While fishing for snapper off Shark bay Nth NSW, I came across a 3-metre shark, which when I pedalled up to investigate, turned out to be a rather aggressive great white. I made it, but my rudder almost didn’t... Clip starts slow, watch to the end :-)
Yakabout - Australian East Coast Kayak Fishing Yakabout was founded by Josh Holmes (AKA Yakass) in mid 2007. What began as an online journal for a solo Australian kayak fishing expedition has since steadily evolved into a digital shrine to the sport. With an Australian focus on all things related to the ’yak fishing scene, Yakabout is regularly updated with news, gear reviews &articles, trip reports, google maps as well as photos, video clips and more.
Kayak Fishing Information and Resources The aim of our website is to share and archive any kayak fishing related information and resources in an interesting and informative way, helping to educate those that are new to the sport (and perhaps inspiring those that aren’t). Contact Josh if you have any questions about this site, or kayak fishing related news to report (product releases &updates, announcements for events, catches of note, etc), photos you’d like to share, know of any links
About Yakass... Acquiring the bug from an early age, Josh has been fishing for nearly 30 years and has been doing so from a kayak for almost a decade of that time. He is now a fully-fledged kayak fishing addict and completely beyond the point of rehabilitaion. Since being introduced to Hobie kayaks, Josh has traversed over 10000km on the water (no, not all in one go), in a myriad of ideal yak destinations, from Apollo Bay Victoria to Townsville QLD.
The Fishing
GWS encounter post-mortem. As you’d expect, my mind has been replaying the events of Sunday afternoon, when I had a precarious brush with a Great White Shark while kayak fishing at Woody Head. It’s fortunate that I filmed the incident from a couple of angles because the ability to rewatch the event provides 20/20 hindsight and I’ve had quite a few thoughts that have reached conclusion. The first and most obvious of these is that it’s pretty stupid to approach this shark
This episode has also convinced me - once and for all - that being armed with a genuine Shark Shield (not just my stake-out pole ’shark jabber’ concept) is an excellent idea. Whilst I do still think encounters are rare, obviously its not out of the realm of possibility. Knowing the guys who are using the Shark Shields and hearing them comment on how much safer they feel because of it, I now feel as if I should be joining their ranks, so I will be. I did continue fishing for a while
I did continue fishing for a while after the incident and believe me, it was somewhat nerve-wracking to do it. Choppy water was creating too many shadows and after a while, all of those shadows became sharks - my mind started playing tricks on me. That’s not a feeling I want to have again and I now feel that the best way to prevent that from happening is to have a proven ’fire &forget’ form of defence. I’ll keep taking the stake out pole as a back-up, but the Shield w
The more I read - not just about these devices, but also of sharks themselves, the more confident I have become in the integrity of the Shark Shield units. I am pretty well convinced that they do work (the Australian navy seem to have taken to the idea) and I don’t think it’ll take long for me to prove to myself conclusively that they do indeed work as advertised. At the very least I’ll hook a few more sharks within the coming months I’m sure, so it’ll be interesting
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