Page 33 - Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine

Heading to Fraser when your favourite fishery is closed
* from P32
headed behind Indian
45cm were coming in regularly as the tide filled the gutter and the best part was that we had it all to ourselves.
peeled off.
Then... nothing! After a bit of a wait
One of the fishos we met over there showed us a great queenfish he’d landed out of the gutter at Waddy Point, which made us very happy considering we’d spent all the previous day there.
service, and when we checked the weather our faces dropped.
Head and over to Wad- dy Point.
the bait was wound in only to find it mouthed and munched.
A low had moved in and predicted 50mm or more of rain and 25-30 knot wind.
The way the island is situated, the wind is at your back at Waddy – in fact, you’d never know it was blowing.
I don’t beach fish as much as I probably should – it is serious fun!
A quick re-rig and another bait was flown out into the gutter but unfortunately, he didn’t get another hit despite waiting in the dark and the cold.
On what was to be our final day, we headed up to Sandy Cape.
The call was made, if it was good in the morning we would pack up in the dry and head off.
Fishing was relatively hard going, with weed along the beaches for the first few days.
As the sun came up and the top of the tide passed, the fish went off the chew and a quick check of the time had it sitting at 11:45am – no wonder I was hungry.
With the wind pick- ing up the following day, we headed up to Waddy and spent the day fishing for tailor and sharks.
Ngkala Rocks proved to be no problem.
An early start had us quickly pulling down camp in the dry and we were on our way before lunch.
We managed a few dart to be used for sharks later on the trip but there was no sign of tailor.
The ironing board cleaning table was proudly pulled out at camp as we cleaned our fish on a glorious day, looking forward to the afternoon when we would be having a shark session and maybe even a flick for tailor.
Though it does amaze me how many people get stuck by using low range.
About 30 minutes down the island, the rain set in and fell vir- tually all the way home.
The rangers gave us the good oil on local fishing with no reports of tailor, though we still had high hopes.
The only fish landed were a couple of dart.
You are simply not moving fast enough to keep your momentum up.
It was a wonderful two weeks on the is- land and with the good weather, we’d made the most of it.
After three or four early mornings chasing fish however, our claim to fame was a couple of dart, bream and whiting.
We got caught at the pub on the way back – as you do – and found we had missed the tide, with the surge waves pushing right up to the dune north of Indian Head.
My tip for Ngkala is high range second gear and of course tyre pres- sure.
I did manage to get a small trevally from a gutter on a metal lure, which I was stoked about and I hoped that its much larger giant trevally cousin might be around, but unfortu- nately not on this trip.
As afternoon came around, with plenty of beers and stories, we got some shark baits out by the drone.
While at the cape, we could see the weather moving in.
If you haven’t been to Fraser Island before, what are you waiting for?
After waiting a couple of hours, it didn’t look like letting up, so well into the night we ran the gauntlet by timing our run between surges, much the same way as with a bar crossing.
Luckily, we had phone
After lucking out, we decided to spend the day hitting the gutters all the way down to Eurong.
So hard that Mitch had to stand in front of it to take the pres- sure off.
With weather closing in we hit Wathumba, which was the shallow- est I’d ever seen it.
I landed a just-legal tailor on a slug from the first gutter we stopped at but after 30 min- utes didn’t get another touch.
About 40 minutes in, he felt a bump and nearly got knocked off his feet as the rod loaded up and the line
Again, we couldn’t take a trick with the fishing.
Indian Head produced a mixed bag for the shers.
We kept trying and moved on every 30 minutes or so, gut- ter hopping down the beach.
Then it happened – the first cast with a metal and a nice fish was landed, then an- other on bait by one of the other fishers.
Then another and an- other – it was on!
Fish between 40-
Camping or should I say glamping is fun.
www.bnb shing.com.au
Bush ’n Beach Fishing, September 2020 – Page 33
There was a fair sweep to the north, which had the rod loaded up fairly hard.