First published on our first blog BassFishingAddicts.com 18/02/2013
Last week Chris and I had experienced some sensational fishing, which was much welcomed after having some dismal trips over the last couple of weeks/months. It just seemed that where ever we went the fish just weren’t interested in what we were offering or they weren’t where we were targeting them.
After smashing the creek twice in the same week, we thought it best to leave it alone on Friday and instead head a little further south to St Georges Basin, the South Coast Bream and Flathead mecca.
We arrived at approx. 6.15am to find perfect conditions, and with our thoughts on giving the next Gamakatsu Team Series (GTS) a run next month, we had a plan in place of where we wanted to fish and see what we could bag in the allocated time and to explore as many places as possible so we have options come comp day.
Our first location was on the flats flicking hardbodies close to the stacked weed banks. My first cast was hit as soon as it hit the water and a Tailor was the first fish in the boat. We continued to work along this edge and it continued to produce some more chopper Tailor but none of our target species.
A quick change of location around the point and the Minn Kota was directed to work slowly along the edge. A Whiting was the next onboard, followed by a couple more choppers until I finally managed an undersized Bream. Things were looking bleak to say the least. We had a phone call from Wes saying that he had received a photo of a Bream being that had been caught on the opposite side of the Basin from where we were, but we persisted with our bank in the hope of hitting a patch. It wasn’t the case, but Chris did manage a nice Flathead that engulfed his Atomic Bream Shad and did a number on his 4lb leader.
From here we quickly got over our location after Chris got another Flatty and decided it was time to move into the creek, where I had some success the Friday before, using small minnows thrown tight against the abundance of fallen timber structure. Unfortunately we weren’t able to repeat the results with a couple of taps and follows but no hook ups.
We then moved into the main creek that feeds into the Basin where Chris was the only one to have any luck, landing a couple more undersized Bream. My casting was way out and saw us chasing down lures in trees more often than I would have liked.
So out of the river we popped and across the Basin to where Wes had been told about. We once again set the Minn Kota up to work a bank and started casting. A couple of taps here, a couple there and still no fish being boated. Things were definitely looking grim. I finally landed a legal Bream, our first for the day, on a deep Cranka Crank in Flash Prawn colour. We had bothed hoped that this would see the end of our hoodoo curse, but nothing else came from here. We moved to the opposite bank and within the first 10 cast Chris was onto a Flatty.
We moved around a weed point and I placed a cast tight against it which resulted in another Bream using the same lure, and after a spirited fight through the standing weed it was in the net.
The very next cast was fouled up on some weed off the surface and after giving it some twitches to try and shake it there was a big boof right behind the lure. The weed was still covering the lure but a pause followed by a twitch saw the lure disappear. A better fish this time and after swimming circles around a stacked weed column, the whole lot was netted. There was no way he was swimming out from this mess.
Happy with how the day was turning out we continued with this bank which saw me drop 2 more fish and Chris land another Flatty. We moved to the deep water, as that is one of the plans we had for the day, to plug away with plastics and blades. Chris had the first fish on board, another undersized Bream and I managed to drop a couple.
The day was quickly getting away from us, so back to the edges to see if we could rustle up anything to make our live well look a little better. Unfortunately I dropped a horse as it managed to tangle itself on the weed some distance from the boat. Easily bigger than my last, but I guess we’ll never know.
The timer ticked over and we called it quiets. We finished on 3 out of our target 5, but with the comp only 2 weeks away, and a new Humminbird 898CX SI we will be heading back down to give it another bash and hopefully come game day have a better result.
