Tuesday
Caloundra was my destination. I drove up from Brisbane, leaving just before 4.00 am and arriving at the northern end of the Pumicestone Passage, just before 5.00am. The moon was full and it would be a very big high tide – 1.9m, just before 8.00am.
The tide was running in strongly and the sea was fairly choppy – there was a lot more breeze than the forecast 10 knots west south-west. It was too wild to fish the mouth of the Passage so I walked Bulcock Beach, flicking a soft plastic lure along the edge. About half way along the beach, I felt a solid bite – but did not connect. I was using the 4” Gulp Pearl Watermelon Minnow on a 1/8th 1/0 jighead and still using the 8lb leader. I cast out in the same spot and this time the fish hit the lure on the drop. After a brief fight I pulled it on to the sand – a 40cm Grunter Bream – snorting away. I looked for more but could not find any, so at about 6.00 am, I moved on.
I drove down to the sand bank in front of the Power Boat Club at Golden Beach. The tide was really moving now and the water was really stirred up. There was a very obvious line were the clearer, incoming saltier water met the brown-stained fresher water. The big tides have also started to spread the loose sea grass around, making fishing with the hard bodied lures trickier. I flicked around with a small bibless vibe lure but it kept getting clogged, so I swapped back to a GULP 3” Minnow soft plastic in the Smelt colour. I fished for about an hour without a bite and covered a lot of ground. Eventually I caught a 36cm Flathead on the edge of a weed bed. As I was wading back out, the bait scattered and a good-sized Queenfish lept clear of the water. I cast all around the area but it did not come back. This was turning into hard work, so I decided to move again.
I drove down to Diamond Head and waded out onto the sand flats just to the north of the creek mouth. I swapped to a GULP 2” Shrimp soft plastic in the Peppered Prawn colour. I cast at the weed beds, using a slow ‘lift and drop’ retrieve. I felt a few bumps and nudges on the first few casts, in each location. I kept moving and after a few minutes I connected with a fish. It hit the lure hard, but it was a Bream – about 25cm long. I caught 3 more, around this size, over the next 30 minutes, then it all went very quiet.
I carried on until about 10.00 am and then gave up. The rain has obviously brought the Bream out to feed, but the big tides and dirty water are still making the fishing difficult.
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