After a bout of bad weather mainly consisting of SE and NE winds, the weather started to settle a little and gave me an opportunity to get out to the old stomping grounds of Redcliffe. Since my inception to the Breaming fraternity (and when the Morgan Bros pulled a 4.99kg bag!!) Redcliffe has been earmarked as one of the Breaming meccas of SE Qld.
Personally, it's pretty tough to resist a 10min drive from home to get amongst some awesome fish on light gear.
This day my fishing partner was my dad Joe, who had been on holidays and busting for a fish. We set out early to catch the rising tide and try to beat the late morning rising winds. With the water at a sultry 26.7 deg, I thought we would have a great chance to pick up some fish on topwater chasing their breakfast in the shallows. So while rigging my lines for the proceedings, Dad started fishing before i could even blink leaving this rookie still in the blocks!! Then on dad's third cast for the morning his deep diving chubby got smashed with line peeling off at a rate of knots as this freight train was in a BIG hurry. After several runs and several guesses as what it could be (I called an Estuary Cod) it turned out to be a cracker snapper reaching 42cm to the fork!! Now call me old fashioned, but aren't snapper caught in 10-15ft of water in winter??? Bizarre, as we were in 5.7ft of water in the middle of summer cranking hardbodies chasing bream!! With that start to the morning, it would of taken the death of Darryn Lockyer (from Brisbane Broncos) to wipe the smile off my dad's face as the arrested snapper was in the livewell and going to be tonight's dinner.
With all that excitment, I finally rigged up my Dog X Jr ready for battle to find some shallow chasing ravenous fish and I wasn't disappointed. In quick succession, this rookie was back on the scoreboard, as I pulled nine bream with the biggest five being 33cm fork, then 29cm, 28.5cm, 27.5cm then 27cm. Not bad if we were in a comp situation (but it's always the way!!)My dad chimed in with three bream also caught on topwater, as it was the first time he's fished this technique and was learning quick.
One of the disadvantages of fishing in summer is by the time 10am hits, your boat turns into a 4.3m frying pan and you start to feel like lucifer with your rod being a pitchfork!! So we decided to sneak around the corner to change reefs but also to get back into the breeze which was a welcome relief.
On arrival to our next reef, the tide was at the top covering majority of our bommie leaving 3-4ft of water on top with 7-9ft drops on either side. Unless you are a Reddy local, this can only mean one thing....Cod time. These filthy lure stealing menaces are prevalent throughout the Redcliffe reef system and can be awesome fun if you can get them out of their holes!! It didn't take too long till dad was onto his first fish which fought with much angst, giving dad a good fight for his money. It turned out to be one of these cod at 34cm, with only dad's 8lb leader saving him from certain lure theft. Straight after that I was on also with this fish running in an arc like pattern meaning a bream was on the line. With several runs and it feeling weighty, I knew this was a good fish and once landed went 32cm to the fork and my day was topped off. I picked this fish up on an Atomic Deep Crank 38 in Ghost Gill Brown using a 5ft, 6lb yamatoyo leader which allows me a little stretch to set the hooks and minimal visibility. In saying this, my 6lb leader was no match for the fish I hooked three casts later which ran like Usain Bolt and left me scratching my head holding a shredded leader asking 'What just happened!!'
We then decided to call it a day as the sun was beating us up and after a great topwater session in the morning and dad's snapper, what more could you really ask for. I always love fishing with my dad as he was the one who introduced me to it at a young age and the fact that now I've grown up, I can beat him!!! On volume, not size!! Love you Dad.
Happy Breaming,
Grayson
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