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Starting from the Beginning

By Andrew Schrodter

Hey team! Long time between articles and long time between fishing trips for myself.

Long story short... I decided to buy a block of land, sold my boat and house, sold my camera gear, worked my butt off and fished a lot less than I would have liked to... and after all of this, close to two years later, I have a new home, new child and a hell of a lot of landscaping still to do! However, I'm finally able to get back on the water and fish again when I want. What have I learnt after all of this time? I still love to fish and still love to film, while taking the occasional photo.

Let's talk boats and gear. While working (building sheds), I stumbled across an abandoned punt in a guys chook pen. It was a little 3.7m Stessl tinny, with a little Yamie on the back. Straight away I offered the guy some money and he was willing to part with it. I didn't really trust the old engine, so it was on Gumtree to someone that could sort it out and I gave the boat a complete wash down. From here I found another outboard... with a bit more herbs, borrowed a Minn Kota electric motor off my apprentice and created the beast of a creek boat that you'll see in this article.

This little boat is a community boat that myself, my father and my work mate can all grab and shoot around in. This is the kind of rig that you can drag over sandbars, drop down embankments and maybe wash once a month. A true CREEK BASHER!

When it came to fishing gear, I definitely didn't get rid of my gear over the last two years, getting in the odd trip with mates and a bit of landbased action. I'm not much of a collector of rods and reels, tending to have a basic selection that will cover everything that I like to chase. This is my current Okuma kit at the time of putting this article together.

Estuary / Impoundments

2 x LRF Spin Rods 7' 2-4kg Gen1 and Gen2 (one is my son's)
2 x Cerros Spinning Rods 5-12kg with Okuma Helios HSX-40 Reels
1 x Citrix Baitcast Reel (winch) on a Cerros 6-8kg Baitcast Rod
1 x Komodo Baitcast Reel (brutal winch) on a Komodo Baitcast Rod

Inshore Reef

I double up and use the 2 x Cerros spin, as well as my LRF's
2 x Ceymar 55 Spin Reels, which I swap onto the Cerros rods
1 x Azores 7' 8-12kg Spin Rod with a 6500 Azores Blue Spin Reel

That's basically all of my gear and it covers all of the fishing that I like to do, from basic estuary bream and flathead, to jacks, barramundi and then onto the lighter side of offshore fishing for species such as mackerel, tuna, snapper and sweetlip.

First Few Sessions Back

I have had three sessions back, since having my own little rig again. All three have been based around catching a feed of flathead and picking up a few bream along the way. I'm not a huge fan of chasing flathead on the high tides, so I've based two of these sessions around the last three hours of the run out tide. The first on a very low tide at 0.3m, then as the days went on it built up to a 0.6m low. These sessions were based around targeting weedy drop offs, weedy points and weedy rubble flats.

The first session was with my son Emmett around the 0.3m low and with this much water moving out of the areas that I fish, you really get an idea of the landscapes that you're fishing. This also helps with other trips where there might be more water, as I really like to know what I'm throwing at. The lure of choice was 100% the ZMan 3" MinnowZ in Electric Chicken, Space Guppy and Green Lantern, with Green Lantern being the standout colour as the water clarity was very good and there were plenty of gar around. There was also a heap of hardy heads and small mullet getting around.

The retrieve that was working was a fairly quick roll (wind), with a few hops thrown in, while still winding (kind of hard to get your head around I know). The best way that I can describe it is to make a long cast, in around one metre of water with a 1/4oz jighead, let it sink, guess that it's just about to hit the bottom and then start your roll. The flathead have been pretty aggressive, so I kept it rolling at a decent pace, with a few rod tip wiggles thrown in to make sure the lure looked like a fleeing baitfish.

The flathead didn't stuff around, coming up and nailing the MinnowZ. When talking about drop offs, these have come off the end of weed beds, so anywhere from one foot of water to two metre drops. I'd make sure that I cast into the shallow water first, working the lure slowly off the drop. Most fish hit pretty much instantly on the drop and even though I worked the lure right back to the boat, I could very easily have just worked the first ten metres for the same results. When you think about it, on those real low tides, the bait holds close to cover and the predators are always close by.

My second session the flatties was pretty cool. I ended up finding a heap of gar in around one to one and a half metres. I just knew that there would be fish underneath again. Using the same retrieve with the 3" MinnowZ, a nice steady roll with the odd shake of the rod, it was on! I ended up boating about seven fish for a couple of hours. The only thing that I changed up in this session was my colour choice. I used the Green Lantern in the morning, which threw a nice silhouette in the overcast conditions, before the sun came out and I mixed it up with a Space Guppy as a nice standout, fluoro colour.

My third session was with good mate Justin from Tackle Tactics. A random phone call midday Friday and before you knew it we were fishing the afternoon away. This tide was high and running out all arvo. Being a high tide when we arrived, I chose to target bream up in the mangroves. We were running very shallow in a foot or two of water and throwing ZMan 2.5" Slim SwimZ on 1/4oz 1/0 DemonZ jigheads from TT Lures. The stand out colours were Motor Oil and Midnight Oil, mixing up the retrieves from slow rolls to small hops.

Justin schooled me, boating half a dozen fish before I even got a decent bite. I wasn't having this, so I just copied his lure choice and jighead weight and started to catch fish. All it took was a change from 1/8oz weight to 1/4oz making all the difference. It wasn't even about the fish as it was a magic afternoon, a good catch up and we still caught a bunch and were spoilt with a very nice grunter late in the afternoon.

So, there you go, I'm back and it feels great to be on the water. It takes me back to when I was a young rat, river bashing every chance I could. I love the little rig, it's a bit of a no frills package and it's all you really need to get out and start again. HOWEVER... I have a new platey on the horizon! It's a 4.5m tiller, which will be a beast of a boat and open up the offshore fishing for me again. I love tuna, sweetlip and mackerel, so can't wait to get out amongst them.

Stay tuned as I plan on doing a heap of small clips. Hoping to get a few mangrove jack on film again! I've even had thoughts of making another DVD... being 10 years since the making of my Mangrove Jack DVD. 10 years! Wow! If you're into taking nice photos and shooting a few video clips, I'll even dive into how to setup the ultimate rig so you don't miss any clips.

Hope you enjoyed this little write up. We seem to get so busy these days and hopefully this will make you think, if you haven't been out in a while, that it's time to get back to doing something you love. We all work hard so enjoy what we have on offer!

Until next time...
Andrew