Sometime you just have to be in the right place at the right time

[Pep]

Hi Guys,

This is not a but I'm grounded at the moment with this lock down so I will recount something that happened a few months ago when life was a bit easier.

We were booked in to toSouth West Rocks for holidays in March this year but due to massive flooding we were delayed by 5 days before the roads opened up to get in there.

Let me tell you I was pretty disappointed as I know from experience the river and coastal waters would take weeks to settle down so I had made the decision to leave the boat at home and just take some light gear as we had the grandkids coming for one of the weeks so I was keen to find a few fish for them to have a bit of fun.

Just to give you a bit of background I have been going to Southie for over forty years so have built up quite a bit of knowledge over that time.I have ticked off a lot of firsts there.First really big jewfish, first sailfish, first marlin , first cobia, first Wahoo, hundreds of Mackeral both spotties and spanish,heaps of yellowfin ,

 

kingfish & dolphin fish .So to be going up there and knowing that I would be restricted to just a bit of fun fishing in the estuary you can understand how I was feeling.

But sometimes its good to have a challenge.Isn't that why fishing is so addictive. Every day is different and it is a matter of trying to crack the code for that day.

So the first day I thought I would go down to the entrance of back creek and catch a few bream for a bit of fun as the conditions were pretty good ,that is a high tide right on dusk .I have found this to be quite a productive spot to take the grandkids especially if the water is a bit dirty.And the bream were there and it was good fun .

However it was while I was there that 3 threes young guys came down and they were using soft plastics for flaties and they caught some really nice fish.Right towards the end the oldest boy hooked a really nice fish so I stopped fishing and walked down to see him land the fish. Mind you no one had a net as they were releasing all the fish they caughtso he needed a bit of help when he washed the fish onto the sand. The fish was about 77 cms but what surprised me was that the soft plastic was only about 5 cm long.

The next day I was back with the same lure which I had bought that day from the tackle store so I was in the game.The three young guys were there again so we fished together .We were all catching fish and really good fish they were ,mostly in the high 60's to low 70's.Then one of the guys got a 82cm fish so that really raised the bar a bit.Not long after that I hooked a really good fish which went 90 cm . I was pretty happy with that ,it equalled my pb and it was just so rewarding to release the fish and see it swim away as though nothing had happened.

The next night we were all there again and between the 4 of us we caught about 6 fish in the 90-95 cm range as well as quite a few fish in the 70's & 80's .The picture of the fish attached was 95 so that was a new pb for me .It was a beast of a fish , so much bigger than the 90cm fish the night before even though it was only 5 cms longer.

Sadly the bite went off the next day but i was just thankful that I had those couple of evenings to experience such a run of big flathead and the best thing is that all the big fish I saw caught were released which really bodes well for the future.

Sorry if I  have bored you guys but it is nice when your expectations are low to get such a nice surprise.

By the way for the record the fish were caught on a 7 foot 2-4 kilo rod, 10 pound braid , 12 pound leader , basically nothing fancy.

Thanks for reading.

[puddlejumper]

Mate thats awesome what a fish theres no way you would've expected that. Well done

[BigHorse]

Sounds like a nice trip with a couple of solid fish👍

nice work

[wazatherfisherman]

Absolutely fantastic story! Thanks for posting it, they are really awesome fish

[dirvin21]

Great story and that pictured croc is a fish of a lifetime

[Scratchie]

Cracking fish mate! That’s a fish of a life time. Great photo too! 
 

cheers scratchie!!! 

[frankS]

That's a cracker of a fish . Well done and well done for releasing it, too nice a fish to end up on the plate.

Frank

[big Neil]

Far from being boring Pep, that's a great story of what fishing should be all about. You being taught something by the young fellas and joining them in their fun. Great to see that all those beautiful breeders were released. Fantastic photo of the fish too, cheers, bn

[Rebel]

Great story. Thank you. Nice Flattie.

Cheers.

[kyngfish]

Great fish, great fishes. That must be a bit rare to get that many big fish in the same area.

[JamoDamo]

What an awesome pb for flathead and on lure! Well done mate so stoked for you!

Jamo