Monday 12 May 2008

Oyster Bay - 3/5/08 & Kurnell - 10/5/08

Regular readers would remember that during the Squidgie Bream Challenge Grand Final, Gary and I used Ecogear VX40's (metal blade-style lures) for the first time and caught a bucket load of bream on them. Well since then, TT Lures have released their own blade lure called the Switchblade that comes in 10 different colours. Managing to get my hands on a few, I gave my two local spots are quick going over with them.
The thing that I love about these lures are that they are so compact they'll cast a mile, even on windy days. They work over flats, around structure and boat hulls and are great for jigging in deeper water.
The bream in Oyster Bay were all taken from over the weed beds and I landed 7 or 8, with the three colours I had - Green Back, Golden Boy & Nightmare Red - all taking fish. And not only bream. Whiting, Flathead and Chopper tailor were also getting in on the act. In fact the flatties gave me a few nervous moments when I got them to the surface, as I saw that the buggas had engulfed the whole lure and the leader, being only 6lb flurocarbon, was looking pretty well chaffed. Some gently-does-it into the net however allowed me to retrieve my lures and send them on their way.
As the tide rose, I moved onto the old Oyster Leases and found that the Nightmare Red was getting more hits than the other colours. Digging around in my tackle box I found the River to Sea Mini Vib 43 I first gave a swim to last week. On he went as a comparison and low and behold, it comes up trumps and gets nailed half a dozen casts later. This guy zipped about in the shallows and was definately the best fish of the day so far. He made a few determined runs towards the few posts that are still in the water but sideways pressure turned him each time and eventually I eased him into the landing net. 34cm's fork length and that's another good fish to a fairly new lure!
At Kurnell I decided to try them in water a bit deeper and found a lift and drop action worked better than the rolling hops I performed over the flats. Another couple of bream and one trevally this time and I'm starting to think that these lures will work on anything. Time will tell. I'll have a hunt around for a colour chart and if I find one I'll put it up next week.
Hmmm, I just checked and there are high tides nice and early this weekend, eh? Looks like I'll have to give them a 2nd test just to make sure the first time wasn't a fluke. Happy yakkin', everyone!
cheers,
Cid

1 comment:

CJ_kayak said...

hello, first comment, im such a big fan i've read all your blogs, i was wondering can you eat the fish in cooks river ? from railway bridge you always talk about or if further downstream from the tram bridge?

love your blogs i've learned so much esp using gulp lime tiger