Kayaking
OLD
The hard lessons of kayak fishing Baffle Creek meant I had some interesting outfits for my stay. Skin-tight tee shirts and a variety of fashion-fails made me look like a wannabe hipster! Oh boy, was that underwear tight! 4. Don’t rely on Google Maps. “Go through Gin Gin and cut across, it’s not far from there”. In this instance, you also shouldn’t rely on
BRISBANE
Charlie Klein
I recently visited Baffle Creek, along with over 30 other keen kayak fishers from the Qld Hobie Crew. Our Baffle Creek trip is an annual event that incorporates a great group of people, who are mad about fishing, and a social fishing comp amongst friends. It’s hard to summarise these trips, as the combined stories of the group could fill the entire magazine. My time at Baffle was a blast, but also a great lesson in how not to prepare for a trip away! Hopefully, you’ll learn from my mistakes. In the following are six essential preparations I should have made for such an epic trip: 1. If you’ve got two long weekends to prepare,
Zack with the competition target species. There were just under 30 jacks caught in the few days preceding the comp day, but they were strangely absent when the scorecards came out! Every connection on my battery and sounder had corroded. I only discovered this, after spending a session on the water without a sounder and having to rely on my faded memory of last year’s sounding. Luckily, I bought a box of tricks and
Zack with a more modest fingermark. Sorry Zack, your dad beat you again!
This wasn’t a monster, but as the author’s first ever saltwater barramundi, it was a special moment. do more than just sort lures out and put new hooks on. I replaced hooks on about 15 lures. I took 6 boxes of said
lures and only used 8 in total. The new ones I bought for the trip mainly remained in their packaging, as I went with
the old faithfuls. Meanwhile I neglected to check the rest of my gear, as I hadn’t used the kayak for a few months.
Shane was rubbing the salt into the wounds early, with quality fish on day one. 48
JULY 2022
the words of the lead driver! 20km of dirt road, some great scenery aside, made me pass my intended coffee and breakfast stop on the way home. 5. When you choose your tent, make sure it’s big enough to fit that fancy new camping bed. It may be a funny sight when your feet
Not a bad by-catch for Dan. Who could be disappointed with a queenie? managed to ‘bodgy it’ for the weekend. It will most likely stay like that until next year! 2. When you’re planning meals and you’re not close to shops, you need to not only pack enough, but think about when you’ll eat each item. Eating all of the ‘good stuff’ on day 1 and 2, can really leave you wanting for the rest of the trip. You can end up with some really odd meals, but as a result I’ve discovered that fried potato, onion, sausage, salami, cheese and eggs mixed into a single wrap taste quite nice. 3. Take care when grabbing your pile of clothes, which you stacked carefully on your bed. In my case, accidentally grabbing the pile intended for a charity bin
are sticking out the tent flap, but the local insect life has an easy meal. 6. Don’t fish with Dan, if you don’t like pain. OK, you don’t know Dan, but I’m sure you have a mate just like him… He may be called, Bill, Fred or Jim, but whatever the name, you know the guy! In over 50 years of fishing, I’ve only ever had two hooks embedded all the way to bone. Each time, Dan has been my co-fisher and on both occasions, has needed to do the removal work. I blame Dan for the initial hook-up, so I don’t feel bad asking him to remove the hooks! Despite my poor preparations, and questionable choice of fishing mates, my time at
Zac’s first saltwater barra. The first is always the best!
