Sunday

I love my trips away – up and down the Queensland and New South Wales coasts, but this year I have not had much time for them. This has given me the chance to fish my home turf, at Bribie Island, more often. People ask if I get bored fishing the same spots and the answer is always, a resounding no. The main reason is that every day and every tide change brings you a different set of variables. You may be very familiar with the geography of the area but as the water runs in or out, faster or slower, depending on the moon phase and as the weed grows or dies off, with shifting water temperatures, everything is constantly changing. Then you add the wind direction, weather and shifting sand banks and there is always plenty to consider.

So as you may have guessed on Sunday, I decided to fish the old oyster jetty flats at dawn. Low tide would be at 5.15 am, so I would be fishing the first part of the run in tide. It was a couple of days after the full moon and the forecast was for a 12 knot south-westerly. I arrived at 5.45 am just after low tide and waded out under the bridge. The water was calm and the wind was hardly blowing, but it was cold. More importantly the water was really cold. A few days of very cold nights had really brought the temperature down.

I started with a GULP Crazylegs Jerkshad in the Curried Chicken colour. I find this is good to fish before the sun comes up. It has plenty of action and the high contrast often attracts a bite. Just north of the jetty I found my first fish of the day. It was just after 6.00 am and it was a 45cm flathead. I cast around the same area and then moved in, closer to the jetty, where I picked up another, slightly smaller flathead, about 20 minutes later.

The sun took a long time to come over the thick band of cloud that was sitting along the horizon. I kept moving south, as the run in tide picked up pace. I swapped to the GULP 4” Minnow in the Watermelon Pearl colour. I was fishing with 10lb fluorocarbon leader and a 1/8th ounce, size 1/0 hook, jighead. At about 6.45 am, I caught another flathead, just over 40 cm.

I swapped soft plastics again. This time I chose a GULP  2” Shrimp in the Banana Prawn colour. It took a while, but after another 30 mins I caught my final fish of the day – another 45 cm flathead. It had been a good but tough fishing session with some long gaps between fish. Perhaps it was the cold weather/ water or maybe I just had trouble locating them today.