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Fishing Missionary Bay

I had a bit of an urge to give Missionary Bay a bit of a touch up, the weather prognosis for the next 4 days (Thursday to Sunday) was excellent with warm to hot days and wind around 10 knots with a 15 knot North Easterly to come home with. I rang around to see who wanted to be in it. My wife Linda opted for the Thursday. Ross Paton and Glen Coward opted for the Friday, Saturday was a lay day and the plan for Sunday was drop Linda and Denise (family friend) off on Garden Island, Glen would drop his partner Berns off and leave his boat there and fish with me.

Now the plan of attack was to fish the actual Bay itself on the High Tide, when we ran out of water, which is usually only a couple of hours, go fish the Creeks. So Thursday morning Linda and I were on the water early, we decided to fish the rocks around Wagonwheel as the tide had already dropped a bit. Now fishing with the missus is a bit different, she usually brings a book reads most of the time, fish’s for a bit then goes back to reading, well at least she keeps the front of the boat down! Anyways of we go, I opted for a Reidy’s B52, Lin stayed with the Gold Bomber, about the second or third cast I pulled a juvenile Barra out of a snag, no movement from up front yet. We fished the rocks for a couple of near misses and some small Cod. I’d lip hooked a nice Barra on the back hooks and was always going to be in trouble boating him! I managed to get him to the boat with out letting him jump but when I reached for the net, the line slacken off, up he jumped spat the lure and waved goodbye! At this stage Lin decides to join in, two casts later she’s into a useful Barra looked to be just legal, calmly brought him along side for me to unhook, looked at me as if to say “that’s how you do it” and then went back to reading!

By this time it was off to Creek No 2 to fish snags and drains. The tide had dropped enough so the Drains were still running (most important) and the snags were low in the water, I opted for a Gold “Flatrat” and Lin went for a deep diving “Bomber”. We spent the rest of the day, catching some useful Mangrove Jacks about 35cm, a couple of small Barra, around 50cm and plenty of Cod, one of which gave Lin a bit of curry tearing out of a snag and smashing her lure just as she had finished her retrieve! Not a bad start for day one.

Day two saw us ready to go early again to fish the snags from Hecate Point, past Barra Gully right up to the first set of Rocks. This day was a bit different as we were going to fish the “Lumpy” point system (invented by Dave Milson of the now defunct Lumpy’s Lure and Fly Fishing Charters). That is Five points for a Barra, three for a Jack, one point for every thing else plus now here is the catch, minus one every time we had to motor in to retrieve the lure out of a tree!

We worked the snags with little success except for one Juvenile Barra about 25 cm long that I pulled out of a snag with my “Flatrat”, ”five points I said”, ”your not going to count that are you”! Ross said, its Barra isn’t it! We were off! It was about time to head of for creek No8 and the Creeks that run into it, there was a really good run off this day so we were hoping for some fun in the arvo. Now if your wondering where Glen was, he also was mostly reading and checking out the scenery, I put this down to that he’s a sailing enthusiast different breed altogether but he had managed to catch a small Barracuda!

I was still staying with my gold ”Flatrat”, Ross was fishing a “Mad Mullet” and Glen was fishing with some red thing he’d pulled out of his bag. First cast, first snag ,Jimbo’s hooked up to a Jack, Ross hadn’t looked like boating a fish. “8pts” I said, .Dark looks from Ross. We worked the whole bank for a small barra of about 50cm to yours truly 14pts!

As we rounded the bend into Eight itself Ross cast into a deep snag only to see a nice Barra roll and miss his lure, he quickly flicked it back to have it monstered and dragged straight back into the snag! ”Nice fish this!” “Jack I said” true enough after much swearing and pulling and tugging Ross managed to extract the Jack from the snag, it was a nice fish a touch over 45 cm! 3pts to Roscoe, now the drains were appearing, still with plenty of run off, it now became a race to see who could hit the drains first, Ross hit the first one, worked it deep and hooked up to a nice Barra of 65cm,which put on quite a show tail walking all over the creek. Ross eventually boated it and decided to keep it, we have an unwritten rule that if we want a fish for the table we usually keep one of this size bigger fish are released, to breed on. Things went quiet on this section,  so we moved into a smaller creek running into the mouth of No8, the water was getting real low, with plenty of drains and snags to fish, Ross hooked and dropped a nice Barra, I hooked and boated a Barra about 57cm,Glen had yet to make a move, still content to enjoy the day. As we motored down the creek on the electric we saw some fish swimming in the shallows as I was the only one with 2 rods, one with a floating lure, the other with the rat, I flicked the lure (B52) past then worked it slowly to where they were and watched it get smashed by a just legal Jack, Magic! My kind of fun! Well after all the deductions for retrieved lures I finished up with 25pts,Ross 14pts and Glen managed to catch a Pikey Bream on his last cast to make his grand total 2 pts.

A great day, well Saturday was the lay day but Glen had an opportunity to fish Otter Reef, where he managed to redeem his self by catching two Spanish Mackerel over 1m long not a bad effort on 10kg line! Sunday was turning out to a glorious day but as usual Glen was late, so we opted to go to Garden Island and wait, which wasn’t so bad as it gave me a chance to fish around Gould island. The water was crystal clear and glassed out so fishing was going to be fun with plenty of sight action! Small Trevors where every where, climbing all over each other to hook up then grunting with complaints on being released. I soon decided to move around the Island as not only the Trevally were plentiful but small Wirenetting Cod wanted some of the action! I was casting my lure (still same old Gold “Flatrat’ but a bit battered by now) to the base of the stand alone Mangroves, in clear water it makes for good fishing. I had just worked the lure to the base of one when a big silver flash made a grab for it and missed just giving me a tug ”Bugger”! “I wonder if he’ll have a second go “I thought, the lure had hardly hit the water when she hooked up for sure this time, charging back out to the deep giving me a good look as she went past, I was stoked this was a nice fish, maybe 90cm!Time to put all those years into practice, no rushing this fish, no pulling on the rod, thumb of the spool, every time she jumped I was half expecting the lure to sail past my ear, After about 20 mins she came along side of the boat a beautiful, yellow tailed silver Barra ,which finished up measuring 87cm!Yeah Baby!

After the obliquetry photos and measurement she was released to breed on, by this time Glen and Berni had arrived just in time to see the fish and watch her swim off. The general consensus was that it wasn’t going to get much better than that so we spent the rest of the day lounging around on the island and just chilling out, till it was time to go!

Fishing Missionary Bay! It’ll do me!

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