I had a plan....
Figuring that the peak time to fish the shallows of the yabby banks would be the dawn high tide, and the first hour or so of run-out tide, I awoke at 4.30 am on Sunday, swamped a quick coffee, and set off on foot as the murky dawn sky slowly brightened.
Upon arriving at the small sand spit that juts into the wide sandy entrance, I was confronted with a blustery Southerly breeze that I guessed was blowing around 15-20 knots. But for the most part I'd be fishing with the wind, or across it, so wasn't too perturbed.
The water was still slightly discoloured from the previous few days Northerly winds, and I hoped this wouldn't deter flathead from taking up feeding positions around the shallow weed beds. After making a quick decision to buck the soft plastic trend by tying on a small shallow diving yo-zuri lure, I set about trying to imitate a nervous mullet in trouble by twitching and jinking the shiny little baitfish clone over the weedy structure several feet under the surface.
The sand spit I was fishing is dotted with mangrove trees, and in between each tree, is a convenient patch of sand which allows a compact swing of the rod. I'd worked my way to the last mangrove tree after something like 30 minutes, and had not yet drawn any sort of response from the resident platycephalids.
The last mangrove tree sits about 10-15 metres off the western side of the sand spit. When I reached it, I remembered there was a slight variation in the depth of the area as the water from the nearby flats was funnelled past the north end of the sand spit, carving a little depression on the outer side of the tree. I'd also caught flathead here before, so I was confident.
I landed my cast past the tree, and began another twitching retrieve in towards the tree. As my lure jinked it's way over the sandy depression, it was savagely and suddenly ambushed. I was taken a little off guard by the speed and power of the predator after the initial hit, and thoughts of trevally entered my head. But the very strong fish turned back the other way and headed straight for the very mangrove tree I figured it had launched it's lightning attack from. This was not a good situation, and I applied a bit more pressure to the spool of my little threadline reel in a bid to pull it up before it reached the sanctuary of the mangrove tree. I failed to turn the beast, and after seeing some very sizeable swirls on the surface some metres past the tree, I realized that my line was now entangled in one of the low tree branches.
Not understanding how I'd been stitched up, I waded out to the mangrove tree to see if the situation was retrievable. My line had become dangerously tangled with the branch, and seeing as my only way to free it would be to break off branches, whilst taking pressure off the line, I was less than hopeful I would actually ever get this fish. Eventually I got the line free of the branch, fully expecting the fish to be gone. When I wound in the slack, it quickly sprang tight again and I was met with more angry head-shaking, and relief that the fish was still connected. Unbelievable stuff!
The battle continued away from the tree for some further tense minutes, until, finally I realised the beast was actually an amazing dusky flathead of mind-boggling proportions. I knew when it was within a few metres of the sand spit that it would eclipse my previous record of 80cm. But I had to land it first.
This was no easy task, as the sheer weight of such a beast meant that simply sliding it up the steep sand spit with the leader was impossible. Fortunately the 'boga' lip grip came to the rescue, but even getting the fish to open it's large and rather fearsome mouth was a struggle. I could see that the small treble hooks pinned on the side of it's head were almost letting go after they'd opened up after such a frenetic battle. Braided gelspun fishing line has no give whatsoever, and the rod-length of hard monofilament leader gave very little cushioning to the lure's hardware, which was probably under-gunned to start with. This was tense stuff.
Finally, after one more exhausted lunge from the feisty big flattie, it came to the edge with mouth agape, so I could slip the lip gripper onto it's bottom jaw and pull it from the water. I quickly unhooked the fish which was easy considering the state of the hooks, I then ran the tape measure over her, and my suspicions were confirmed that it was in fact bigger than my previous 80cm record by a significant 5cm, which in terms of weight, would add another kilo I reckon. This fish, I would estimate, would have been over 10 pounds for sure.
So the big flattie was then slipped back into the water to be revived, which it did very quickly. It was a real joy to see such a sensational looking creature swim easily back towards deeper water, to live, fight and breed another day! I don't want to sound like some extreme greenie here, but these great fish are too valuable to only catch once.
Sadly, I had no f*^#ing camera again, so no photos are available of this momentous occasion, other than the ones in my head. I really need a little digital camera, and will be splashing out very soon.
Cheers
Red Bull
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Originally Posted by orbyroo
