Tag Archives: landanglers land based fishing blog

Dune Rocks – Tailor – North Stradbroke Island – 15 July 2015

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Saturday

I was still on North Stradbroke Island and delighted with my first session, the day before. It was still cold and fairly breezy on Saturday morning. The wind was blowing from the south-west but it would slacken off through dawn before turning south-east and picking up, mid-morning. Low tide had passed at about 3.00 am. It had rained overnight.

I walked down on to Deadman’s Beach just after first light and headed for Dune Rocks. It was about 5.45 am. I had decided that I would fish the pre-dawn period with a popper. It is my experience that the fish are more comfortable attacking a surface lure in the pre-dawn light. I stayed slightly to the north of where I had been fishing the day before.

There was already a keen fisherman in position reeling in a tailor on a metal slug, as I came round the corner. I joined him on the rocks and threw out the River2sea 110mm Dumbbell Popper in a pink colour. I had upgraded to 40lb fluorocarbon leader. Almost as soon as I started the retrieve, the lure was being pulled in all directions by a number of different fish, I kept up the pace of the retrieve and eventually solidly hooked one of them. It was a tailor about 35cm long. I threw it back and cast again. For the first few casts the fish whacked the popper as soon as it hit the water. Then they eased off a little. I slowed the retrieve and added a few long pauses after each big bloop of the popper. This got them fired up and they would hit the lure each time it paused. In the 30 minutes between first light and dawn I had tangled with 12 fish but landed only 4. They were all between 35 cm and 45 cm.

Post dawn by about 6.30 am the popper was no longer working. I tried a soft plastic jerkshad which was grabbed by something close to the rocks but I could not set the hook – cold have been anything – bream/ butter bream/ dart.  There were now a few fisherman on the rocks and they were still catching tailor from time to time. A curious Kangaroo also appeared to watch the fishing show.

I cleaned up my fish and walked back to the car at about 7.15 am.

Iluka – Woody Head and the Clarence River – 15 June 2015

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After a few good sessions Monday was tough day. I went out to Woody Head at dawn and fished through until about 10.00 am. The skies had cleared and the sun had come but the swell was still up. I fished a big River to Sea Dumbbell Popper to try to entice a tailor for about 30 mins through dawn. This produced nothing so I swapped the light rod and a big soft plastic jerkshad. This also produced nothing.

At about 9.00 am a big pod of dolphins came swimming by. The swell was making it very difficult to fish so I decided to give up for the morning.

In the afternoon I walked along the edge of the Clarence River just to the south of the Anchorage Caravan Park and with my light rod. I fished with a GULP Banana Prawn 2” Shrimp and various other soft plastics. There were plenty of small fish around and I caught 2 small flathead (under 30cm) and a tiny trevally. The sunset was a spectacular consolation for a poor days fishing.

Bribie – the old oyster jetty flats – 26 May 2014

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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.

Bribie – the old oyster jetty flats and the Seaside Museum drain – 1 April 2014

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Tuesday

New moon had been on Sunday and there had also been another big downpour at Bribie. By Tuesday the sun was out again but the wind was a strong northerly, in the morning. It was forecast to drop off later in the day and turn in to a south easterly.  I would have preferred to fish the dawn but I had been cursed with some paid work that had to be finished, so I decided to fish the afternoon run out tide, which would be low at 4.35 pm.

The burst of northerlies meant the hot day time temperatures were back, but the cool nights and the influx of fresh water had pushed the water temperature down a little. I arrived at the mainland side of the Bribie Island Bridge at about 1.30 pm.

I waded south, past the old oyster jetty and soon found my first fish. I had started with a GULP Jerkshad in the yellow and pumpkinseed Satay Chicken colour.  It was a flathead about 45cm long. I was fishing with Nitro Bream Pro 1/8th ounce, size 1 hook, jigheads. These are built on finewire Owner hooks and are just about the perfect size for GULP Jerkshads. The hooks will bend if you try to muscle a size-able snapper or jewfish, but they are very sharp and are good at lodging in the tough mouths of flathead.

People often ask me about jigheads and what to use. The answer, as always is ‘that depends’.  There are lots of drivers – price, hook quality, size, shape. What is right for a bream, whiting or bass is not right for a kingfish, tuna or big snapper. How easy or difficult it is to put on a soft plastic and how long it stays on, are also important. Trial and error is the only way to test them out. It is also important to understand that one manufacturers 1/8th ounce, size 1 jighead may be very different in size and weight to another. Some use the lead weight only. Some include the hook and the lead weight. This means the total weight maybe up to 30% different to the numbers on the packet.  They also all have slightly different hook sizes. Some manufacturer’s size 1 hooks are almost twice the length of others.

 

The water was still dirty from all the rain and as we reached the bottom half of the tide, it got dirtier. I persisted with the Jerkshad and caught two more flathead – one about 50cm and one about 55cm.

My old friend the cormorant turned up again looking for a free fish. The bird only got the message that I was not there to provide a lunch, after a well-placed tap on the behind, from the end of my rod. Then it flew off, probably with the intention of mugging some other fisherman.

I dropped a couple of fish and slowly moved further and further south of the jetty. The fish were certainly not as numerous as they had been a week or so before. I walked all the way down to the green channel marker and back. Eventually I had five fish over 40cm to take home, but it had been hard work. I caught about 10 fish in total, over 2 1/2 hours.

At about 4.00 I walked back to the car and drove over the bridge to Bongaree to look at the creek drain in front of the Seaside Museum. They are still reconstructing the seawall along here. But at low tide you could see where the creek water runs over the edge in to the Passage and it looks very fishy. It was a beautiful evening and the wind had completely dropped away. Unfortunately this brought the biting midges out in huge numbers. It was now low tide and the water was almost still.

I wandered along the edge of the drop off for about an hour but I could not find any fish. The midges were so thick by 5.30 pm, that I gave up.

Bribie – the oyster jetty flats – 3 February 2014

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Monday

By Monday the weather looked more promising for a fish at Bribie. A few showers but the wind would drop to about a 10 knot south-easterly, early in the morning. Low tide would be just after 5.30 am, with first light at about 5.00 am.

I decided to fish on the flats around the old oyster jetty on the mainland side of the Pumicestone Passage. If the flathead are around, this is usually where they are easiest to find. It rained for almost the whole journey up from Brisbane but it was not very heavy. I waded out into the shallows, under the bridge at about 5.00 am. The tide was still running out but slowing down quickly. I left the area under the bridge alone as I wanted to reach the jetty while the water was still running out.

I was fishing my light rig – G.Loomis TSR series light spin rod, Shimano Stella 2500, 15lb Super PE braid and the new Gamma 10lb fluorocarbon leader. I started with a soft plastic lure – the GULP Jerkshad in the Watermelon Pearl colour.  The wind was negligible so I dropped down to a 1/8th ounce, 1/0 jighead. This would hop over the weed on the shallows, if moved fairly quickly.

It was light enough to see but the sun was not yet up. I was covering the area just south of the jetty with casts. After a few minutes I caught the first flathead, lying in wait, behind a clump of weed. It was a little over 45cm. It destroyed the Jerkshad and I did not have another, so I put on a smaller, 3 inch minnow in the same colour. I cast at the same spot and instantly hooked up again. The smaller plastic had produced a bigger fish – this one was about 55cm long.

I carried on prospecting around the rocky bits of reef and weed clumps that dot this area. I connected with something that turned out to be some abandoned braid. I decided to wind it up. It was probably 50 lb breaking strain and there was plenty of it. I waded up and down, pulling it off the rocks and as it loosened, I could feel something moving in the end of the line. I eventually reached the leader that was also pretty substantial – perhaps 60 lb+ breaking strain. Then I saw the source of movement; two mud crabs – one large, one small, were completely tangled up, but both wriggling.  I took a few pics and gradually untangled them. One looked big enough for dinner but I am not an experienced crabber – so I could not tell if it was male or female. I was also fairly unsure as to how I would grab it! I cut the last bit of line off and they both slipped away. I wound up the remaining leader and found a very substantial – size 8/0 hook on the end of it.

Bribie sunrise
Bribie – great sunrises
Biggest fish on the smallest plastic today
Grumpy flathead
Big and small mud crabs
Like knitting
Some very heavy tackle left behind
Expecting something big
A few just undersized fish
Plenty of fight in this one
45cm flathead
Flathead on a Cajun Chicken Jerkshad
Clear water despite the wind

The sun came over the horizon and the run out tide fizzled out. I moved further south. I kept swapping colours and sizes of soft plastic and caught flathead on the GULP Minnow, Shrimp and Jerkshad shapes. The Watermelon Pearl, New Penny, Lime Tiger, Satay and Cajun Chicken colours all worked. I caught six more fish along the stretch of weed beds that run from the end of the jetty to the green channel marker. They were all between about 35cm and 45cm long.

As the tide turned in I waded back towards the bridge and swapped to my favourite DUO Realis Shad 59MR – suspending hard bodied lure. The loose weed now lifted by the run in tide made fishing with the hard body a bit frustrating. I had a few grabs and snatches which I suspect were Bream or Pike, but I did not catch anything.

At about 8.45 am I could no longer reach the area I wanted to castat and the wind had built up to 20 knots, so I gave up for the day. It looks like a few days of solid south-easterly winds have brought the fish back on the bite.