Well-known kayak specialist BRETT GEDDES details a stellar week he recently spent catching the hell out trophy bream, as well as big tailor and whopper lizards, in a productive southern estuary system. As you’ll read it was amazing fishing, a large part of which Brett attributes to the stealthiness offered by his battered old ‘yak.
“ANOTHER PB mate and this bream is 48.5cm – look at this truck! I’ve waited six long years for this fish!” As I held my trophy high in the air it was almost like I was offering my thanks to the fishing gods above. It was at the end of five days in heaven where between us we’d stacked up seven new PBs across five species of estuary fish. My partner-in-crime was long-time fishing mate Anthony Havers, with whom I’d spent a week which we’ve both declared as our best fishing trip ever. Havo and I have been ’yakkin and fishing all over Gippsland for about 10 years now and have tried to call places like Bemm River, Lake Tyers and Mallacoota our second home. On the road trip back to our base in Sale, Victoria, we reflected on all the huge fish we landed that week: mega tailor to 70cm, huge flathead to 91cm, trevors to 53cm and nearly every black or yellowfin bream was 38 to 43cm. We lost count of the bream of 44 and 45cm and we got at least nine that went from 46 to 47cm. We released just over 550 fish for the week and so now you can see why we look back and know it was our best trip ever.We may have fished a very heavily worked over estuary but we seemed to catch many more fish than the bigger boats around us. Havo pointed out that part of our success was due to the stealth of ’yak fishing and that’s where my story begins.
Sneakin’ along
Fishing out of a ’yak is the closest way I can get to my quarry and I don’t mean just in terms of proximity. I’m also talking about getting close on another level, like a “one on one” encounter with the fish I so dearly love to catch and admire. I feel like I can sneak up right behind a big old wise black bream and trick him with my surface lure or soft plastic. I can nearly be on top of a monster flathead in shallow water and still have a chance to hook her up. I’ve got such a low profile on top of the water so spooking fish is at a minimum but it also costs me my visual polaroiding range. However, I can still at times watch fish chase and eat or refuse my offerings just metres from my ’yak. Best of all, I can fish vast shallow sand flats to 30cm depth that bigger boats can’t get into – we all know how exciting it is to stalk bream in skinny water. Modern kayaks are also very quiet on the water and gentle paddling can have you almost right on top of the fish. I know that anyone can get very close to fish at times – I’ve been with mates when we put a big bream boat right in the face of the fish and still caught them. But I maintain that this happens more often in a ’yak. And the best thing about ’yak fishing is when you work snags. Not only do you have stealth on your side, you also have the mobility to quickly zoom in and free your lure from a snag and get casting again within seconds.
Stealthy, wealthy & wise
Kayak fishing can be very simple and I do it on an absolute shoestring budget. My trusty $450 ’yak I’ve had for 11 years is covered with patches (no new peddle craft for me – well, not yet anyway!) and has no sounder or tackle company stickers adorning it. I don’t wear fancy clothing and I make most of my lures myself. I’m sleeping in the back of my ute or drag the old pop up camper along – I can’t remember the last time I stayed in a holiday unit. My meals usually consist of tins of stew, fresh fruit and plenty of beer cans. Everything in my world of fishing is quick, simple and cheap but I want everything to work on the day. I take a lot of care maintaining my reels, minimise line and knot failures and I never, ever suffer blunt hooks. I spend most of my money on actual fishing time and I’m proud to be a tight arse! It’s the only smart way I can be on the water about 120 days a year. There are exceptions to my penny pinching, though. I spare no expense on braid, flourocarbon leaders, hooks and lures. These are the most important links to my fish. I’m also very proud of my Nitro Vapor rods because they’ve been through hell and back. They have got to be the toughest things ever made because as much as I try it seems I can’t break them and either can big fish. I think I last washed them about two years ago and they travel in my kayak (always rigged up and ready to cast) at the back of the ute far away from hungry rod snapping car doors and boots. Yep, that’s the unashamed product bash out of the way but these rods have now secured thousands of fish for me and are still going strong. If you know of a tougher and more durable rod than a Nitro, and affordable for money-wise anglers, then let me know.
Tumbling records
So back to our week of incredible fishing: it’s a simple fact that we were lucky to have a lot of very big fish stacked up around us. No skill there at all but getting them in was another matter. Havo and I each got a bream with our very first cast of the trip. We sort of knew at that point it was going to be a great week ahead. Let me crunch the numbers: 438 bream, 74 flathead, 24 tailor, 14 trevors, a luderick and a huge mullet. We were there to catch bream and I’ve never caught such big numbers of large fish. I don’t think we could count 30 bream that went under 35cm and at one point Havo hooked six bream in a row that were all around 43cm. I set a new mark for my best yellowfin bream at 43cm and dropped a much bigger one ’yak-side. A pity we didn’t put the 20 or so bigger bream around 44 to 46.5cm on the scales because I reckon half of them would be genuine 4lb candidates. Havo’s new PB of a 47cm yellowfin and my 48.5cm black bream would be over that mark. It’s the sort of fishing bream addicts can only dream of and we know it probably won’t ever happen again for us. But we won’t stop trying!
The bycatch
We also found new PBs with tailor, trevors and dusky flathead. Havo broke new ground with a 52cm trevor and I beat my record twice, first with a 49cm and then a 53cm. The big silver trevally took an eternity to land and did major “circle work” under our ’yaks. With my 91cm flathead I had to beach my ’yak and fight the huge girl on foot then drag her up on the sand. My guesstimate weight for my new PB dusky was about 6kg. Beaching the ’yak was the only way to get those monster duskies in –Havo did the same with an 82cm model. We both lost two other huge flatties each, mainly to pulled hooks.
The tailor were just freaks. I got a 45cm flattie to the ’yak and when it was monstered by a tailor that looked nearly a metre long – I thought it was a shark! There was blood and scales and water going everywhere – it scared the shit out of me! My poor dusky was reduced to 35cm by the time I got it in the net. Some tailor towed us around for a few minutes before breaking us off. If we’d got them in I reckon they could have nudged 5kg.
Yakitty Yak
So as you can see it’s no wonder these days a whole army of anglers are turning to ’yaks. A bit scary really because I had the water to myself for years but now more are starting to paddle (or peddle) next to me. I have a couple of mates who have purchased ’yaks a few years ago and have not had their bream boats out of the shed for more than 12 months now. The simplicity, stealth and ability to fish almost anywhere makes ’yak fishing very addictive.
Quite often a mate will stare at my worn out, patched up ’yak and ask me, “When are you gonna get a real boat, mate?” I usually reply with “When I stop catching real fish!”
