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Fishing Kennedy Creek

     
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Chasing Jungle Perch in Kennedy Creek.

Since my last article the boys fishing has improved dramatically most probably due to lightening up of the fishing gear (for the fresh) than any instruction from me. They also had purchased small poppers and were having a lot of fun catching fish on them, as James said “we are catching more fish and in places where we thought they was no fish!”

As the weather had been horrendous since Easter, I had had no chance to take them out in the Channel chasing Barra. So we decided to go and chase some Jungle Perch in Kennedy Creek which is a shallow running creek with some nice deep hole mainly on the bends as is the case with most rivers and creeks up our way. We decided to start where Kennedy Creek meets Meunga Creek and walk up to the No 9 bridge about 2 minutes in a car but three and a half-hours walking the creek.

James and I were using light spinning gear with small poppers, Ashley (whom I must apologize to as apparently I had misspelt his name, its Dansie not Danzig! Duh, Jimbo!) was using a light overhead with a “Cricket Popper”. It was a dull grey over cast type of morning as we started out and the “mozzies” were thick as! After covering ourselves in gunk, off we went. As usual I was the one carrying all the gear! Now I don’t know if you have been walking a creek with kids before but what it becomes is a foot race! They know that in the smaller holes you usually only get one or two casts and they usually know where they are! So it’s of to the races to see who gets there first, usually them first with me a distant last, the old adage “Youth beats age, every time” is still true. That didn’t worry me, it’s a long walk to no 9 bridge!

Anyway James is soon into a small Jungle Perch; he’s pretty stoked as its another first for James! They really are a beautiful fish and can put on quite show with their strong pulling and aerial antics, a few pics and its released to fight another day. There is usually some distance between holes, so the race was on again with Ashley winning this one, working his popper around a sunken log he was soon smashed by a decent sized “Junglie”. After some aerial antics and a few short runs for cover, this nice fish was grassed, photo’d and released quick time. A good-sized fish for this small creek.

We had been walking for about an hour and the pace up front had slowed and the old stayer was finally up with the pack! Which suited me as there was one particular stretch of water that I wanted to fish and I had an idea the boys might pass it by, as it had no snags. It was a very narrow stretch of deep water undercutting the bank a likely spot for a nice “Sooty or Perch”, sure enough the boys walked straight on by whilst I flicked in my popper only to have a smashed in a great upheaval of water and it missed “Bugger” looked like a nice “Junglie” by the silver flash. It looked like it was going to be another one of those days for me!

We carried on walking upstream, fishing all the holes and snags on the way, plenty of follows and halfhearted hits but no hook ups!

The other old adage “ Boys will be boys “is also true, at one stage we had to cross a particularly deep section by crossing on a fallen tree! I didn’t like the look of this but wasn’t about to lose face and go the long way round. James and Ashley went first and then me a bit tentative but looking ok till I got to the middle. At this stage the boys started to jump up and down on the end of the log giving me all sort of grief in the middle, mate I literally ran the rest of the way, didn’t even put a hair out of place, they were laughing them selves stupid! I’ll put that one in the book for future reference.

I had hit the front by this time and had the luxury of first cast at the snags and holes. We had come to a wide section of Creek with some deep water and sunken snags. Not only did I have first cast but the subsequent others as Ashley was in the tree with his lure and James was helping him out, James being the designated lure retriever! Nothing happened for the early casts then I started to get some follows by some small Perch, this gave me the added incentive to keep working the hole.

Next cast I flicked my lure over a log worked it to the log and stopped. I gave it a twitch or two and smash, a “Sooty” had come out from under the log and grabbed the popper, a good size fish too, plenty of fun on light gear! A couple of “Yeah Baby’s” from me, quick pic & release,  good fun.

We walked the last section to the bridge for no result, a quick call on the mobile to my mate Chris Jones who lives around the corner in Currachan for a lift back and another great morning over. A good walk up a nice creek, three nice fish, plenty of bird life to see.

Now I have walked a fair section of Kennedy and Meunga Creeks and its disturbing to see the number of pumps and man made weirs! It amazes me that the system survives but survive it does and makes a welcome change when the wind is blowing those South/Easterly trade winds at thirty knots!

Jim (Jimbo) Lee  -  www.un-reel-sportsfishing-adventures.com.au