Back to the Creeks

My mate Andrew returned from his work trip late last week. He couldn't wait to get on the water again. But unfortunately he couldn't go Saturday when the weather was at its best. So Sunday was his first chance to wet a line. When I woke up Sunday morning to a mini gale blowing at my place, I sent him a message to ask how he was going. Well, he sent back this pic!

Again, the wind direction is allowing for calm conditions in close to shore inside the bay. He then proceeded to send me photo after photo of the fish he was catching. Barramundi, Salmon, Queenfish..... "Ok, so tomorrow we have to go fishing together!" I said.





So yesterday we took his boat for a run up a local creek. We launched early as we had a lunchtime curfew. Initially we headed straight for the mouth to see if some of the Salmon and Queenfish from the day before were still wiling to play. But despite marking fish on the sounder, we could only manage the odd Salmon and a few small Trevalley. So we decided to take advantage of the beautiful clean water and head up the back of the creek to flick some lures amongst the timber.

We arrived to find the tide gently running in and that nice clean green water pushing all the way up the back of the creek. We started slowly with just a couple of small Cod taking the DOA prawns. But then Andrew spotted a large fish marking on the sounder directly under the boat. He put out a Threadybuster soft vibe and worked it back to the boat along the bottom. First cast and it was immediately snaffled up by a nice Blue Salmon. A quick self release saw him quickly on his way.

We continued working up the creek with the tide when my DOA was suddenly smashed amongst the mangrove roots. Luckily the fish tore off away from the snags! This fish pealed the 8lb Power Pro off the Stella 1000 with ease. But it open water it didn't take long to get the fish to the surface. A nice big Jack soon emerged from the depths. Andrew did a great job on the net and fish was soon on the deck. At 50cm this is one of my biggest creek Jacks. And a good fish on 8lb.

After much rejoicing we quickly got back into the fishing. Again Andrew spots a school of fish moving through on the Down Image. Over goes the Thready and he is soon hooked up to a nice little Barra. Thinking that he still had the 4lb in his hands, Andrew took it very easy on the fish. But he had actually picked up the heavier rod and the fish was easily fought out in the open water. Unfortunately this one fell just shy of the 58cm minimal legal size and was soon sent on his way.

We then raced back to the mouth to try and catch the top of the tide on the flats, but the fish were still off the bite. So we pulled the boat out and headed for home.