queensland "Tailor Made" Flattie Session

[Doobsy]

The weekend was looking freakin’ awesome after some false starts and finally on Thursday… The realisation… Two days’ free to fish!

Saturday was locked in early but Sunday was hit n’ miss for most of the week until late Thursday when I found out that there were no “duties†necessary on Sunday.

Sweet! In for the social! I hadn’t had a chance to catch up with anyone since the MBC and with an early session on Saturday at the ’pin hunting crocs with Sweresy and his late availability for Sunday, I was pumped from the moment I got up on Friday.

I was in a good mood all day and couldn’t wait ‘til I got home coz I knew that it was almost time to hit the sack before an early start on a day that most people in a 9 to 5 weekday like myself LIVE for to sleep in…

After rigging the gear, including a new lil’ addition to the scarce array of tackle I have acquired since the bug REALLY bit, I hit the deck at around 10ish with the alarm set for 4:30am.

I was kidding myself because at 3:30 I was wide awake and ready to go.

After a shower and a paupers breakfast, I headed to Sweresy’s for the regular take-off of 5am.

We hit the water by 6 with no-one around except for a couple of likely lads at Rudy’s who were keen to drop their crab-pots and chuck some bait over the side.

We headed straight for our favourite early morning hole and found to our dismay that a lone ‘yakker had beaten us to the punch?!?!

Rather than encroach on his territory, we kept our distance and decided to try out the purchases we had made earlier in the week, on some open territory. Me on my popper and Sweresy on his massive plastics.

A couple of empty casts into open water and it wasn’t nearly as good a start as we have enjoyed on previous visits.

However, we persisted…

On around my tenth cast of the new toy, there was a heavy swirl behind, an increased heart-rate, a few more cranks and then “BOOMâ€

It wasn’t the biggest tailor I’ve nailed but man, on the surface and on super light gear as well as blooding a brand-new lure, it doesn’t get much better.

It ran like a tailor should and I just hoped that the 8lb leader would hold. After a couple of minutes of give n’ take, we had it in the boat.

We kept casting in various spots, checking the sounder for action and looking for something else for a little while longer all whilst hoping that the brisk breeze that had started to pick up, hadn’t forced the feeders of the turning tide off the bite.

Persistence with the popper paid off moments later as another heavy swirl and massive splash had my rod under weight with a solid chopper hooked up. I kept a delicate hold on it through some serious runs and a couple of aerials that pretty much made my morning. If I could land this one, I’d be quite happy to head for home but it was only about 7am and we hadn’t yet hooked our days’ target. I was also concentrating on not losing my brand new lure.

Through some sort of fishing God luck, I was able to get this nice specimen in the net and not a moment too soon as you can see from the shredded leader.

The pig had completely inhaled my lure with the rear treble entangled in his gill-rakes and as I was untangling him from the net, the leader just fell away…

I felt so very lucky that the fight held up on 8lb leader and that I got to land the fish as well as keep my lure. Note how frayed the leader is and how deep the pig inhaled it… off the surface!

As the sun started to make itself more prevalent, we thought it best to head for some gutters that we hoped might hold some of our initial target of some decent flatties.

Sweresy had had some luck prior at a couple of nearby channels so we motored over and changed our rigs to suit an outgoing tide through some classic ‘pin gutters.

We drifted for a bit with a lot of enquiring hits on our soft plastics but nothing that took the ball and ran until about 10 minutes before the rain hit.

We were both fishing different lures and my minnow was the first to be swallowed by a baby lizard that was only about twice the size of my 3†Atomic.

We knew we were into something because a couple of casts after letting the little fella go, I was hit again and a nice fight was on to bring a solid flattie on board.

Good runs off the light gear and a few well-meaning head-shakes had me nervous but a subtle and concentrated hold on this fish, had her around the boat a few times and finally in the net.

A solid 66cm beauty that was fat with roe was landed, pics taken...

and released to fight another day.

Almost as soon as she was released, the rain set in and just as it did, Sweresy was on.

Another good fight from a high-60’s flattie and we had one each.

The jury is still out on which one was bigger as it was by now precipitating profusely and we didn’t wanna waste time getting the brag mat out or risk ruining the camera so she too was let go.

After that, it was pretty quiet.

A few more drifts through some gutters with not much action, LOTS of big yachts heading out to presumably go north for Riverfire and the wind whipping up to a point where it was just no fun anymore, we called it a day and headed in.

Shame we can't do it all again Sunday...

PS. Thanks Sweresy for the great photos. :ta:

[shaggy]

great report mate, and well done on a couple of cracker fish. Bet your glad that you tied a big loop on the popper, looks like it's acted like a double

[sweresy]

i thought mine was defs over a meter.

[hunter armytage]

Nice report and photos doobsy, was that a chug bug popper you were using?

[straddiebrad]

must have been great watching it follow the popper and then getting nailed,great shot with the hook up.brad

[snapsnap]

great rept thanks

[Doobsy]

hunter armytage wrote:

Nice report and photos doobsy, was that a chug bug popper you were using?

Cheers mate.

Certainly was!