bussing to the beach

First fish of the day



Bussing down to the sort of local estuary system is a very slow journey but when I got there it was almost low tide, perfect for big cod and nice flathead. My first throw of a placcie landed me a small cod, but they slowly got bigger, all of this in the first few casts in my opinion is a pretty dam good start and landing a fish on the first cast is a great confidence builder for any angler, even a pro. I changed to one of my favourite lures for fishing the snags, a Sebile Crankster 35Mr, the square shaped bib just bounces over the snags leaving the hooks dangling freely for any cod or flathead sitting next to it which ends in a perfect hook up. This is exactly what my holo greenie coloured Crankster did. Every time I cast out there was an eighty percent chance of some nice sized cod, the other twenty precent was flathead and strangely enough moses perch, which my lure hard appreciated, all three of my holo greenie Cranksters now need new paint jobs thanks to these toothy critters.  





My Big Cod



Representing Sebile



The tide started to come back in, slowly covering a yabbie flat and in that water were many small whiting, I had my stradic ci4 1000 reel and my okuma xfactor 1-3kg rod. On my stradic was 6 pound braid, on that 4 pound fluoro leader connected by a surgeon knot. Then tide to the 4 pound fluoro was a Sebile splasher 52. This  perfectly balanced set up enabled me to cast all the way over and float the lure just above the nosey fish keen to forage for anything on the yabbie flat, one little bloop and straight on the lure went a nice blue nosed sand whiting. As fun as this was it only lasted a good 15 minutes before the flat was covered with water.



Flatty attack



Because my mate and I fish her so often we know where all the rocks on the flat are, and next to those rocks are flathead, how do we know that, on a low tide walk around the estuary and you will find flathead holes, like stingray holes but where the flathead lay, waiting to prey on an unsuspecting fish.  Before I walked over to that side I had a final cast with the Crankster producing a nice kilo and a bit cod, then on the other side, the flathead cam on the chew, with that concluded a very successful day

 

KILO COD

The Barra Bonanza





possibly one of the best action I have seen on a Lure



On Wednesday my mates phoned and wanted a flick, one sponsored by rapala freetime and one that hasn’t even caught anything on a lure. We headed to my rocks in the river that become visible at low tide, creation pockets of deep water the fish can escape the current in, my theory obviously worms because there are baitfish, structure and more importantly Barra and threadies. My mate and I rocked up there after visiting the local tackle world to look at the new stock after their big sale (wasn’t in yet so no new gear). I noticed mullet cruising the surface and getting nailed, so I threw out a Sebile ghost walker with an amber like oil filled in the body which when seen in water creates a unique bleeding effect and guarantees strikes, and strikes were all they were, surface lures work but they just weren’t hitting it properly. The sun got higher, and the rocks became more visible as the tide slowly made its way out, my mate changed lures and within a few cast he was on, I think it was his first Barra in the river, not a half bad one at that.



can you hold it any closer mate? good fish either way



The Barra went deeper so on went my Acast minnows, unfortunately they are suspending so when I pause there is no rise or fall so I have to try as hard As I can to work them, I got one take and almost got It in, by the way it fought for a few second I was positive it was a threadfin or really big tarpon.  Unfortunately It drove me either into a snag or hit another fish but it must have been hooked only slightly and got ripped out. I changed to the white lady Acast.



yes, we dont take the best photos, but we do fish well



My second mate showed up, now the fun began, he started with gold bombers and we suggested a brightly coloured RMG, the pause he took to look around and say something let the lure float, and for some reason in the middle of nowhere a Barra climbed onto it, after a bit he landed his first ever fish on lure, not a half bad one for first go either. After many attempts I realised I got a lot of hits when I pulled the suspending lure up just like a lift and drop technique for plastics, I got a hit and run from a big fish, It dropped it then the way It was presented must have looked injured so another Barra threw itself at It, my heart hadn’t gone from sick to overdrive that quick ever, the feeling when you lose a nice fish, then the sudden jolt as another climbs on. All In all not a bad day,

Clayton

My local river monster

guys this is my metre and a half eel, the thing didnt stop, this is a while into the fight after I convinced my mate its not a snag that moves and swims and goes for runs. enjoy the small amount of dodgy camera work

barra lures part 7- sebile barra lures

barra lures part 6- Sebile Koolie Minnow

barra lures part 5- Plastics

barra lures part 4- Surface Lures

barra lures part 3-Sebile Acast Minnow

barra lures part 2- barra classics

barra lures part 1- poppers/bloopers

A couple of recent sessions

35 crankster mr does it again

The first of these trips that will get shown is my best mate and me walking around the back creeks of a major estuary system targeting flatties in the deep holes at low tide, equipped with reef walkers, stradwick 2-4kg rod and a newly purchased daiwa Jupiter reel I was ready for some fishing. The first spot was quickly showing how much fun the day would get, admittedly I was equipped with the wrong lures for the day but I persevered. My mate seriously got the better of me in the flatty scene whilst I picked up with the cods, both of us hooking up on Barra and both losing them. throughout the day a spot where hard bodies were viable this is when I came into my own, casting and retrieving getting strikes on the Sebile Crankster 35mr in the new favourite colour of blue gill, more cod were caught, some flat head, the two biggest flathead for me were both lost by high sticking, and after having a decent fight and getting them to the shore 3 times and then having them swim off wasn’t the greatest feeling but none the less a spot that should be revisited showed its full potential and gave me something to look forward too,

this one got bug anted (ecogear bug ant, pretty good action)



best mate with a lovely flatty



Another trip was to the causeway lake where the whole day was just spent casting and retrieving plastics and hard bods. Many flat head were caught along with some whiting, bream and giant herring. Another reason to go back with heavier gear is to catch the big rock cod that took my lures (yes two lures all up and i could see both of them in his gob clear as day). Pretty disappointing but still a great day.

first jewie on lure, hell yeah
on a down side, very small, they got bigger though

Monday the 15th of this month was a day off school so i bussed down too this beach where I thought it would go all right, turns out it was quite poor, the creek next too it seemed to be heavily out fished with many residents casting baits and not striking, essentially feeding fish. a shallow beach that has no life at all, on low tide not one flatty mark or indent from a  whiting foraging for food. The big estuary next too it showed little potential, once again heavily baited and easily fed fish. still persisting payed off with my lures catching fast moving herring and whiting, terribly annoying giant toad fish ( yes there is such a thing) and the highlight is on the beak of high tide for about 20mins i scored small whiting sized jewies on hard bods. And boy do they give you some stick when they run with the currents and use waves to their advantage.

Possibly the best outings I have had are with my girlfriend, well sort of, I went to the causeway again to see how it was going while my family were walking the beaches. heavy strikes kept coming then a big snag after a pull from a fish, I looked across the creek and my mate was standing there ( surprising how we both wanted to fish ) he tried to get my snag off but failed and snapped the braid against a rock, unfortunately I had not planned on this as I only got 20 mins to fish while the family got fish and chips , so i tied my new rainbow trout coloured strike pro pygmy and lost it straight away to a flatty, braid plus rocks just does not work. With that happening and my girl looking very bored I went and had dinner, keen for the Monday and fishing.

On another trip I was taken to the mouth of crio bay at sandy point I believe it’s called. lures were of no effect in the fast flowing water, so bait was the go, amazingly it worked, and very well for a blob of flesh on a hook, may have something to do with the burley but none the less the bream and whiting were amazing on light gear, my little 1-34kg rod and ci4 stradic 1000 came into its own, landing what would have to be the biggest whiting I have ever caught, along with some nice bream, the whiting came up to a total of 35 cm, for a sand whiting that’s pretty dam big.

solid effort, 35 cm whiting on ultra light gear
best time ever

Ann Jobling looking very happy with a decent whiting

Sorry about the response time to the fella who was waiting, year 11 is pretty hectic and it will only get worse, but holidays are sonish and fishing shall be done. Keep up to date with my blogs and Facebook posts by subscribing, and also joining the Facebook group. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Kayaking-and-fishing/200939529916666 . Remember Sebile lures are the way to go and in any situation have never let me down.

Couple of sites for your viewing pleasure:

www.sebile.com.au

http://www.youtube.com/user/clay94fishing?feature=mhee

possibly the best photograph taken by man, but was just
 a quick snap while running so i didnt miss the bus

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

another recent adventure

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;

giant herring

salmon

The weekend of the 'tannum hook up'

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

Ci4 stradic take 2

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



Stradic Ci4 to the rescue

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