Winter in gladstone part 2

Day1- Dad and I drove down and I got dropped at the hatchery to meet Kurt eagerly waiting with the boat ready. We took it straight to the nearest boat ramp and sped off to the islands to fish for bream on the flats.



bream on asebile crankster in a prawn colouration



 Once again the Sebile Crankster dominated in their actions and colours, the prawn imitation patterns and bluegill pretty much saw a bounty of lovely fighting fish on my light 1-3kg rod and 100 stradic reel.  Because we were flats fishing the drag was minimal so the entertainment and joy of real fishing kicked in.

small queeny

 the first few fish were bream and then we went around the back of a gravel patch and Kurt kept nailing bream while for some reason I took out some travelly and a small queen fish. Kurt captured a nice sized flathead on a cranka then we headed off to another spot. I reeled in a small cod on the bluegill colour and by this time I was thinking there was no fish that could resist this colour.

larger more fun queeny

the cod we werent meant to be catching

 A few more bream were caught and we headed over to yet another sand flat with rocky points and gravel patches, the perfect place for bream, and bream was what we got, one after the other. The day got even better when I nailed some more queenfish with Sebile Koolie minnows, magic swimmers and Acast minnows.

bluegill colour

another to the prawn

The magic swimmer then got terrorised and after a short and hard fight to a large blue salmon the salmon went for a pounding run and snapped the week in comparison 4 pound line, A stick shad was then put on and rapidly jerked through the water and landed some steel back salmon, and by that time it was midday and Kurt needed to get back so we headed back, hitched the boat up and left, I then walked to the marina and caught some trevally and bream then after seeing many people getting their bait taken around the one pylon I vertically jigged a semi hard vibe and landed a small but nice Moses perch. The day was pretty much over and I left to go back to dad’s apartment only to return the next morning for another fish with Kurt.

nice coloured specimen

Day2- I met Kurt at the marina at 5.30 then shortly after we headed out on the low tide to capture some bream trying to get up on the flat, then came some flathead and whiting. After a long wait the flats were finally full and we fished them well, the bream were feeding hard but not following through most times.

bluegill again

When we hooked up on a bream these things sure did go, especially because as Kurt explained they were big and heavy in pre spawn mode. We punted back to the inlet and tied the boat up and I cast around for fish nailing some Moses perch while Kurt was at his meeting, this time gave me a while to practice with my newly braided bait caster.

nice flatty on the bluegill

The casts were smooth and accurate with no backlash of any sort Kurt finally came back and We headed off to capture me a mighty salmon and after many looks from the salmon and dodgy half assed bights we had to call it quits, nothing was getting these fish to bite, even the dopy ones that were right next to the boat and didn’t swim off.

and once again bluegill dominates

Kurt Hutchby I do not know if you read these but It was a pleasure and joy to have you take me out so many times and fish with you where I learnt a lot more than I could just fishing the areas by myself. I look forward to the next holidays and hopefully going out there again for a ‘catch the most species day’…

For more photos go onto my Facebook group where every single snap is uploaded.

Winter in Gladstone part 1

The bottom of the spillway where Barra were
holding and had to be fished out

It was the middle of the school holidays so I went to Gladstone with my dad because he has work down there, the first day of part one I went to the Awoonga dam spillway where some large Barra had come over the top in the recent downpours. Previous to this I had only just watched the people from fishing dvd capture Barra at the spillway on flies and now I got to go there with my full kit of Sebile lures. The wind and rain was against us though with many Barra shutting down, the cool temperatures didn’t help either. When I got there I was greeted by Kurt Hutchby and other GAWB hatchery staff. It was late morning and not many fish were seen, then band my line was peeling off the spool and my drag was whirring away. It took ages to get this fish in but when it was at the rocky bank it turned out to be a massive sea mullet taken on a soft plastic, not something you see too often. The weight of it was insane and the fight was pretty amazing with Kurt even saying later the next day mullet would be the greatest sport fish if people could figure out a way to regularly catch them. After that a catfish was caught on a Sebile a cast and then nobody caught anything after that. Kurt went off to take some earlier caught Barra downstream and release them and whilst there a guy also helping caught three in five casts so the fish were back on, I got many hits on plastics but no takers so I decided to risk a hard body and see whether I could nail a fish before weed smothers the hooks. No chance. Everybody was packing up to go with not many fish that day because of the wether… but I wanted my Barra so I went for one last cast and twitched the hell out of the lure and bang a nice Barra climbed onto the lure. I got it in on my light line and was pretty please to get one when everyone else had given in for the day. I went back to Gladstone and fished the very dirty looking Auckland creek which is normally very clear, a few bream were caught and a Grinner as I was told the next day. I have attached a photo of the grinner purely because I laugh at it every time.



MY BARRA



cod on koolie

Grinner

Day two of the first part of my winter trip was even worse with the crystal clear Boyne river looking much like the murky brown of the Fitzroy River… target species were bream and the catch rate was nil. Even though the fishing was pretty bad Kurt still taught me a lot about how the fish act and were to look for and cast, showing me god lures and patterns and all that.

Boyne River at late morning after it had cleared up a bit

 I got back and thanked Kurt for his time and am eagerly waiting for my Tuesday Wednesday trip to get some more fish. Whilst waiting to get picked up and drive to Awoonga I caught some cod on a deep diving Koolie Minnow and at Awoonga caught only catfish, the lake is so vast and the wind was so strong there were literally waves In Awoonga dam. I have seen fewer waves at many beaches on the coast.

Keep coming back for more updates.

Clayton