Page 12 - Demo

Atomic Hardz Shiner 85mm Double Deep catch eve- rything. Ben Monro hooked this hairtail at Port Alma.
The author with a nice mangrove jack.
How to handle the heat
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Wn Warm water daze for mangrove jack
ELCOME to 2021 and a happy
Local Luring
by KEITH STRATFORD
Page 12 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, January 2021
A couple of years ago, my friend Phil and
They certainly didn’t want a bar of anything
* continued P14 www.bnbfishing.com.au
new year to all Bush ‘n Beach readers.
I spent a bit of time targeting the creeks around Tin Can Bay for mangrove jack.
we put in front of them. During extended pe- riods of hot weather, it can be a good idea to target larger creeks and rivers with good tidal flow, to keep the wa- ter temperature slightly
Last year was a pretty wild ride, but thank- fully the fishing side of things wasn’t affected as much as other ac- tivities.
On the first trip we landed 10 jack in an hour by floating pil- chard halves into the mangroves.
Summer started with a bang and a nasty heat wave ripped across the eastern side of Aus- tralia and pushed the temperature gauge over 40C in quite a few ar- eas.
We went back on the same tide two weeks later, but a heat wave had flogged the area and the water tempera- ture was up to 33C.
lower and more stable. As well as being one of the hottest months of the year, January is also the busiest month
Constant heat can push water tempera- ture right up and make fishing quite difficult, especially for bread and butter species such as bream and flathead.
on the water.
The borders opened
The water in several of the smaller systems can get up to around 30C, which can shut the fish down.
We could see jack swimming up the mid- dle of the creek in crystal clear water.
If I’m chasing jack at this time of year, I pre- fer to be on the water before first light and off the water before the
We only landed one small jack and a big cod in three hours.
to our southern friends at the start of Decem- ber, so we can expect huge numbers of holi- day makers on the wa- ter in all the popular places.
It looked as though they were in a daze – just swimming around in circles.