I dont have much time to blog at the moment so I will keep it quick.
I stayed at a mates house and we went fishing for a few days.
At one spot we were nailing salmon with atleast 5 following the lure and attacking it, if one had the lure in its mouth hooked up all the other salmon would attack it and try to get what it had just swallowed.
After that the wind picked up and lures were used to catch moses perch, bream and flathead.
The next day we went to a different spot and my friend caught and tagged some magnificent flathead.
appart from that some giant herring, bream, moses perch and some smaller flathead and whiting werre caught.
On the friday I fished by meyself down at the river snagging a few little barra but nothing of size, its getting too cold for them now. some catfish were also caught.
I will have a massive blog when I come back from gladstone in a few days so keep In touch.
Here are some photos;
First off i made this video which is mainly what this blog is about but I will also share some other images from the weekend and new gear and other days this week.
The weekend was a long weekend and I went camping with the girlfriends family and went back to the basics... the dreaded word to a lure fisho... 'bait'
it wasnt all bad, just some live nippers but that seemed to be the go and between helping my girlfriend and her cousin bait was all I had time for. In the morning I did flick around my lures hoping for some flatty but only moses perch and toadfish came out of the water with the lure. the next morning however I managed to land 20 whiting on both bait and lure but only kept six. the lures catching the fish on the weekend were sebile crankster 35mr and sebile spinshad #00.
keep scrolling down as I will show images and then discuss my friday trip.
what a perfect spot
BY THE WAY HE IS THE STIG
IF YOU DIDNT REALISE
dart and bream
can you see by the look on my face how big the
gurth of the bream was, this system held very healthy fish
the girlfriend with a bream
the next bit of writing is about the friday my mate and I walked all over rocky to find fish, all day there was none, we tried every spot and even bait wasnt working. I got a snag and the sinker came off the bait rig and I didnt want to stuff around with it so I threw it back out and straight away nailed a barra. then it went dark and I was waiting to be picked up and got a couple more on the sebile splasher, really picks up when its dark, the fish smack anything on the surface... anyway here is a photo;
this beauty was nailed at about six oclock after my dad called to say
it would be even later untill he picked me up, didnt bother me what so ever
Then this weekend... well the sunday I went out and purchased a berkley dropshot baitcaster, another stradick pro rod just a bit heavier for flatty and salmon along with this I got 4 large tackle boxes from bcf for 20 dollars to store all my lures, I got a daiwa jupiter and am waiting for the spare spool because the 2000 sized reel got sold with a 2500 box and my 2500 reel had a 2000 box with a 2000 spool which was no use to me. I also got a silstar reel then three lots of braid and backing for my daiwa viento, daiwa jupiter and the silstar reel. here is a picture;
L to R viento on dropshot, stradic on stradwick, jupiter on stradwick
some of the best lures ever made, all sebile and all good.
also showing the rods and reels plus the silstar spare reel
It was show holiday today so school had no effect on my fishing times. I threw together my gear and headed down to spot y and didn’t get too many fish other than tarpon so I went to Barra jacks and grabbed some pliers and other gear because yesterday was a pain unhooking the tarpon with no pliers. I got back to find some guy holding a small Barra and thought there must be some bigger ones. I scampered down the rock wall to fish the exposed rocks of the low tide and there were big swirls and lots of thrashes every time I pulled the popper past a certain place so I tied on a Crankster and launched that out and snap the drag was screaming as a fought a small blue salmon in to the rocks now kicking myself for losing the lip grips when I flipped my kayak. I put my thumb in its mouth and used my fingers to hold the underneath of its jaw and lifted it up onto the rocks abut it bit my, flipped around and fell into the water but the lure had come out of its mouth thank god.
A couple more casts with a flattshad on accounted for a bream and another tarpon. The Crankster was then back in action and nailed some Barra and then I miscast and the lure ended up to the right hand side far out on a log pile, now I know there a Barra here but the reason I didn’t fish the area was because of the outfit, a small reel that could handle it but the line and rod would struggle keeping them away from the snags. I decided to just lure it anyways and SPLOOSH the Barra scoffed it and jumped out of the water and then dove to the branches of the dead tree, it was now or never so I tried to pull it away from the snags and finally it came. I got it in, it was the day’s second smallest but it was the one that scared me the most. Keep coming back and reading the blog because in a week I will have done more fishing trips and on the way to the beach to lure for flathead bream whiting and other species with a mate and then off to Gladstone a couple of times.
lovely barra pulled from the snags, about 50cm in length
So recently I have flipped the kayak and lost all the gear, but this now means I have to buy the rods and reels back so there is no point in not getting really high quality gear in my perspective. I had finished my physics test and decided to jump on the bike and take a ride down to BarraJacks Rockhampton and grab my new Shimano Stradic Ci4 1000f which balances well with my recently acquired Stradwick SicStik Pro 1-3 kg rod. They spooled the reel with some crystal braid 100m 1kg and I was on my way. I had ridden to the spot x and realised I forgot leader so it was back to barra jacks to ‘borrow’ some 2 kg mono. Now with that tied to my braid by a bim twist I rod to my spot x but on the way saw a bait ball being hammered by Tarpon near a bridge. I know from experience that they cannot resist a surface lure and in my lure arsenal I had a perch coloured Sebile splasher (possibly the greatest surface lure made) it was also filled with glitter giving it an unreal effect in the water. I cast out with this 52mm lure and let it sit for a couple of seconds then a few bloops and Bang tarpon were attacking from every direction. The tarpon were surreal coming so close to me and they wanted the lure so bad I saw two go for it at the same time right at my feet. The splasher was carving up and making havoc with more and more jumps from tarpon every minute as they smashed bait because I was stirring them up, I decided to try another lure, my Crankster 35mr. This lure was in the PR01 colour and this lure nailed them, the flattshad 42 nailed them, I was having so much fun but decided as fun as it was I am a bream and Barra fisherman so I will go after what I know…. So I continued to spot x and nailed a bream at the front and then a slimy green eel, both of these catches were on a Crankster 35 Mr PR04. It died down after that so I went further in and found some lovely Barra that happily darted across the water in jumps and twist displaying why I love to fish them. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a Barra jump out the water with your lure visibly in the side of its mouth.
picture taken later on to show you guys my new stradic.
The splasher is also on the hook ring of the rod
This is a combined 2 blogs,
I went to an island in the kayak with a mate and got small salmon, it was pretty fun, not what im used to.
I also went for a kayak in the woolwash lagoon but only caught heaps of perch so nothing photo worthy.
enjoy
I went down to the river today in search of Bream today but there wasnt any once again I found myself landing Barra and Tarpon on bream lures, I changed to a large sebile slender eel and a barra took off with it and after a massive fight left my with the head. I had no more barra lures suuitable for this light combo by sebile so i threw on an oldy and landed three really nice looking barra. deffinately a good day, bream or no bream. Now I am difinately in need of some new Sebile bream lures and Sebile Barra lures.
all thats left of my 95mm lure, about 10mm-sebile slender eel
fish number 1, decent size barra, nice and fat too
after fishing with kurt hutchby I have learnt a lot. this morning while everyone was casting off the bridge into the channel at a local fishing spot I walked in the flooded paddocks from all the rain, all the baitfish are there eating what the can find new, which meant the big fish will be close by hiding behind things, before I know it wading around in weeds and sticks and barbed wire fences pay off with a few tarpon being taken. I went home after no bara were caught. something else caught my eye while i fished with the GAWB hatchery people, all their rods were light as and their reels matched. even when I went barra fishing they had super light spin outfits. I went to barra jacks and snagged a bargain, a light 2 peice catana for 85 and a quantum triax for 30 ( way way way under priced) the team there put some braid and backing on for me and all i needed now was fish. I wanted to bream fish the river but the river didnt like that idea instead it threw 7 tarpon and 5 barra my way. Good way to christen/test new gear. I had ages left to go but I decided to just go home because the glare was killer and I was satisfied with the job my little bream lure did.
I walked right up to the tress to try and find a barra
fail shot at tarpon underwater, can slightly see it though
smaller tarpon on the crankster. im going to have to get more
It was my final day in gladstone and I got to the hatchery at 5. Kurt myself and thomas were going around to all the islands trying to land some fish. there was nothing for ages but i stood at the back of the boat and cast so everytime kurt used the electric I would stumble. The sebile splasher had many follows but no takes. we went to a different spot where we could see barra swirling but they wouldnt take the lures. kurt got some cod on a sebile magic swimmer and on an sx40 got a fllounder and a barra around a pylon, he could have run into the barra because it didnt even notice we were there. thomas cast at a barra lure and ended up landing a beautiful big pikey. I on the other hand got many bites and follows but nothing seemed to stay on the hook. no matter. we got back to the hatchery and went to the barra ponds where all the fingerlings are raised. there was a pond full of larger barra so i cast in there. the water was clear and the barra follow your lure if you use the right retrive. even though they were small, about 50cm i think, give or take, they still put on a show with jumps and kicks and runs. I ended up nailing heaps after i found the retrive for the sebile crankster 35mr. twitch the lure 1-3 times and then let it rise, on the rise the bara pound it and scream off with the lure. we got back and i had a bit of time to kill before dad finished work and drove home so i fished for bream again catching around 20 around some bridge pylons, luckily I put on the packets of 4x reinforced hooks but the bream still kept crunching them. at the end of the day I packed up and went home pretty pleased with the week and hoping to come back for a fish next holidays.
on day 3 I got dropped at the hatchery, put my rods in Kurts car and then connected up his boat onto the dual cab ute. it was a bit more roomy now that matty one of the workers went on holidays so everyone fit in the car nicely. we took the boat to the spillway and launched hunting for barra for atleast 3 hours My sebile Slender Eel was the first thing too hook up what seemed to be a barra, then someone hooked up on a tarpon but niether of us got the fish in which was very dissapointing. nobody got fish for ages so I put on a large plastic and put some kurt goop on it and cast that out but all that achieved was a dirty black catfish. Kurt put on a flick bait and hooked and got in a tarpon. we went back to the hatchery and unloaded everything and Kurt showed me all the stuff about feeding the fingerling and other stuff like his spinner baits and sites he gets jig heads and stuff from, it was all very interesting. it was a better afternoon, the sun was shining bit so i gave the arina another chance and hooked up on some more bream around pylons. to memory the was about 5 bream that time and once again all on the sebile crankster 35 mr.
Today I went out to the spillway to get brude stock with the hatchery GAWB people managed by kurt hutchby. we fished in heaps of different places but couldnt get to the spillway because of the 200ml of rain the night before. the scenery at the sites was spectacular, I did learn alot when we got back to the hatchery as kurt showed me his plastic collections and how to use what for different fish and then let me grab a few to use on some brem, along with something I know call kurt goop. Its like the attractants of the s factor stuff in squidgies but he made it up to give the barra medicines. It works alright and I have a whole tub of it to use one fish. With the goop on some prongs I got 2 bream. while I was at the hatchery I grabbed some picture of the barra in the tanks, most beautiful fish in my opinion.
just below spillway where we needed to go up but the water was too high
neer the dam discharge
barra in the tank
more fish
another barra pic
pretty blury but oh well
my viento, love it
the selection of lures Kurt let me give a go, many you cant get in shops anymore
