GULPS IN THE GULF

It had been quite some time since I last visited Weipa in Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria. The place has a reputation for great fishing and it certainly lived up to this for me. While in town, I stayed with a good friend, Mark Ward. Unfortunately, Mark was busy at work for most of my stay. Because he’s a top bloke, he offer me the use of his boat and I was soon into the action.

After chasing a few queenfish, mackeral and trevally each morning, the tides became more favourable in the smaller creeks. I ventured a few kilometres up into one of these and put my Abu Revo to work. I fished an assortment of shallow diving lures around the mangrove edges as the tide emptied the system. Day 1 produced several smaller fish and was the practise round for day 2.

On Day 3 I headed up the Mission River to the bridge. This is an awsome piece of fish holding structure. The beasts that live on the pylons were my target. As I approached the deeper section, I had my first hookup. After a big run, the hook straightened. This happened two more times before I took it easier on the next fish and it busted me off around the pylons.

An upgrade in gear was neccessary if I was going to boat these monsters of the deep so I picked up my heaviest outfit a 6-10kg Diablo spin rod fitted with a Abu Soron STX60. This reel was spooled with 30lb Code Red braid and topped with 80lb Vanish leader. I opted for a heavy duty Nitro jighead and sorted through my plastics. On the first drop, the 5″ Gulp Swimmin’ Shad did the trick and a hefty salmon was boated. After a couple more salmon, the fish again started to win the fight. On several occasions I managed to tow hooked fish 30 metres out from the pylons into what I thoght was safe water. But once they worked out what was going on, they screamed straight back into the strucure and busted me up.I did manage to pull some of the smaller fish between re-rigging and bust ups. I hate being beaten and the fish were certainly the winners on the day. Hopping Gulps around the base of those pylons certainly had me hooked. It makes me want to head back and try to teach them a lesson.Hopping Technique

I rigged the Gulp 5″ Swimmin’ Shads on 1/2 and 1 ounce jigheads to suit the amount of run in the water. The baits were allowed to fall to the base of the pylons and hopped about a metre off the bottom in a sharp rod lift. Even in 10 metres of water, the paddle tail transmitted vibration right back to the rod. I guess this could be why these baits are so effective. If you’ve even live baited, you would have noticed the rod tip quiver as the bait gets agitated and nervous by the presence of big fish. The same thing happens when jigging bait. The distressed bait makes lots of vibration that draws the attention of predators. I believe the viration of the Swimmin’ Shads excited the big fish in a similar way. They were by far the most effective plastic around the bridge.Day 4

Day 4 saw me team up with Mark and we fished a wide range of fishy habitats for mixed species. The highlight was the afternoons fishing in a tidal freshwater section of a creek. Water lillies had started to grow after the wet season runoff. With about half a metre of water covering them, we twitched plastics over the top and watched as barra materialised and scoffed them down. The water was crysal clear and you could see the lure the whole way to the boat but somehow those barra managed to appear as if from nowhere.

A gun lure for twitching and rolling over the lillies and out of the shade pockets was the 4″ Hollowbelly. The paddle tail of the Hollowbelly is perfectly suited to a slow retrieve and wiggles away with the smallest of movements. I tried weedless rigging the baits but found I was missing too many strikes without the hook exposed. The solution was to rig the bait on a specially designed Nitro Backbone Jighead. The oversized keeper barbs held the bait secure and I was able to remove the bulk of the weight by cutting off the button at the front of the head. The Powerbait Hollowbelly was then set up perfectly for a slow presentation. with the hook now exposed, several barra made their way to the boat.