Trip Report Saturday 03 May 2014

By Lee on July 12, 2014 • ( 0 )

Over the past couple of years Leigh has become one of my favourite areas to fish. It has easy access to both deep ocean and shallow reefs. Within 20 minutes of paddling you can be in 45 metres of water. The fishing options around this area are huge.

On this particular day I invited a friend of mine out for a kayak fish, he had a little kayaking experience but had never fished from a kayak before.

First up we paddled out to the 45 metre mark where I spotted some solid dark red sign on the sounder, hard on the bottom. I deployed a slow jig – 80gm orange Jitter bug – all the way to the bottom, gave the lure a couple of slow mechanical jigs just up off the bottom and was hooked up to a string pulling fish within seconds.

First fish of the day I would estimate at around the 4 kg mark. I was well pleased because at this point of the day my friend was still not really sold on the idea of soft plastic and lure fishing… it took a few more fish being caught to convince him.

I carried on fishing the 45 metre mark for another hour or so, using the fish finder to locate the schools of Snapper, drifting over them and and dropping slow jigs into the school, I caught a couple more good size Snapper before losing the school.

Before heading home I was keen to try some soft baiting in the shallows. Soft baiting in shallows is one of my favourite methods of fishing and at certain times of year can produce some trophy fish.

Well, we didn’t land any trophy fish but managed to catch plenty of good size eating fish.

If you are ever kayaking back through the Leigh entrance, it is well worth having a look at the cave on the right hand side of the coast. Its very impressive.