Headed out to a little known spot with ronnie yesterday arvo to have a go for some flatties barra and jacks in some skinny water.
After all the rain we've recently had I was on the look out for a mate with a 4wd, not knowing what the track would've been like, which we could previously get down no worries. With one mate working, and another in Cardwell for the weekend, we decided to have a go at it any way in the my falcon. Other than a bit of slop at the start of the track it was no worries, or so we though, slowly making our way along what we could see of the track though grass taller than me at 6ft.
It wasn't long until we could go no further with a massive washout that I wouldn't have taken a 4by down at all. So we parked up and decided to walk the rest of the way in tropical NQ, 6ft high grass, in the hottest part of the day, so the biggest thing on our nminds was snakes, and lots of them. But we just gritted out teeth and go on with the job.
We alked about 1km and came to what used to be a dry freshwater creek bed, which formed part of the original track, only this time, is was knee deep with cool crystal clear fresh water, I could've sat there all day if it weren't for the millions of midges and mozzies that were obviouslt running rampant breeding in ideal conditions. being so close to salt water, we kept keen eyes on the lookout for snapping handbags and ppressed on.
We just followed the creek until that is we realised that we were heading in the wring direction, luckily we could just see the track up the hill above us, and we just carved our way through the thick grass and underbrush to get back onto the correct trail. With Ronnie leading the way, we get back onto the track and he jumps above the grass in fright when he spies a brown snake, me, still stuck in the thick grass just about crapped my dacks as I froze, asking where the f@ck did it go? Lucky for me, nowhere it was dead, when I got to it It would've been 1ft and a half long at a strecth....geez ronnie's a girl.
We continued on for about another km or so until we reached the beginning of the end of our trek, this time though have to navigate around some very slippery lime stone formations that had a nice slick of water going across them.
And now for the fishing contingent:
We finally reach our final destination to some very dirty water, the edge, about 1 foot deep and we couldn't see the bottom. I tie on a tropic angler prawn, and get a few hit straight away, only by little bream though, more annoying than anything.
2nd cast, with ronnie still rigging up, and the prawn gets hammered and diving for structure (of which there is no shortage of sharp oyster covered rocks) ensues. With 6lb finns and 10lb fluro, I was very surprised to get it up, away from any structure and was looking for a safe place to pull it up on the bank. Then the mongrel thing spits the bloody lure, after a solid 5min fight in snaggy skinny water, and the only solace I can take is that Ronnie seen the fish and knew what was giving me curry. A monster jack he reckons, minimum 50cm. Spewing I make another few casts, trying to tempt it back when I am slammed again, right at my feet.
Expecting another big jack as it heads straight for the nearest rock, swim around it and heads up stream, at this point I can feel the braid rubbing on the rock, hopiong it holds, the fish swims around yet another rock and ends up at my feet again. I just manage to see a monter flattie tail, with the caudal fin being about 2 inches high, on the surface before my braid lets go. Now I'm pissed, 2 good hits for 2 solid hook ups for 2 big lost fish.
I quickly tie on another TA prawn, but by this time, the tide had pretty much stopped and everything had shut down, much earlier tide change than what the BOM said. Any way we continued to fish for another couple of hours for 2 small cod, not much bigger than the lures were were using. Ronnie changes over to a hard body as we move up stream a bit more to another spot, and telling me how much he would belt his lure if he was a barra,, sure enough he gets belted alright, but for no hook up.
We persit with a ringe of softies and hardbodies for no other results, so having no torches etc, we decide to head back to the car before it gets dark, as the area, not only known for crocs and snakes, is also home to many wild dogs and pigs, something we did not want to come across with no light and a couple of flimsy graphtie rods to defend ourselves with.
We make it back to the car with no incident, and take it slow thorugh the long grass, with a bit of tail flicking action in some soft stuff. Altogether, a good afternoon, with a bit of adventure, heartache and adrenaline.
I was going to take a few pics of the scrub just to show how dedicated we were, but all you would've seen was green leafy shit everywhere, with nothing to discern the ground or anything for that matter.
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Originally Posted by sharkymark2
