Sunday

A hasy still morning at Whitepatch

I was back in Brisbane and after a few interesting but largely fishless sessions, I decided to give Bribie Island a try, on Sunday morning.

Now, on the first Sunday of the school holidays it is not likely to be quiet anywhere. Also with a hot, sunny day on Saturday, a lot of popular spots will have been fairly thoroughly fished and disturbed. So I decided to try the north end of Whitepatch beach, about half way up the west coast of the island. I arrived at about 4.15 am and pulled in next to Colin, an experienced local fisherman, who obviously had the same idea. He explained he had caught a few Flathead earlier in the week, but they had been pretty hard to find.

The sky was thick with smoke haze and the wind had died down to nothing. The water was still and it was hot. Low tide would be a very low one at 0.2m at 5.22 am. The water was still slowly running out but there was not much pace in it.

I was back with my Loomis GL2 light spin rod and started with a GULP Lime Tiger Jerkshad soft plastic on a 1/8^th 1/0 jighead. I was only fishing an 8lbh leader as the water was quite clear, initially. Colin started with a small jerkbait, an Ecogear, I think. He caught a couple of small moses perch.

Troy arrived and put out a pilchard bait, which was grabbed pretty much straight away, and then bitten off. Colin waded south and I waded north. Neither of us found much. Eventually I ended up back at the bottom of the steps close to Troy, where I caught a just legal size moses perch – but it released itself before having its photo taken.

The tide was now running in. Troy was trying various baits and I knowingly told him that the squid would not catch anything. I wandered along the shore for another twenty minutes or so, and when I came back he had caught the fattest Whiting I have ever seen…………on the squid!

Troys very fat whiting

By about 8.30am, fishermen were lined up all along the beach. I was now fishing with a smaller GULP 3” Minnow soft plastic. I felt a few aggressive hits and saw some swirls but could not hook up. Then I saw a thrashing long tom, chasing the lure.  A few minutes later Troy landed one…… on the squid. It was time to give up!

The flathead were around – somewhere