It was the meanest and nastiest looking the snag pile in the river. It was a Bandido, Comanchero and Rebel bikie all rolled into the one monstrous strangle of sticks. It had rot and decay stretching along its stumpy limbs, which looked alarmingly, like the muscle-clad tattooed arms of a bikie enforcer.
The snag could not be taken lightly – it was a two-man job.
Without even saying a word, sitting in the front of our tandem Hobie Oasis, Norb’s unclicked his Mirage Drive and reversed them in the holster. Essentially putting his Hobie feet in backwards to give the ride both forward and backward propulsion – ingenious!
After a quick adjustment, moving the setting from 7 back to 2 on the foot pedals, we were ready to make our next stealthy move.
As we cautiously approached the target, under covert stealth, Norbs let fly with a pinpoint cast to the back alcove of the rootball. As his spinnerbait was fluttering to the depth it was smacked hard by very solid slab of green that instantly thrust the kayak forward.
With the pulling power of a Case IH tractor, the best flicked its powerful tail in an effort to ram the spinnerbait, and kayak, deep in the gnarly logjam. However, just as instinctive it was for the cod to spin on a dime and head for home, so to was Norbs’ instinct to pedal like mad in an effort to lunge the vessel into open water.
It was the ultimate freshwater man verse beast ‘Tug of War-ter’. After a few anxious seconds where the world felt like it stood still, the ascendency was firmly in the angler’s hands as we steered the monster into open water and finished off the fight with some handy rod work and a thumbed drag.
I’m certain that without the ability to powerfully surge from the snag, courtesy of the reversed Hobie Mirage Drive, and drag the cod into open water this would have been another one of the fabled stories of the ‘one that got away.’
So, if you do own a Hobie and enjoy the challenge of chasing cod from twisted logjams then make sure you reverse your thinking to give yourself the best chance and landing that lunker of a lifetime.