THE STIG - LEE POINT AND ITS PELAGICS

More of the same awesomeness at Lee Point and its Pelagics

Last weekend found Peter and I off Lee Point from early morning, waiting for the reef to impact the flow of water  (usually an hour or so after high tide) to create that lovely ripple on top of the reef that seems to excite the pelagics in the area.

Wind was 5-10knots most of the day. Varying from almost calm water to white caps and then back again. It would have been quite rough in my shallow profile boat but in Peter's 4.8 Formosa  - a lot safer - even though standing on the high front deck was like a roller-coaster ride.

Firstly, we tried clousers like usual but fish quite tentative
After an hour or so we switched to the silicone surf candy I had been tying lately

So excited at the fly, see above, were the mackerel that on the first cast of it while waiting for it to sink a little, it was hit on the drop without any stripping on my part and I came up tight to a good fish
Then one fish after another come to the net, the fly body was quite durable, the tail not so much however even with the barest wisp of goat hair fibres left - the fly was attacked savagely.

Queenfish like the fly too. We were managing three or four macks to one queenfish numbers wise. But the same sized queenfish fought much better.
Other species also thought the fly perfect - stripies, trevally, golden trevally, small blue bones, butter bream, fringe-finned trevally, yellowtail pike, garfish all coming to the net.

Overall, we enjoyed four hours of non-stop tight lines and double hookups (and losing the fifteen candies I had tied on friday before the weekend and resorting to clousers again - Peter used pink/white clousers and I used white/grey clousers). I did try my epoxy surf candies but while catching a few fish, just not quite with the same enthusiasm by the fish as they did for the silicone version.

By 2pm Peter and I were absolutely exhausted from catching fish - seriously!!! Sore arms from fast stripping the flies. Though a lot of fish were caught on slow or stationary flies drifted near the edge of the reef or dumped into a feeding frenzy of pelagics and bait. It wasn't just one spot, as we did move a few times to find that perfect water and feeding fish but no more than 50m here and there depending on tide direction and water depth over the reef - which influenced where the fish were feeding.

It was the best fun anyone could have while dressed - (even though the fishing was the same result as the last two previous trips). Again we hardly saw any other fish being caught by the one or two boats nearby - but then they were not SWOFFING!

We had planned to go after tuna after an hour of fishing Lee Point for a few fish in the esky, But with fish busting up all along the reef, the chasing of sporadic and inconsistent tuna, spread over a vast area of water - just didn't happen
Maybe next time

Which may be a while - as wife has the next two weekends exhaustively timetabled and planned with family stuff (i.e. me looking after the kids while she goes out! That wasn't the arrangement in the marriage vows/contract was it?)
But I do get a whole weekend three weeks from now for the brownie points I will earn - maybe Bynoe or Perons (if tide OK for Perons boat ramp).

Until I tie more flies or use them in the water - tight lines.............