Monday

On Monday I had a late morning fishing session at the usual spot at Bribie. The weather was perfect – light south-easterly breeze and clear blue skies. Winter days like this are hard to beat.

I started fishing in my usual spot – beside the old oyster jetty at about 11.00 am. Low tide would be at 1.37 pm, so the timing would be pretty good. This spot most consistently produces fish in the last few hours of the run out tide.

I started with a GULP Crazylegs Jerkshad soft plastic, in the Curried Chicken (red back, yellow belly) colour. The water was clear and there was no missing this lure – it stood out very clearly underwater. Just to the north of the jetty, I found my first fish of the day – a 45 cm flathead. The fridge is empty so I kept this one. I caught another smaller one, a few moments later, then moved south of the jetty.

The underwater terrain is changing here very quickly. I think it must be the more consistent south easterly winds which start to cut channels and drains in the sand banks. I was now fishing much shallower clearer water so I decided to swap soft plastics. As mentioned in my previous post, I am all out of GULP Watermelon Pearl 4 “ Minnows, so I started off with the same shape and size,  in the Smelt colour (white and silver/grey).  It is a fairly good imitation of the small mullet and whiting that are everywhere at the moment. After a few slow sessions, I have dropped down to consistently using 10lb fluorocarbon leader. Lighter leader nearly always means more bites, but you have to play the fish more carefully, if you want to land them.

The Smelt Minnow soon found the fish – a 45cm one at first and then a bigger, 55cm version. The tide was running out quickly and would soon start to slow, so I decided to try a bigger hard bodied lure. I chose the MARIA – MJ1-70F, this is a floating diving bibbed minnow with a great action. It has the added bonus of being pretty tough, which helps with flathead. It only took a couple of cast to stir up the biggest fish of the day – a 62cm flathead.

As the tide ran down I walked back across the exposed flats and was amazed at the seafood buffet of whelks, worms, and soldier crabs that litter the area – no wonder the fish like it here.