Sunday
Up early, 3.30am and back to Bribie to see if the Flathead were still around. There was no real wind but officially the wind direction had turned to a northerly. When I arrived at about 4.20am the bridge resembled Scapa Flow submarine base during WW2. There were about ten lines in the water from the north side of the bridge and a couple of cast nets kept splashing over the side. There were also a couple of crab pots hanging off the bridge further along. It was good to see so many land based anglers out fishing but a stealthy approach in this area, was out of the question.
As I was rigging up I ran into a local fisherman who also patrols this area with lures and we waded out under the bridge together. The tide was still running in but as there had been a lot of disturbance on the north side of the bridge, we decided to fish the south side. There were lots of surface breaks and tiny jumping jelly prawns. We both hooked into some Pike – I was also bitten off, but I think it was only and aggressive Pike. They can really chomp as I had a 16lb fluorocarbon leader tied on.
After 30 mins of fishing, neither of us had a Flathead so I decided to move south and my friend headed off to Pebble Beach. I continued south, casting along the shore line in front of me. The surface bust ups continued, but died off as the sun came up. The tide was slowing now and about to turn. I walked south and round the corner towards Sandstone Point.
As the tide started to run out, I positioned myself in the mouth of a big sandy drain that is just on this corner. I took out a GULP 2” Shrimp in the Banana Prawn colour and rigged it on a 1/8th 1/0 jighead. I cast it into the run out tide and jigged it along the bottom of the drain with the current. A few jumps into my retrieve I felt the unmistakable ‘thud’ of a Flathead bite. I paused, counted to five, then struck – I was on. I pulled it clear of the Mangroves and walked it round the corner to a small bay where I pulled it up onto the sand. It was a 48cm Flathead and it was just after 6.10 am. I released it and went in search of more.
The Long Toms arrived and made a couple of impressive aerial lunges for the plastic, especially when I speeded up the retrieve. After half an hour or so of fishing with the same soft plastic lure, I swapped to a GULP 4” Jigging Grub in the Pepper Prawn colour. This is a fairly robust grub tail soft plastic. The tail vibrates nicely and when the water is not very clear I think this helps the fish find it. It worked this time as it was grabbed on the first cast. In fact, it had hardly hit the water when something ate it. It took a couple of turns of the reel to realise it was hooked and then it made a great tail splash and took a bit of line. Again I gradually walked it back to shore to unhook it. It was another Flathead, around 43cm long.
I photographed and released the fish and carried on for another hour without any luck. The water was very murky, as the big tide had stirred up the all the sediment again. I was pleased to see there were still fish around but I would like a bit of south-easterly wind to come back soon.
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