Well it started off as an eventful weekend, first nearly getting stranded in the boat due to som corroded terminals.....very lucky I decided to try and start the engine before launch.....fixed now though.
I was planning to head out on Sunday arvo with Michael chasing a few macks and some grunter when the sun went down, but a call from Ronnie inviting me on a jack session at his secret location was just too good to miss, so I sent a message to Michael saying it'd probably be a later session and I'd give him a call later.
So Ronnie and I headed south on a landbased mission chasing jacks, mainly with soft plastics with a bit of bait just in case. We pulled up after abut a 45 minute drive south and after a bit of bush bashing and a walk over some rough ground we found the spot. We'll I nearly crapped myself with excitement. Perfect Jack country, rock ledges, mangroves, oyster covered rocks everywhere, there was no chance we could miss a jack today.
Ronnie started of with a 4" atomic prong while I had a gold, 110mm squidgy fish. I was the first to get hit, but dropped him, but Ronnie was first with a fish on dry land, a nice flatty, that went into the esky. After a few more casts for missed hits and dropped fish (the hook was too small and only went down 1/4 the length of the plastic) I switched over to an atomic Prong. We could hardly miss, with flatty after flatty hitting our lures, breaching and clearing the water trying to escape, which led to a lot of dropped fish. Ronnie got a couple more flatties and I got one keeper amosgt many dropped fish and smaller flatties. We kept on peppering the same area with cast after cast, and a cast rarely went by where nothing showed interest.
I mentioned to ronnie that this place would also be prime for barra, and he said they'd never caught a barra there, when a little tacker, struggling to reach 30cm grabbed ronnie's Placcy and tried to dive straight back under a rock, the first barra of what would be 3 for the session.
The biggest landed flatty went to ronnie, who was working his plastic around a submerged rock at his feet. Things slowed for a little while, so we managed to get down along the water's edge along the mangroves to have a go at some new water where we picked up another flatty, a small cod at my feet and a little sand bass (I think that's what they're called, they look like a barra, but are much darker, and don't get near as big). We moved back up to where we were, changed plastics and the flathead fired straight back up again, each cast rarely being ignored. Than I got whacked by a little jack, again, right at my feet and for such a little fish, it sure was hard to keep him away from those rocks. This was my first jack on a plastic, so a quick pic and away he went to terrorise all the mullet.
We continued to work the same area, and I don't think we missed a square inch of it, but the flatties just kept coming, and each one we hooked performed brilliantly, leaping out of the water, head shakes, trying to free itself, and more often than not it worked. I was working my powerbait prawn along the edge of the mangroves when something belted it....hard, nearly ripping the rod out of my hand, and went screaming toward the rocks, I though you ripper, a nice jack, but how the hell am I going to stop it using 6lb braid and 10lb flouro leader.
The fish breached, clearing the water with ease, and it was nice to see my first barra for the season. After a real dogfight, trying to kepp him away from the rocks, and a couple more jumps, I land a 52cm barra, my biggest on a softy, a photo and he swam away nicely. A good fish for 6lb and 10lb leader I thought.
Things went a bit quiet for a while and the flathead came back on, I dropped a massive croc sized one, that never hit the placcy, it just sat there, and when I lifted all I could feel was a heavy weight, I spy a saucer size head rise to the surface where my line was and he spat my prawn straight back at me and sank back to the bottom, hardly phased the fish at all.
About this time the tide started coming in, along with some dirtier water, so we really started to concentrate on trying to get some bigger jacks. I was bricked twice on the same rock with plastics and ronnie swapped over to a gold bomber. A few casts in and he's on, this one was staying deep, and we were praying for the good jack (Ronnie says, they rarely catch them under 50cm at this spot) we were aiming for when up comes another barra, only another rat at 52cm so he swam free after smiling for the camera.
Things really started to slow, and the midges were getting worse by the second so we headed home with 6 flathead in the esky for a feed. ronnie's got a few pccies to post up later.
All up we finished with 5 different species, of whihc were about 12 flatties landed, with at least another 10-15 that were dropped, a small jack, 3 barra, 1 cod and a sand bass. Not bad for a 10m wide 30m stretch of creek.
i would've made a report last night, but a bit sunburnt and a touch of sun stroke I think, I was crashed out by 9pm, exhausted.
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