better, but despite numerous catch reports over the UHF radio, I wasn’t hearing anyone reporting larger fish being boated. As we were fishing a multi-species event, with the three largest legal fish being tallied for a total catch length, I expected anglers to target flathead and larger species. Early reports of only a few smaller flathead and trevally, mostly bi-catch for those chasing bream for fun on the pontoons,
Tim ‘The Don’ Donselaar with one of the many bream caught on MMD soft prawns.
The most effective weapon for fishing tight spaces in any waterway, the Hobie Outback. They are amazing kayaks, but nearly any kayak will broaden your fishing horizons. merely a perfect transition into 2023. With many of us having never fished the area around
the haul over the short section of beach is simple and will avoid queuing behind the boat trailers.
barbecue, I fished within a few hundred metres of our launch site. My catches were modest; I managed to drop one through
Monica Crichton had a large haul of various species and negotiated this bridge more elegantly than the author. [Note from author: lower the Power Pole BEFORE passing under low bridges, as getting stuck is somewhat embarrassing!]
Taken late in the day and missing some participants, but this crew is surely the friendliest on the water. Budds Beach at the Gold Coast, it was bound to be a challenging day. Combine a new location with a strong wind warning, an enormous volume of weekend water traffic, then add hundreds of jetskiers dressed as Santa for a charity record attempt. When you’re fishing with a bunch of great people, the inevitable result was a lot of fun, some fish and heap of laughs. The launch from Budds Beach, is an easy task in a kayak. Finding street-side parking is possibly the biggest issue, as spots fill up fast with families claiming picnic spots on the waterside. The solution is to arrive early, as there are 50
JANUARY 2023
Once in the water, there are a multitude of options. What a kayak lacks in speed, it makes up tenfold in manoeuvrability and stealth. The kayaks in our group disappeared in all directions, with some choosing not to stray far from our launch, others covering a much wider area in search of a winning catch. Given the strong wind, I was slightly surprised to hear a couple of members had gone as far as the open sections of the Broadwater, but kayakers are a determined bunch! While lacking the potential to travel long distances, kayak fishing provides superb access to the rear of pontoons, narrow creeks and shallow
confirmed my suspicion that group members were focussed on the social gathering, rather than the fishing! Despite the size of most catches being modest, the variety was impressive. Our bream experts, including our overall 2022 series winner Lex Irwin, seem to be magnets for these fish. Logic dictated they should chase larger species, but when you’re a bream specialist, it seems the passion over-rides everything else. Despite chasing bream,
Lucas won the day with a reasonable catch of flathead.
Lucas Mulligan won the day with a good bag of larger fish. This flathead was caught while trolling an Atomic Double Deep lure.
Lex still managed a top-three finish, which reflected both the average size of other species caught, but mostly the impressive length of his bream haul. Tactics from our winners varied considerably. As a sponsored Frogleys Offshore angler, it was no surprise that Lex caught most of his fish cranking small Atomic Bream Shads along the edges of the pontoons. Lex offered some great advice after the event, sharing his technique for bending the tow point, so his lure tracked along each side of the pontoon. It’s a simple means of controlling the lure that I’d used multiple times
