Garfish On Sps!

[bjneville]

I kid you not! More below......

Spent the long weekend fishing the Port Macq with my uncle for for an enormous range of species, but few of the flatties we were targetting. I caught whiting, bream, flounder, pike, tarwhine, garfish, blackfish, eel-tail catfish and tailor; all on SPs. Most on Berkley drop shot minnows. Most were undersized, with very few legal fish among catch.

We were targetting flatties, but only managed 7 over three days. The takes were very slow, almost lazy. Seemed very half-hearted. Saw very few flatties fleeing the boat when we were on the drift, and not a whole lot of flathead lies on the flats.

Whiting were conspicious by their absence, except one 35cm model nailed on SP. Poppering produced no results over 3 days, except for small bream providing an escort for each retrieve. No hits at all.

And who'd have thought - garfish on SPs! I was casting into the edges of the weedbanks along the back channel. All's quiet, no hits, no nudges, nada. So I'm not paying much attention......

The next cast plops down, right on the edge of the weed and...... smack!! Fair dinkum, I thought I'd been hit by a Jack for a moment. Little structure, so a low drag means the little bugger actually took a short run against the reel. Then he jumps, twists and turns for another minute while I'm staring slack-jawed When I finally recover I skull drag the little warrior into the boat, admire him and set him free. He wasn't even foul-hooked - was actually pinned in the corner of his tiny little jaw.

The water colour was very poor on the runout tide, and the Maria River was like the river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Still putrid, and no hits at all on the lures, although there were a couple of dolphins up there and heaps of mullet. Give it a miss for the moment.

Limeburners was a little cleaner, particularly on the run-in, and produced the big whiting and a couple of better flatties.

The back-channel was clearer again, and produced a few lizards, but it was bloody hard fishing.

I'm not sure why it was so tough at the moment but I suspect a combination of holiday crowds and the recent influx of fresh water. I suspect a lot of the bigger fish have left the system or shut down until the fresh cleared, and many are still to return. Certainly the water temp is good, sitting in the mid 20's and peaking around 26 higher up the creeks.

It should come on again in the next couple of weeks, but I won't be there

At least my uncle's going to have some fun.

Qwyjibo

[Jigholio]

Whiting on poppers is sooooo last year. Gar on plastic: the New Black

[robeebee]

[Rockyjack]

You may have done a little better drifting over and around the larger sandbar opposite the break wall on the out going tide, as you said the water is very brown at the moment here and the fresh has shut most of the larger fish down and it is because of this I haven’t been out in almost 3 weeks. congrates on the garie, as you said we seem to catch quite a few spices when flicking plastics up here and quite often we do get a few hits from some nice long toms (and they put up a great fight but are tricky to get the hook to hit home) but I have noticed myself that allot (about 90%) of the takes I get whilst fishing for flatties here are half hearted takes but if you strike hard at the first feel of tight line then your hook up rate is a hell of a lot better than when you give it a bit.

Dave

[bjneville]

Think you're right Rockyjack - A lot of the time they'll hold the lure in their mouths and spit it out close the the boat.

In the last couple of years I've learned to hit my flatties hard early in the fight to set the hooks, but I still manage to drop the odd one that way.

Thanks for the tip on the bar - I'll check it out next time I'm up. Did notice some nice drop offs around the edges there.

Qwyjibo