Wednesday

Lunchtime

I had a lie in on Friday morning and waited to fish the lunchtime low tide at Wreck Rock Beach. I drove down into Deepwater National Park at about 10.00 am. The skies were clear and the forecast strong north easterly wind had not materialised. I rock hopped out, about half way along the peninsula and cast out a  GULP 3” Minnow soft plastic, in the Lime Tiger colour. I was fishing with 10lb fluorocarbon leader and a 1/8^th ounce, 1/0 sized hook jighead. The first taker was a small moses perch, who was hiding close to the rocks. I caught a few of these, (none big enough to keep) then moved a little further along.

I cast out in front of the rocks, into the gaps between the bommies. I soon found some more moses perch and then some small dart. I moved around the rocks and swapped through a few different coloured soft plastics. The brighter colours in the three inch size soft plastic minnows – particularly those with some speckle in the colour, seemed to catch the best fish and the dart gradually got bigger. But I could not find any significant fish at Wreck Rock and by about 3.30 pm, the incoming tide pushed me off my fishing perch.

Kite

Early evening

I dried off, pulled on some long pants and drove back down to Deepwater Creek. I arrived just after 4.00 pm and rigged up with another small DUO Poco Poco surface popper. I cast out into the fresh water section. I jerked the popper slowly back towards me. There were a couple of swipes behind it, but I did not hook up.

I moved back to the saltwater section and re-rigged with a GULP 3 “ Minnow on a 1/16^th ounce, size 2 hook jighead. Tarpon have quite small hard mouths so I hoped the smaller hook gauge might slide home more easily. This did the trick and after a number of hits and dropped fish I finally hooked a good one. They fight so hard and leap around all over the place – they are just great fun to catch. I landed three but hooked up to about ten as the sun dropped and the cicadas started to produce a deafening hum, the action got faster and hotter and then slowly died down.

By about 6.45 pm it was dark and quiet. I tried a few casts with a popper and then gave up.