Tag Archives: DUO Realis Shad 62 DR

Bribie – The oyster jetty flats – 25 June 2016

Posted on by
Reply

Saturday

I was back in Brisbane again and drove up to Bribie to fish the flats. A cold 10 to 15 knot south westerly had been blowing overnight but by dawn the wind had dropped. It was 14 degrees as I walked out under the bridge in my waders. It was 5 days after full moon and low tide would be at about 6.50 am.

The pylons had not multiplied but the planned floating pontoon had not yet arrived. I was fishing with the LOX Yoshi 7’6” rod again. I was using 10lb Fins fluorocarbon leader. I started with the DUO Realis Shad 62 – sinking hard bodied vibe lure which the flathead usually like. I fished the shallows to the north of the old jetty but after twenty minutes I had not had a bite and the trebles kept picking up green stringy slimy weed so I swapped to a soft plastic.

I put a GULP Jerkshad in the Pearl Watermelon colour on a 1/8th ounce, size 1/0 hook jighead and cast it out between the new pylons. On about my third retrieve, I felt a good bite and then hooked a 45cm flathead. The sun was just coming over the horizon it was 6.42 am. I moved to the south of the jetty and caught a smaller flathead on the same soft plastic, about ten minutes later.

I kept moving to the south and swapped to a GULP Swimmow soft plastic in the Peppered Prawn colour. I caught another flathead about halfway between the jetty and the green channel marker as the tide turned at about 7.30 am. This one was also about 45cm long.

I waded out to the channel marker and swapped to a GULP Jerkshad in the BBQ chicken colour. I am not sure if it was the incoming tide or the change of soft plastic but I immediately started to catch fish. The first couple were undersized flathead about 35 cm long but then I found a couple of keepers.

Over the next hour, as the tide ran in, I caught 6 more flathead – three of which were keepers. They all fell for the same soft plastic lure. At about 9.30 am I returned to the car with a full bag.

Bribie – the old oyster jetty flats – 28 May 2014

Posted on by
2

Wednesday

Wednesday afternoon was my next free spot for a quick session and I drove up to Bribie to fish the run out tide. I wanted to fish today to see if the New Moon made any difference. It would be a 0.4m low tide, at about 3.00 pm. A 10 knot northerly was forecast but when I arrived, at about 1.15 pm, it was more like a 15 knot south-easterly.

I waded out to the south, under the bridge towards the old oyster jetty. The water was stirred up from the wind and the big tide, but there was not too much floating dead weed and sea grass around. I started with a DUO Realis Shad 62 DR, a small floating hard bodied bibbed minnow lure.

At this point I thought I would clarify that Landangler is not sponsored by anyone and does not own shares in BERKLEY GULP, DUO, RIO, MARIA, LUCKY CRAFT or any other lure manufacturer (although I probably should). From time to time (very rarely) manufacturers send me a few lures to try. If they look like they might work for the type of fishing I do, I will give them a try and see if they catch fish. If I do try them, then I will write about the results – good or bad.  But I will always let you know if I did not have to pay for them. This approach is not always welcomed and I often receive a package only once!

I read a great blog post by Adam Royter, a few weeks ago – it is worth a look, if you have time – http://www.maddogroyter.com/1/post/2014/04/the-truth-be-told.html . I was impressed that he was willing to bite the hand that feeds him by pointing out how disappointingly predictable reviews in Australian fishing magazines have become. I appreciate that the fishing industry is small here and that the ‘pay for advertising in return for a positive review’ model has become normal practice – but that don’t make it right.

Landanglers prediction is that only good quality, current, unbiased content will get read in the future and most of it will not get read in the paper format. Like it or not, the younger generation consider web content as free, so if you want to get paid in some way to be a fishing journalist, your product will need be exceptional and that is how it should be.

Right, it’s time to get off the soap box and get back to the fishing. I tied on the DUO Realis Shad 62DR (purchased with hard earned cash from Tacklewarehouse at Camp Hill – http://www.tacklewarehouse.com.au/). The tide was running out quickly and I was now standing about 30 metres to the south of the old oyster jetty. After about three casts, using a fairly fast, constant retrieve an angry flathead surfaced with the lure lodged in its mouth. It was a good sized fish – about 55cm long. A few casts later, the same lure caught a slightly smaller one.

 

Then things slowed a bit. As the tide got lower, more and more weed started to clog the lure so I swapped back to a soft plastic – the GULP 4” Minnow in the Smelt colour. This found the fish pretty quickly and I caught another 3 small flathead over the next 30 minutes.  I waded a long way towards the green channel marker and caught one more 45cm flathead before turning back.

Just before 4.00 pm I made my way back towards the bridge and stopped to cast a few shots in the area just to the north of the jetty. I had now swapped to the GULP Crazylegs Jerkshad in the Curried Chicken colour. This produced another couple of small fish.

It had been another good session with plenty of fish around. They were all released today, so go and catch them again.

Bribie – the bridge, the Seaside Museum creek, the old oyster jetty – 22 May 2014

Posted on by
Reply

Thursday

The wind was up again, making it hard to know where to fish. It can be unpredictable, as we move firmly into winter, but as the direction becomes more consistently from the south east, I find the fishing usually improves.

For some reason I could not sleep, so I got up at about 3.30 am and arrived at Bribie at about 4.30 am. The weather was not good. The wind seemed to be building and it was swapping between drizzle and real rain. There had been plenty of activity on the island side, under the bridge, early on Monday morning, so I started there.

The wind had blown the floating sea grass over to this side of the Passage and now it floated by in huge clumps. I loaded up a GULP 3” Minnow soft plastic in the Banana Prawn colour and threw this around for a while. I fished here for about an hour and the contrast with my pre-dawn session on Monday was stark. Despite changing through a few soft plastics, I did not feel a single bite. There was no surface activity and the water seemed completely devoid of fish. At about 5-15 am, I swapped to the DUO Realis Shad 59 MR – my current favourite suspending, hard bodied lure. After a few casts, I caught a small (35cm) flathead. I released it, tried a few more casts and then decided to move on.

At 5-30 am, I moved down to the ledge and the creek drain, in front of the Seaside Museum. The rain had stopped but it was so cloudy that it looked like there would be no real sunrise. Low tide would be at 10.03 am. I waded down to the point where I caught the decent bream on Monday and started casting, with a GULP 2” Shrimp soft plastic. The wind was up and making things tricky. I could see the ledge and I cast at the area both on top of it and beyond it, but did not have any luck. I waded south, following the tide out. I swapped through small and large soft plastics but nothing produced a result.

Then the excavator started up and dug a trench to release the tidal pool that had gathered overnight. I did not think this would do much for the fishing, so I switched locations again. I crossed back over the bridge to my old stomping ground – beside the old oyster jetty.

I swapped to a Powerbait Jerkshad soft plastic lure, in a grey/ silver/ neutral colour. I had also dropped my leader down to 10lb fluorocarbon. The tide was still running out, hard. The water was clear and the sun was trying to come out. It did not take long to find the fish here. I caught the first flathead sitting just behind a submerged weedy sand hill, about 30 metres south of the jetty. It was about 45cm long. I caught three more, about the same size, in quick succession. Then things went quiet.

I was pretty sure there were more fish in the area, so I swapped to a Mad Scientist 4” Optishad soft plastic in the Motor Oil colour. This is a great plastic with a whopping great shad tail that pounds along the sandy bottom. I could not find any more fish in the same spot, so I moved about 10 metres further south. The Optishad worked its magic and caught two more flathead in successive casts. They were almost exactly the same size as the others.

 

 

Over the next hour, I caught about 10 more flathead. Most were about the 40 cm size. Only two looked like they were over 50 cm. I swapped through a few more lures, to see if this would affect the size of the fish, but it did not seem to. I put on the new DUO Realis Shad 62DR – a slightly longer, deeper running version of the Shad 59MR. This also proved a hit and accounted for a few more fish.

Eventually I tied on a large timber Detonator 100 from Lethal Lures  – http://www.lethallures.com.au/ , that I bought at Barra Jacks (in Rockhampton) and gave that a go. It was awkward to fish on my light rod and picked up plenty of weed but, after about 10 casts, it caught another 45cm flathead.

At about 11.30am, with the tide running in, I gave up for the day. There were plenty of fish around on one side of the Passage, today, and none on the other. That’s why you have to keep moving.