beating the weather!!!

[Andy]

Hey guys,

Had another cracker day in the straits yesterday, weather was pretty ordinary but a bit of persistence paid off.

Weather was looking a little ordinary for Saturday but it seemed to pick the pick of them. So after a little planning of what we were going to do, we headed off. After travelling for around 15 minutes we pulled up at a likely looking drain in search of a flathead. Dad elected to go with the old faithful 90mm Banana Bomber and I went for the 3’ Zman minnow in smoking shad. We were rather confident at this drain because the last of the water was flushing out, prime time for lizards.

Sure enough first cast I got nailed, after a couple of pulsing runs I had landed the first fish of the day, a flattie around 65cm. This was our only action for the flathead at the drains, so we moved up the bank about 300m to a rockbar that has paid off in the past. Within the first 5 cast we had hooked and dropped a couple of fish, not knowing what they were we kept persisting and sure enough we finally land one...they were juvenile blue salmon, there were a few tailor and trevally mixed in there as well. The only technique that these fish would bite on was the burn and kill, 90% of the time the strike was on the pause. After landing 3 or 4 blues and half a dozen tailor and trevally, it went abit quiet, so we headed up to another spot that has produced for us in the past.
Started up the creek using 4’ Zman Curl Tails in the motor oil colour and first cast I snagged a hungry little bream and dad land a 42cm Grunter. The next ten minutes were a bit slow with only a couple of small trevally, once we had got to the end of the bank we wanted to fish, we noticed a colour change which was created by a back eddie. After landing a couple more blue salmon, dad got his light rod out. As per usual something bigger comes along, in this case a thready going about 95cm, he fell to a 4’ snapback stickbait. After this fight the fish was release unharmed and dad decided to put away the light stick, within 5 minutes of the last fish being released, he was on again but this time it wa something different, something a little surprising, a barra......after I did my best to knock it off with the net it finally came to our grasp. After a few happy snaps we set him on his way, I didn’t know what I was doing wrong, then dad mentioned my jig heads size.

I was using a 1/4oz tt, and he was using a 3/8, might sound a bit heavy but for some reason it works, it sinks faster so the tail would be moving more, it banging into the bottom a bit harder.......we’ll never know why it works but it does. So being the cluey chap I am I upgraded to a 3/8th and first cast got hammered, thinking it was another blue but it wasn’t, it was a fish thats been on my bucket list for a while now, the old threadfin salmon. After realising what I had, I started to get abit shaky but by taking my time he was soon mine!! 87cm isn’t a bad way to start my account.
The tide started getting high and the salmon and barra moved up into the back of the mangroves, so we went deep chasing grunter, and as it seemed we couldn’t do any wrong. We started getting a couple of little grunter just on legal and all of a sudden dad had hooked a bit bigger one around the 50cm mark, then not long after I got a good hit and the line started peeling off, got him up to the side of the boat and realising he was a little bigger than expected, this one went around the 55cm mark. The past few trips targeting grunter we haven’t done much good, but we were fishing from about half tide down, and we got these ones from about half tide up. Don’t know whether that’s usually the time to get them but we finally cracked them, after this the fishing slowed and we had a long wet trip home so we decided to call it quits.

All in all another good days fishing in the straits on the plastic an exploring new ground..

[mangajack]

Helluva good weekend there boys, very well done!

[Barramag]

Good report Andy,and great pics as usual.The report writing is coming on mate keep up the good work.Mind you,when you catch fish like you blokes it would have to just flow off the pen Superb!

Paulo

[Bazil Brush]

Great report Andy, you pair certainly landed some good fish, well done''

Baz

[Benny]

Good work guys, and well done braving the weather. Looked pretty ordinary from the lounge chair. Well written report too, could be a career to look into

[petejones]

nice sole andy bett the old boy didn,t give ya much about that one great lot fish boys well done

[obi_wan]

A well written report Any, good on you. Of course the pictures are top class as usual,

thank you for sharing.

You both had a very good day. And here i am with the lousy rotten Flu.

Cheers,
John.

[ffejsmada]

A ripper day there lads, well done Chews!!

[Pete62]

Nice work boys, you have been working well as a team with some good fish.

Pete

[DEANO68]

wow, another top day out...good job lads , awesome..