Page 65 - Bush 'n Beach Fishing mag

TFishing therapy
Tom snared a healthy red devil – in the best mangrove jack shing session the author had seen in that area for ages.
OM and I were motoring up a small side creek
Tips for the Tip
by DAVE DONALD
on the electric against a slow run-out tide.
mangrove tree and was smashed immediately after it moved.
As Tom lifted the bar- ra aboard, my Hijacker lure was snatched by a mangrove jack, which disappeared in a huge crimson boil and had angled the braid into snag before I could lift the rod to come up tight.
The waterway was barely a cast wide but had already produced a few feisty barramundi and a couple of bumps from big blue-lipped pikey bream.
A 50cm lates calcari- fer hit the air seconds later as I readied my Leads Hijacker for a cast to the same spot.
Overhead, the tops of the mangrove forest were buffeted by typi- cal dry season trade wind but only an oc- casional gust deflected our lures as they sailed towards the root-lined banks.
My young compan- ion was experienced enough to handle his own fish – and would probably out-fish me if given leeway!
I could feel the line rubbing on timber as I tried to wrestle the jack into open water and was succeeding when again the voracious big blackspotted cod decid- ed to join the party.
Tom’s Aldi-bought of- fering landed beside a brushy looking fallen www.bnb shing.com.au
Suddenly, Tom yelled that a big cod was chas- ing his barra, but my lure was already in- bound.
* continued P66
The author’s mixed catch and his ruined Leads Hi- jacker lure.
Bush ’n Beach Fishing, October 2020 – Page 65