Warm one

Early morning weed beds

Lurking in the shallows

65cm Flathead

Atomic Ripperz 2.5″ Paddle Tail

Best of the day

By the Channel marker

GULP New Penny 2″ Shrimp

Gulp Pink Shine Jerkshad

GULP Satay Chicken

Powerworm

Slider Grub

Ikajaco Powerworm

Flathead in close

Duo Ebikko

DUO Ebikko Terminator

DUO Ebikko

Monday & Wednesday

As the low tide progressed through the day, I timed my fishing sessions to coincide with it. So on Monday, I found myself driving up to Bribie Island, at lunch time to fish for a few hours, through to the low tide at 1.50 pm.

There had been a big northerly blow on Sunday and temperatures had risen again. As I arrived, just before 1.00 pm, the wind was moving round to blow for the east again. The tide was running out and I went off to fish to the south of the jetty, towards the green channel marker.

The fishing was initially a little tougher than it had been but once I found the flathead, they kept coming.  I only had a few hours but again I caught more than 20 fish, the majority of which were over 40cm long. I stuck with the Gulp Jerkshads in various colours; Pink Shine, Satay Chicken, Lime Tiger and Cajun Chicken – they all caught fish.

On Wednesday I was back to fishing the early morning. I could not resist a return to the same area. I arrived at 5.15 am and waded out, under the bridge. Low tide had passed at 4.55 am. I would be fishing the beginning of the run in tide but the water was more or less still, at first light.

I waded to the south of the jetty and started casting around with a GULP Jerkshad soft plastic in the Cajun Chicken colour. At about 5.30 am I caught a 45cm flathead that was sitting in no more than 20 cm of water. I caught a few more, similar sized fish in this area and then moved south, as the sun came over the horizon.

I decided to try a small DUO hard bodied Shrimp imitation called the DUO Tetra Works Ebikko. I had it in the ‘Terminator’ colour – chrome with a white belly. This is a 47 mm, 3.3 gram sinking lure with a simple fluttering motion. I just hop it along the sandy stretches of bottom, hoping to entice a bite. It is pretty light so you need fairly calm conditions to keep in touch with it.

I had a couple of bites. The first taker was a pike. At present, I am only fishing it with one rear treble as I think the two trebles on such a light lure are overkill.  The pike followed behind the lure, snapping, until it connected with the treble. I had a couple of solid bites which I think where flathead but I could not hook up so I swapped back to soft plastics.

I was now about half way between the end of the oyster jetty and the channel marker and decided to work my way through all the remaining soft plastics to see what did and didn’t work.

It was now just after 7.00 am. I pulled out a packet of Japanese soft plastics – an Ikajako 3 ½ “ Powerworm in an orange flecked colour with a twin prong tail. On the first cast, the plastic sank and then a fish grabbed it, as soon as I lifted it off the bottom. I released the fish and swapped to a Slider 3” Bass Grub soft plastic. A couple of casts later this one caught a fish. I swapped to an Atomic Ripperz 2.5” Paddle Tail soft plastic , same thing happened, a Powerbait 3” red tailed  Rippleshad, same again. I ran through eight more different Gulps, Zman and no name soft plastics and they all caught fish within a couple of casts. They are not fussy at the moment.

At about 8.30 am the incoming tide forced me from the main edge of the weed beds and I waded back to the car. I caught a couple more fish by casting at the sandy patches, as I waded back towads the bridge.

It is clear that there are plenty of fish around and once you locate them they will eat just about anything. If you want to catch a flathead now is the time.