The bite was meant to be poor but with a lack of opportunities to get out for a paddle, Tivie and I decided that we would hit the water anyway. The bite time was late enough to do school drop off if needed and the winds supposedly wouldn’t get up until about 1ish.
We decided upon a very lazy start, heading out in our Viking kayaks about 8.30am to a very empty bay. While the plan had been to drop lines early, an object (or two) in the distance attracted our gaze and put our plans on hold while we attempted to identify what we were looking at. As it got closer, it looked very much like a small craft caught in the current, with someone in the water bobbing beside it. Although in the opposite direction to where we were heading, this required a close inspection.
As we drew closer it became more apparent what it was we were looking at, I say more apparent because it was too large for a goat and too small for a cow (at least an adult) – what appeared to be someone bobbing in the water was in actuality a leg and hoof. A fair clue that this morning wasn’t going as planned.
We headed off to where I had decided would be our ‘spot x’ that day. In what seemed like no time at all, I hooked up on my Kaveman Tackle kabura – dead weight. I spent a while trying to get it off the bottom, it felt very shark-like. I finally managed to get some water under it and off it ran. No head nods, just the back and forth tug of war with my wee Shimano Genpu holding up under pressure. I was a little surprised when it eventually began to rise and up popped what I thought was an OK snapper.
It took a bit to iki and bleed but seemed to be easy enough for me to slide it into the Vikings rear well, so I estimated it as about 55cm give or take. Before I had even finished, the wind had come up, wrong time and in a completely different direction to that forecast. When on my own I am inclined to tough it out for quite a while to see what happens, unless I have a good fish on board. But, when taking someone else out with less experience, I always feel conflicted, knowing I should encourage them to head for shore. We tried to tough it out to give Tivie a chance of a catch but retreated to a sheltered area. Both wind and currents were conspiring to thwart us! We decided to head in, letting a tail wind do the work for us.
I pulled back my well cover and bugger me, if my snapper hadn’t grown a good 20cm from my estimate.
