 Australia: Tarpon, For The Love Of Iron
Posted by Piscineidiot on June 08, 2007
It had finally come to a pass. After over a month of no real fishing, and a complete lack of time to myself, I finally had a day to myself.
With the weather being the way that it was, the decision to head over to Magnetic Island, 5km off the mainland was easily arrived at. Not only would the water be cleaner, but the mountains would afford a little shelter; a valuable thing, especially when waving a 5wt with a 1/0 clouser around over the flats.
The day started early, at sunrise at a bay named after a piece of iron stapled to a horse's toenail. After finding a shallow embayment, where dozens of little mullet were hiding, and shepherding them out to sea, things started to happen. Unfortunately for me, I could neither pin anything for any length of time, nor get bites from anything of decent size. The morning was a wrap with a jumped off wolf herring and ladyfish, the best results.
Now, given these depressing circumstances, I was feeling a little dejected, so I opted for a drink or two and a bit of food before heading off, back to the ferry terminal.
It was only upon arriving at the ferry terminal that I learnt the true meaning of serendipity. As it turned out, my mistake in reading the timetable resulted in an extra hour or two of fishing time. After a short walk, I'd arrived at a canal where several private yachts were moored on their own private pontoons. Casting for a while with a spin rod with a 4" soft plastic resulted in very little indeed, with only a couple of half-hearted bumps from one pontoon in particular. After running out of pontoons to cast at, it was decided that it was time just to walk down and
see what was down there. The sight had me completely aghast.
Dozens of long, green and gold backs were passing under and around the pontoon...and though I wasn't sure what they were, there was always a chance that they'd eat something. A coupla drops with the soft plastic resulted in very little. It was then that I laid eyes on my forlorn 5wt, still rigged with a tan and white rattling clouser. Why the hell not, eh?
Plip, watch it sink, watch it sink ... Oh, dear Lord, there's one right there! Schlur, strip ...OW! Line burn and total shock set in, resulting in me allowing the tarpon a little too much line. I was subsequently cut off on the pylons for my lack of gumption. The second one was not so fortunate, as I decided to see just what a 5wt could do. The results were good, and a beautiful 2.5-3kg Indo-pacific tarpon was lifted out of the water for a few photos.
During that fight, the rest of the school suddenly decided it was feeding time, and the action really heated up. There were tarpon rolling and chopping directly in front of me, with an intensity I had never seen this kind of activity at 2pm in the afternoon. As it turned out, that first tarpon was the only one I landed, though I hooked and dropped several more and had one considerately wrap my $100 fly line around a pylon.
Nevertheless, it was definitely a good day, and worth the effort. Come to think of it, I might do it again in two days time. Yah, that sounds like a good idea.
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Re: Australia: Tarpon, For The Love Of Iron
by jeremy on June 08, 2007 http://www.ineedasimplesolution.com | | Sweet! ... Just when you thought the day was a bust .. and you were gonna go back to the main land ... everything changed, for the better. So often, things work out like that ... just when it seems hopeless, it turns out to be epic. Tarpon on a 5 wegith .. nice! Anyway, you have some amazing opportunities there in Australia and that is a place that I would love to fly fish some day. What other types of saltwater fish might you encounter on the flats of Australia? If there is as much fish life and activity as there are exoctic birds and wildlife .. I would imagine that Australia is an amazing place to fly fish. |
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Re: Australia: Tarpon, For The Love Of Iron
by hedrush999 on June 08, 2007 http://www.fliesandfinssouth.com | | Cool, that is the first report of this species being caught on fliesandfins.com. Did the fish jump a lot like an atlantic tarpon? The two species seem very similar. |
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Re: Australia: Tarpon, For The Love Of Iron
by AlexisMT555 on June 08, 2007 http://www.ekwatafly.com/en/ | Very cool story.
As far as I know there's really few anglers that have caught pacific tarpon regarding the atlantic tarpon.
It seems that the population of pacific tarpon is lessr than the Atlantic one.
Really that's a very good catch. congrats! |
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