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St George's Basin this weekend - Help Needed!


Niall

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Hi Everyone,

I'm heading to St George's Basin tomorrow with a mate for a couple of nights.  We'll be staying at Bream Beach Holiday Park and we'll both be fishing from a Hobie.

Neither of us have been there before but we've done a bunch of research and put together a little bit of an idea of how we were going to approach it.  

However, these plans have been thrown out the window somewhat by the biblical downpours we've experienced this past week that are set to continue over the weekend.  Neither of us are afraid of a bit of rain but we're at a bit of a loss as to what to do now - there's obviously been a lot.  Are we looking at fishing in a bowl of chocolate milk all weekend?  

My dreams of fishing the edges for bream and catching giant flathead all weekend are starting to get away from me.

Would anyone care to enlighten me as to how we can get the most out of this weekend?  Granted we're both pretty exclusively lure fishos so any advice in that direction would be ideal.

Cheers legends,

Niall 

BTW If anyone local wants to meet us for a beer on Friday to give us the lowdown, my compadre and I will happily shout you a few rounds for your trouble 🤙 

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Hi Niall. I was down on The Basin yesterday and although we've had plenty of rain (nowhere near as much as Sydney) and the water is coloured up, the fishing is still okay.

If I was you and launching from Bream Beach, I'd be heading south about 1km to where the shallow flats start to widen out and start my morning throwing a few surface lures around the ribbon weed edges. The stealth of a kayak is perfect for this, even if there's no wind.

As the sun gets up and the flats start to go quiet, paddle out just over the drop off of these flats and fish some larger plastics for flathead, stay in relatively close to the weed beds in around 4 metres of water, as this is where the bait is and the flatties are most active. This area and right down into the south east corner is one of the most consistent spots to produce big fish in the waterway, plus there's no feeder creeks around there so hopefully the water will be a little cleaner than other areas.

Send me a message if there's anything else I can help you with and good luck.

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I've fished and camped there for a couple of days. 

There are very patchy weed patches. There are octopus and squid there and my mate caught a flathead. 

Just careful landing and launching on low tide as it is only about knee deep for quite a bit. The water is very clear also.

A side note, the possums are absolute master Thieves. Make sure you lock your doors and keep all good away. I know how stupid I sound saying this, yes they do open tents. I know from first and experience. 

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On 2/25/2022 at 7:26 AM, Green Hornet said:

Hi Niall. I was down on The Basin yesterday and although we've had plenty of rain (nowhere near as much as Sydney) and the water is coloured up, the fishing is still okay.

If I was you and launching from Bream Beach, I'd be heading south about 1km to where the shallow flats start to widen out and start my morning throwing a few surface lures around the ribbon weed edges. The stealth of a kayak is perfect for this, even if there's no wind.

As the sun gets up and the flats start to go quiet, paddle out just over the drop off of these flats and fish some larger plastics for flathead, stay in relatively close to the weed beds in around 4 metres of water, as this is where the bait is and the flatties are most active. This area and right down into the south east corner is one of the most consistent spots to produce big fish in the waterway, plus there's no feeder creeks around there so hopefully the water will be a little cleaner than other areas.

Send me a message if there's anything else I can help you with and good luck.

 

On 2/25/2022 at 9:26 AM, Isaac Ct said:

I have fished the basin a bit but @Green Hornet is the real Basin guru.

 

On 2/25/2022 at 8:38 AM, slothparade said:

I've fished and camped there for a couple of days. 

There are very patchy weed patches. There are octopus and squid there and my mate caught a flathead. 

Just careful landing and launching on low tide as it is only about knee deep for quite a bit. The water is very clear also.

A side note, the possums are absolute master Thieves. Make sure you lock your doors and keep all good away. I know how stupid I sound saying this, yes they do open tents. I know from first and experience. 

Thanks heaps for the tips guys.  The weather was pretty atrocious the whole time we were there.  I actually didn't see any of these replies before I headed down so it's interesting to see what we did vs what was suggested.

@Green Hornet we ended up doing pretty much exactly what you've advised here on the Friday arvo.  Launched at the boat ramp near Bream Beach and headed south along the shoreline.  Heaps of tailor about and I had a 70mm Splash Prawn taken whole by one of the resident Dino-tailor within about an hour of starting.  We found a few bream and EP's along those ribbon weed edges.  I was surprised by how shallow it stays and how thick the weed is in places.  Definitely a surface lure place for sure.

Second day we launched at the same spot in the morning and went the opposite direction.  Probably not the best call as the feeder creeks were pushing so much fresh into the basin and the water was chocolate brown.  We changed tactics in the arvo and decided to look for cleaner water elsewhere.  Ended up launching at St George's Basin boat ramp and fishing the two small islands nearby for a few bream and whiting - bit of a tough bite but we found a few here and there.

On the last morning we launched near bream beach again and explored up one of the feeder creeks to get out of the wind.  Managed a few flatties up there and got smashed by a few EP's in the snags.

So it was a little bit of a disappointing weekend in terms of the weather.  I think a return visit during some better weather is own the cards for sure.  Had a ball throughout the weekend in spite of getting drenched.

Thanks again for all the tips guys.

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