Fraser Island - October 2012. Part 2

This is the second part to my Fraser Island fishing adventures in October this year.  I kicked off with the farther-in-law to a place called Deep Creek, near Ungowa on Fraser Island's western side.  We departed from his place further South in the Sandy Straits on a 45-50 min trip north past Garry's Anchorage in great conditions.  After navigating the 4.85 Tropic through the beacons and myriad sand bars we got to the camp site in 1 piece, threw the swags out and quickly set up camp.  We were only staying for 2 nights so we needed to get as much fishing in as possible.  We were the only people at Deep Creek when we arrived on Wednesday morning and it stayed that way for the first night but another party turned up the next day for the night.  Anyway, so we set up camp, rigged the rods and tried our luck targeting some Grunter (Javelin).  I'd never caught one before mainly because they are more of a northern fish but as I said before the straits get a mixed bag of tropical species and Southern species.  The fact that I've never caught a Grunter remains, we must have bobbed around over some gravel bottom for a good hour using baits and plastics without even a touch so we decided to give up on that and try our luck fishing the white cliffs.  The sounder showed up some very interesting bottom with trees and boulders lining the bottom of the 20ft deep water.  It really looked like this would produce some quality fish, maybe even a Barra or Mangrove Jack.  As the tide dropped we thought we better get back to camp before it got too low.  We slowly trolled our way back however we quickly gave that up when we saw how low the water had gotten and realised we would be in for a stroll through the mud to get to shore.  The scrape of the hull on the mud confirmed my thoughts but it seemed the stroll was now a hike.  We took out all the important gear, bait and rods and like an army trooper with his gun over his head slogged our way through the muck.  15 minutes later we could finally walk without sinking waist deep which signalled dry land, lunch and a cold beer.  Upon arrival to camp something looked a little off - maybe it was the food bin that was sprawled across the camp, maybe it was the open chip packets.  A furry little friend had visited our camp and thought it would be a good idea to treat herself to our supplies.  Great.  Luckily the real food in the esky didn't get attacked and we still had dinner to eat!  We had a quick lunch and a lay down and waited for the tide to come back in.  It seemed while we were asleep our little mate decided to have a look in the boat for some scraps too...

Deep creek at high tide

Deep creek at low tide

A dingo took my boat

We made our way back to the deep drop off area again for the afternoon session and tried a combination of baits and lures all afternoon with the setting sun making a great backdrop to the picture.  Finally we thought it was getting a bit ridiculous with no fish all day so we kicked back with a beer when a school of Jew passed under the boat and we were both on at the same time.  My leader rubbed through but the outlaw got his in the boat after a healthy battle in the strong current.  It went to 65cm and went back to grow a little.  I re-rigged and threw in another bait but in the meantime the outlaw had landed another one of the same length.  A few minutes passed when I finally set the hook on a similar 65cm model and boated him for a quick snap.  Enough was enough, we went back to camp for dinner and bed.

Day two saw similar conditions to the previous and instead we ventured a little further north this time to Wangoolba creek.  This place has Barra and Threadfin Salmon written all over it.  It was postcard perfect fishing country in which I donated a lure on the troll and not a touch otherwise.  We soon wound in and took a few hours to explore around and suss out some spots for next time.  The tide was dropping and similarly to the day before we made our way back to camp trolling.  The outlaw picked up a small school Mackerel on a Classic lure by Rob Gaden meant for something much bigger, another photo and another fish thrown back to get bigger.  That would turn out to be the theme for the whole trip and everybody we spoke to was encountering the same thing.  A trawler had been through a few weeks before and obviously cleaned out the place... Professional fishermen - there's nothing professional about that.

So with nothing in the esky for 2 days of solid fishing we packed up and went home.  At least we managed to hook up to a few anyway.  I just hope this new Government will do something about buying out those commercial licenses and they wake up to how much recreational fishing can really boost the economy of the area... but there has to be fish for that...

Thanks for reading, next time ill be posting about a review on a folding kayak trailer I have been using for a short while, the new Daiwa Aird bait caster reel and hopefully be showing some great pictures of some fish I have been getting stuck into.

Cheers

Dan.