After saying hi to the same dolphins, we moved straight for the reef instead of fishing the flats first up. The hope was that the bigger fish would be bolder before it got too light.
Starting the drift, my second downwind cast hooked into a little 30cm tailor, my first of the season. While i was happy that it wasn't a barracuda, emotions quickly soured when in its struggle it flicked the front treble into the side of my index finger, before vindictively shaking as violently as it could.
Savage video of man vs lure vs fish
With a bit of swearing and a lot of force the treble did come free. I typically crush the barbs for this very reason, but of course this is the one lure i just pulled out of the packet that morning.
Having drifted off the tailor school due to time lost experimenting with body piercing, my double clutch was untouched until my crusteaz, which had been happily bouncing along the bottom, was spectacularly hammered.
This was clearly no barracuda, and after a bit of back and forth on the 8lb setup a barely legal squire/snapper was netted and onboard. The plan was starting to work, and at 36cm this little guy was a good upgrade to my PB.
After paddling back around and performing a second drift the same rod was hit again, this time by a larger specimen which ended up reefing my braid. I'm starting to think that my 1-3kg rod might be lacking the backbone to put the brakes on these fish...
With the sun and the wind well and truly up, we decided to seek shelter at the creek mouth and make the most of the run out tide there. On the way, my trolled double clutch picked up at 40cm tailor, which thankfully did not impale me.
But it did pale in comparison to what my mate hooked into!
His legal 53cm school mackerel, caught in 2m of water, was a ridiculous surprise considering we hadn't picked up a mackerel offshore for over a month and were resigned to waiting for next season. Delicious fish, i prefer them to tuna.
By this point my brand new lure was looking worse for wear, and the missing hook points resulted in a couple of solid, dropped fish, so i swapped it out for a fresh 75mm version in purple suji prawn.
When we got up into the creek the tide was considerably down, and the warm outflow was surely holding the same flatties we encountered last time.
A handful of flicks upstream netted some small males, just like last time out here. They have some great colouration when they're small!
After clearing them out it wasn't long before the 50cm female got to the lure and put in a solid effort, thrashing through the now knee deep water. But without any nearby structure my 12lb leader was more than a match, and she was easily netted.
With fun had, we steeled ourselves and began the 4km slog back to the launch point, now perfectly head-on in to a 15kn gale. But even with this inconvenience, it was a solid day on the water, and we've now pulled 13 different species up in the area in one month!
Hopefully next time its not as windy, but by now I'm fairly sure that I'm cursed...
