Saturday

The wind was still threatening 25 Knots south westerly but I went for a dawn fish to see if I could find the Flathead again, at Wreck Rock. Clear skies made for an amazing sunrise and I waded through the shallows and out on to the same rocks where I had encountered the big mother Flathead, a few days earlier. I went for the same set up with a 15lb fluorocarbon leader, 1/6th 1/0 jighead and a GULP 3” Minnow in the Rainbow colour. The tide was a few hours further advanced so there was a little more water over the area and it was crystal clear. The south westerly was ruffling the surface bit it had not yet really picked pace.

I had no luck in the same location so I moved about 5 metres to the south and cast out into the open water beside another big bommie. I was leaving plenty of time for the lure to sink before I started the retrieve. There was a quite a bit of swell and the wind was catching the line, both of these factors would slow the jighead sink rate, quite considerably. I decided to count slowly to ten each time I cast before starting the retrieve. I still had no interest. It was now around 7.45 am and the wind was picking up again.

I swapped to a bigger soft plastic, the GULP Jerkshad in the Cajun Chicken colour – black and pink. The tactic worked and I soon had a fish on. It came up to the surface and shook its head angrily, but after a couple of runs I had it safely in the keeper pool – it was about 45cm long.

In the next twenty minutes, I caught another two fish, about the same size and dropped another. Then things went quiet, so I moved again and swapped to a GULP Jerkshad in the Satay Chicken colour – yellow and pumpkinseed. This produced results and I caught two more, both about 45 cm and one smaller one.

Wreck Rock sunrise

Good gutters to the south of Wreck Rock

An unhappy fish – Wreck Rock

Clear water – nice fish

It was the bigger Jerkshad that tempted this one

Satay Chicken flavour for this one

The fish were in the channels and drains

Three in the live well

By around 10.00am the tide had turned in and the wind was making it too difficult (and cold) to fish. I cleaned the three fish that I decided to keep and kept an eye out for raiders as I did so. I always prefer to clean the fish in the saltwater; they definitely taste better this way.

I was glad to have found the fish again and it looked like Flathead were going to be the staple catch this week. I then went back to my cabin for a shower and a hot coffee. I had seen no evidence of big bait schools around. There were no Tuna or Tailor passing through. There were no birds working or big surface bust ups, perhaps the cold winds had blown them away?