Nic and I went on a mission to explore the Tully River this past long weekend. We didn't get away til Sunday morning and went straight to the Tully, stopping at the Cardstone Bridge area. Here we found access to the river difficult, mainly due to the thick Siam weed. This blady grass stands about 2m high, and is denser than a sugar cane paddock. Neither of us were keen enough to push our way through, and I think if we'd tried we would have been flat out making headway anyway.
We backtracked a little and found an area where we could get to the river, plus found a nice little creek. We hiked up this creek hoping to find some JPs, but came out empty-handed.
By the time we got back to the Tully the water had risen significantly, with the run making it too hard to fish, so we went to Cochable Creek to check out the camp-site and potential fishing options there. Cochable turned out to be a great spot, but again the fish had either gone elsewhere, or decided not to play. From there we headed down to the Tully motel to spend the night.
Next morning we were off to explore more Tully tributaries. We returned to the creek where I got a sooty and JP after work a few weeks ago, but again the fish were quiet. I was starting to worry that we would be heading home fishless!
Off we went a bit further to another creek, and here we found heaps of tiny sooties in a very fishable environment. I was ruing the decision to leave the canoe at home as this creek was deep and clear and begging to be explored, but we had to make do with fishing on foot. From the road crossing we tossed both hard-bodies and SPs.
Eventually one of my casts lobbed under the cover of a tree, and was smashed by a healthy 33cm sooty. This guy had me into the bankside grass, but was pried out and landed for a pic.
Off to the side was a still backwater that looked very ordinary, but snaggy. We could see small JPs, a fat sooty and half a dozen tarpon around a foot long. This backwater was very small (see pic), and with 6lb Fireline I felt we'd be busy pulling a decent fish from here.
Again we tried the SP/hardbody combos, but the fish were very timid. I grabbed Nic's rod which was armed with a Grass Minnow and saw a dark shape dart from a snag in pursuit of the minnow. I slowed the retrieve and this thing grabbed the minnow at my feet. Neither of us were sure what it was, but according to Grant's it was a gudgeon of some sort.
I persisted with the Grass Minnow and had a tarpon sniffing all around it. It just wouldn't commit though, so after a while we started off in the direction of home.
As we drove I noticed that my Navman F20 was showing a waterway down a road that ran between tall cane paddocks. I'm always a little dubious about these tracks, as they sometimes look like they're on private property, but this one was clearly sign posted as a road. About half a km down the road we came to a sandy bottomed, fast flowing creek. We grabbed the gear and set off.
My second cast was belted by a feisty sooty, as were my next five casts -- what a great start! We started to wade upstream through knee to waist deep water, pausing to cast at bankside snags and overhangs. It was at one of these locations that Nic was belted by the day's best fish - a fat sooty of around 37cm caught on a C'ultiva Mira Shad. It was a great wild fish that used the fast water to its advantage. Amazingly, three other sooties looked to be attacking her fish all the way in as they frantically tried to get the lure for themselves.
We continued further upstream nailing more sooties of various sizes before returning to the car at 5pm.
The stream was quite different from the others in that there were no rocks, just a sandy bottom. For this reason I kept a keen eye out for flat dogs, but fortunately saw no sign of them. Once home, a search of Google Earth showed the Tully itself was only around a couple of bends, about 300m from the causeway.
We will certainly return to these creeks, armed with the canoe and possibly a fly to tempt those tarpon. All up for Monday we caught and released around 25 wild fish. A great day in the sweetwater.
Hope you enjoy the pics.
Regards,
Dave.
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Originally Posted by snipe
