I only got out 1 day the whole weekend due to the tides and work on the house but I managed to fit in 2 sessions - a morning session from about 9.30 to midday up Tuan creek and a later session from about 3pm - 6pm out in the Straits. I was mainly using the Atomic soft plastics in 3" shad style in a range of colours from clear to pilchard colours on TT headlockz jig heads, seemed a deadly combination for a whole variety of species this weekend.
I took the truck through some back bush and made it to my secret launch spot by 9.30am after a slow start to the morning and a nice sleep in. The tide was dead low and starting to turn exposing a fair few sand banks and mangroved edges. I began flicking the plastic and on my first cast I was smashed by what I thought would be a flathead laying low on the banks, missed the hooks and back came my lure unscathed. Good start I thought to myself. It wasn't till about another hour and a lure change to a prawn style plastic until I had my next hit which was an unlikely species for this time of year and definately didn't expect to see one till it warmed up a bit more, a tiny little jack hit my plastic and gave off a bit of a burn before the 8lb line was too much for him and he came up for a happy snap.
I continued flicking the prawn imitation plastic around and eventually came good on a flathead of about 48cm that put up the fight of a much bigger fish and had me stumped as to what it might be, even performing some aerobatics yakside prior to being scooped up in the Bassaction landing net. I promised the in-laws a feed so this one went on ice.
I changed over the plastic again to a paddle tail Atomic 3" in a clear pink colour to test it out. There wasn't too much current running at the time so it was lightly weighted with a TT hidden weight jig head which allowed it to sink naturally and allow a slower retrieve to work that paddle tail. It ended up getting torn to shreds by something over the next 20 odd casts. I eventually landed 2 of these non committal fish which ended up to be yellow tail pike which I took for some bait for the next weekend beach fishing. After this lure copped a flogging I changed over once again to the Atomic in pilchard and set out to round up another flathead for the in-laws. As I was heading back to the car I flicked along the last sand bank and finally it came as the lure hit the water, another nice flathead about 52cm on ice and that's all the fish I needed.
I packed up a happy fisherman and went home to do some filleting.
My next session came later that same day but as the tide was in I was able to fish out the front of the house in the Straits. I launched from the front yard and paddled a short distance to a small bunch of mangroves and rocky structure and stared flicking the Atomic plazos. I had a hit and a short ferocious run but it spat the hook and I came up fruitless at this spot. I moved north to another small bunch of mangroves and lobbed out the Plazo and before I could hit the bail arm it was picked up by something with some anger management problems and took me for a right ride.
Venturing back to the first snag with more water around I put in a few casts into a massive school of mullet to see what might be hanging around them. I was hit by a freight train with tight head shakes and a fair bit of power, coming from rocky structure I pegged this for something different to a flathead and sure enough a feisty little bream cam in and posed for the camera. I pinned him on the clear shad Atomic Plazo, my favourite from the range. I didn't get a measurement but he was probably the biggest I've caught on lure and sure looked healthy.
I stuck where the action was and kept clicking around and picked up a new species on plastics, a thumper of a whiting.
I stuck with the proven method put targeted a different spot about 20m away from where I got the whiting and bream and ended up getting pestered by tailor. There must have been thousands of them as I sprayed my casts in a fan pattern they were picking at the lure and they came back in looking a little worse for wear. I managed to get 2 into the yak for a photo. I love catching tailor, they put up such a spirited fight and it's always tense wondering if they will chew through the leader or not. Luckily they were getting pinned in the jaw so only the plastics were suffering. I'll leave you with a few photo's, untill next time, hope your getting a few. Stay tuned for some land based action that I have been meaning to upload! Cheers.
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