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Exploring Curtis Island
By Matt Spyve
Ah, those harder to get to fishing destinations...?don't you just love them? They take the combination of extra effort and good weather to get there and they always get me excited. We were lucky enough to get the chance to visit an estuary system on the front of Curtis Island in Central Queensland called Yellow Patch. This place is a lure angler's paradise and it has clean water conditions, compared to the Fitzroy River that we usually fish.
The entrance to Yellow Patch is guarded by a coastal bar and must be taken on with a bit of caution, however once inside it is relatively protected. Upon entering this system the first thing that you see are the rocks along the left hand side, which on this occasion looked very fishy. Next it was the massive orange sand dune that the location is named after. If you climb to the top of this, you can get the most incredible view of the area... however we had to find a campsite first. After checking a couple of potential areas, we settled on a nice spot close to the water so that we could keep an eye on the boat.
The water was beautiful, with large trees in the water and big bream swimming everywhere. This encouraged us to set up the camp in record time and I then grabbed a rod to try to catch a couple of those bream. While I had a flick, dad took my younger sister, Hannah, to the top of the dune to have a look around.
The tide was starting to drop and apart from a few small bream and flathead on the ZMan Slim SwimZ, the big ones were hard to get to bite. Dad and Hannah arrived back to see that we had only caught small ones and laughed, with Dad remarking "they don't get big by being stupid". We left the bream and headed up to the back area of the creek to try our luck. With our boat being a 6m plate boat we chose to let it go high and dry so that we could effectively fish the holes that were left in some of the small creeks.
The Okuma Helios 30 spinning reel on an Okuma LRF rod is perfect for this style of fishing and I chose to use a 1/6oz 2/0 TT SnakelockZ weedless jighead, rigged with ZMan 3" MinnowZ. Dad opted for a 2/0 in the same weight, however he selected a ZMan 3.5" EZ ShrimpZ. We fish a lot of snaggy areas so I like to rig my plastics weedless and on a light, 10lb fluorocarbon leader. Most of your fish will be hooked in the jaw hinge when fishing weedless, eliminating bite offs and you seem to get more bites with light leader in the clear water.
Our session started a bit slow, however as the water dropped out of the mangroves the fish came on the bite. Gold spot cod were thick and fought really well for their size. They are particularly savage on your plastics but the ZMan plastics are the toughest soft plastic lure on the market and hold up well compared to others.
A few flathead and a nice little barra by dad, landed and released with tags in them, making the effort all worthwhile. With the tide coming in we started to make our way back to the boat, which had ended up being within metres of the water. We couldn't have asked for better timing. There was a little while to wait for the boat to float, so we started walking the sandy flats in search of some flatties.
Hannah was the first to hook up and after a brief fight landed her first flathead on a lure, which she was pretty stoked about. In no time the water had the boat floating and we opted to head to some nearby mangroves for a quick flick. Within minutes I managed to get a nice mangrove jack and on a high note we headed back to camp for a feed of fresh fish and steak, along with some time to relax and be ready for day two.
The next morning we were awoken by the sound of fish harassing bait on the surface and I couldn't have risen any faster to grab my rod. I quickly tied on a ZMan 2.5" Slim SwimZ, a perfect size comparison to match the tiny baitfish that were showering out of the water. Plenty of taps and then on about the third cast I was absolutely smashed on the drop. The 6lb line poured from the reel and the fish took many runs up and down the bank, taking me near plenty of thick snags. Some quick rod movements, beach running and I finally managed to turn its head and started gaining some line. After what seemed like ages dad finally had the chance to tail a beautiful blue salmon.
Whilst in the rush to take some photos, I lent my rod over my arms and had the plastic dangling in the water. Seconds later I felt my rod bending over my shoulder and realised a sneaky flathead had taken my plastic! I was in a little bit of trouble, noticing the line was wrapped around my rod tip, but luckily it was only small so I quickly had him dragged up the bank and my rod was still in one piece. It just goes to show that you don't have to give your buoyant ZMan soft plastic much movement to get a bite, with its tail floating up naturally off the bottom. Dad was next to hook up with a nice grunter. We find the Slim SwimZ is the perfect size to imitate small estuary baitfish and on this occasion they didn't let us down. We worked our way back to camp for a quick breakfast.
After a bit of discussion we decided to go to a spot that had produced flathead in the past. The tide still quite high, but dropping, so we positioned the boat on a corner of mangroves that had a backwater. We've found on previous trips that the flathead like to sit here to ambush the baitfish that come in out of the run. We were all rigged with ZMan 3" MinnowZ on 1/4oz 2/0 TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jigheads.
This sort of fishing is so easy for kids. A nice slow steady wind is all that's needed, making sure to make contact with the bottom every now and then. With a bit of coaching Hannah hooked up almost straight away and after a brief fight had her second flathead on a lure. This was the start of a great bite, with all of us getting a few flathead and juvenile giant trevally. I also managed to get another blue salmon that I was very lucky to land on my light jighead meant for a flathead.
With the tide now starting to drop off the sand banks, we anchored the boat so that we could cover a bit more ground on foot. Flathead lies were everywhere on the bank and they seemed to be sitting very close to the edge in the shallows. Slowly stalking and casting along the edge of the bank had me hooked up again in no time. The Helios copped a good workout before another solid flathead, just over 80cm, was beached.
After a great session dad made the call that we were all dreading, yelling that it was time to head back and pack up. The weekend had been a real cracker and Yellow Patch again proved a truly magical spot. If you are ever in the Central Queensland area be sure to give it a visit, if the weather permits, as you won't be disappointed.