The soft approach on vibes

Waking to an uncomfortable 20 knot breeze, I started to think that I was destined for another day up the creeks. In the build up to the wet season, fishing the creeks produces a lot of barra as well as a lot of sweat. Hot, muggy creeks are fine but after about a month of constant wind, I was starting to get sick of them.

I only have to drive only a couple of hundred metres to reach my local boat ramp. After dropping the boat into the drink, I decided that the rocks around the ramp were in need of some exploring. For readers that know Weipa, I am talking about the Rocky Point boat ramp.

Half expecting a queenfish or trevally, I started out with a 3" Bass Minnow and soon had a school of those very annoying small queenfish jumping all over it. I love big queenfish but little ones play up way too much, jumping around like lunatics and they have a nasty habit of bleeding; when combined with their exaggerated flicking the boat and angler get coated with little red spots of blood.

Thinking that there may have been something bigger feeding under the queenfish, I broke out my first MF40, a soft-bodied vibration lure designed by Matt Fraser for Berkley. I did play around with a couple of prototypes when Matt was first designing the MF40 but that was on bream and flathead in southern Queensland. It was time to play with the real thing in Far North Queensland.

Rolling the lure slowly along the bottom with the odd pause to keep in touch with the rocks and broken weed beds below, the little MF40 was soon nailed by something a little more substantial then a rat queenfish. Connected to the fish via 4lb FireLine and a 12lb leader, I was giving the fish all that I was prepared to give when the head of a good sized barra came out of the water.

It was time to adjust my technique, more so to get my MF40 back than land the fish. After all, it is closed season so the barra wasn't about to make the BBQ. I've spent a lot of time catching barra on light bream gear due to flicking 2"prawn Gulps at snags with tiny 1/32oz jig heads. Being in fairly open water, apart from just a few submerged rocks, but the further we got into the fight the more we drifted into wide open water. I backed the drag right off to the point that the only way I could gain line on the fish was to place my finger on the spool and pull the rod back while being conscious of keeping it low to avoid the fish leaping and then winding in as the rod returns back to it original location. If the fish turned to dart off, I could release pressure from the spool and let it run. Having a firm drag on the 12lb leader could spell disaster if it ever comes in contact with the fish's razor sharp gill rakers so releasing a lot of the tension saves the line from being cut but enough tension has to remain to ensure the lure doesn't fall out.

I'm not sure if it is the bright green Polycraft or not but for some reason, as soon as a fish spots the boat, it gets its second wind and is out of there. Eventually the barra was exhausted and came gliding into the net. I was a little disappointed with the size once it was placed on the ruler. I think that after such a difficult fight, the fish looked a lot bigger in the net but the truth stick revealed 78cm. Still, landed on 4lb main and a light leader made it a better fish than the ruler suggested.

I went onto land another and get another follow on the MF40 all the way to the boat. I also landed half a dozen blue salmon and more rat queenies than I care to remember. Never has my bream gear provided so much excitement, all within a cast from the end of my street!

I hear people talking about Weipa in terms of sheer numbers of fish. When I eventually leave I'll remember it for the exciting light tackle sportfishing on tap here. Unless you're fishing tight into structure, never upgrade your terminals, just downgrade your line class.

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