In kayak fishing, there’s no big boat to hide in, it’s just angler vs the water, one-on-one.

Dave Gleeson got into kayak fishing five years ago. He wasn’t an angler, he just wanted to get fit, so he bought a kayak. “And the first day I went out paddling,” he says, “I looked over the edge and thought, ‘Hello! There are fish under there. Might chuck a rod in next time.’ That afternoon I drilled a couple of rod holders in my boat.”

Gleeson now runs Australia’s largest kayak fishing forum – akff.net. When he first clicked on the site four years ago, there were around 500 members. That number has since swollen to 5000. There are now kayak fishing tournaments entered by hundreds of gun anglers with thousands of dollars of prize money on offer. What was a boutique past-time is becoming a big presence on the fishing stage. Ask Gleeson what the appeal is and he goes back to that day when he first drilled two rod holes into the freeboard of his kayak. “It’s so simple, so easy, so affordable. A lot of the guys I go out on the kayak with have had motor boats and they’ve spent 20 grand on the things. And when they just want to duck out for a quick fish, they’ve got to get down to the boat ramp, get in the bloody queue, put petrol in the thing, insure it, register it and when they get home they’ve got to clean it out. It’s a bit of a stuff-around. The appeal of the kayak is you just grab it, throw it on the roof of the car, drive down the road, throw it in the water and away you go. You can paddle down secluded creeks a foot deep and fish for bass and bream, or you can head offshore for the big pelagics. The simplicity – that’s the appeal for a lot of people.”

But it doesn’t have to be as simple as drilling a pair of rod holes in your plastic kayak and paddling away. Watch a posse of serious kayak fishermen prepare for a morning on the water and you’ll gape at the array of gear that can be fitted to a 3.5m-4m long craft. There are banks of rods, down riggers with fist-sized lead weights, sonar depth sounders, GPS units, anchors, life jackets fitted with radios, flares and EPIRBs. You’ll even see one or two particularly keen anglers strapping eight-inch hunting knives to their legs, adding a note of hazard to the whole thing, as if they’re about to slip over the side of their kayaks and re-emerge with giant ink-smeared squids draped over their shoulders. The kayaks themselves are all of the sit-on-top variety, but come in different lengths – the shorter boats (3.5m) are slow and sturdy, the longer ones (4.5m) fast but tippy. Some of the boats are traditional hand-paddled kayaks, others are hands-free pedal-powered craft with two rubber fins jutting from their belly.

And on this morning, as the anglers shoulder their kayaks down to the cold sand of Shelley Beach on Sydney’s North Head, Gleeson tells a story. It was February last year and a mob of them were trolling the reefs off South West Rocks on the NSW north coast. It had been a quiet weekend. And as Sunday morning turned towards a drowsy arvo, it looked like it was going to be another unsuccessful day. One by one the kayaks turned their noses towards the shore. And it was then, a tick before midday, 200m off the cliffs, that Paul O’Leary felt an enormous jolt on his boat. His line went taut. He turned to see a sizeable marlin launch into half-a-dozen spiralling leaps. Then the fish, the hook in its mouth, began its drive towards the deep water. “And he was surfing along behind this thing,” says Gleeson. “He was getting pulled like a waterskier, he was motoring along.” All O’Leary could do was white-knuckle his rod and steer his boat side-on to increase the drag. A bunch of them set off in pursuit. “Just to make sure he didn’t end up in New Zealand,” laughs Gleeson. Paddling full-pelt, they could only just keep up.

1 | 2 | Next  >>