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Wathumba Creek - Fraser Island

By Dean Dibeler

Fraser Island... those two words bring a smile to my face. With miles of beach to fish, freshwater pools and creeks to swim in, sand dunes, rocky headlands to explore, plus all the four wheel driving and camping on offer, it's an outdoor lover's paradise.

In the last few years we've moved away a little from the 4x4 trips on the east side of the island and elected to camp on the west side at Wathumba Creek, leaving the vehicle on the main land and driving across in our boat. It's a perfect camping location in any wind coming from the east as well as a great fishing option if the weather is looking too rough at home.

Once you arrive at the boat ramp at Hervey Bay boat ramp, approximately 290km north of Brisbane, the trip really kicks off. Top up with fuel, transfer all of the camping and fishing gear from the car to the boat, chuck the boat in the drink and off you go.

The first leg from the marina across to Moon Point on Fraser is always the worst if the wind is up. SE or NW makes this 6nm stretch pretty bumpy with an opposing tide. Once you get to Moon Point it's a smooth run for the next 20 miles to the mouth of the creek. I usually sit just off the beach, in about 2m of water and put the hammer down, eager to get there as fast as possible. Just ensure you keep your eyes peeled for turtles.

The entry to the creek and its sand banks move occasionally, so it's best to time your first entry with the top of the tide and record a track on your GPS. After you've been in and out a few times, at different stages of tide, you should have a better idea of where the deepest part of the channel is. The last time I was up there we could get in and out about two hours each side of low tide.

There are two camp areas in the creek. The first one is on the eastern side of the creek and it has toilets, picnic tables and fresh water. The downside here is that it's accessible to vehicles, so it can be busy at times. Oh and the mozzies and sandflies are thick.

The second campsite is on the west side of the creek, on the spit. It's only accessible by boat and it's the only place where I've ever camped here. If you've come here by boat, this is probably where you want to be. No crowds, no 4x4s buzzing past and a nice deep hole to leave the boat in overnight. The small clearings in the bush offer shady areas and some protection from the wind. There are no facilities here, however it's just a short boat ride across the creek to use the toilets and a lot less mozzies than the other camp.

The beach on the west side of the spit is the highlight for me. The fine white sand and gin clear water is the perfect location to watch the sun disappear into the ocean with a cold drink in hand.

Now to the fishing. So, right next to the largest sand island in the world (Fraser Island) is the largest sandy bay in the world... or it can seem that way sometimes when targeting bottom fish. I`ll be honest I did struggle on the bottom fishing the first trip that I made to Wathumba Creek and we spent a lot of time trolling around looking for some hard bottom to drop a plastic on. If you do plan on going up for the first time, get on Google as there's plenty of web pages that have marks to get you pointed in the right direction to start with.

One of the best spots that I found was pure fluke. We went back to camp for lunch, after a pretty unsuccessful morning and ended up getting stuck with the tide for a little longer than we anticipated. Once the tide filled in enough, we jumped back in the boat to search for some fish. As we travelled north we noticed a whale putting on a show and moved closer for a look at the great beast breaching like mad.

As we got closer the sounder lit up with bait and my focus shifted from the humpback onto the sounder. We dropped the pick, followed by a bait jig for some live bait once the anchor settled. We ended up catching spotty mackerel and kingfish on the livies, trevally after trevally on plastics and a handful of small mouth nannygai... until a massive tiger shark came for a look, abruptly ending our session. No point giving her a free feed. About two weeks later a friend went up and fished the same mark and pulled a legal red emperor off it.

Pelagics and Platypus Bay go hand in hand and depending on the season there can be a wide variety of pelagic action on offer, including mac tuna, longtail tuna, kingfish, cobia, queenfish, several species of mackerel and the famous baby black marlin that call the bay home at various times throughout the year.

The bait balls and surface busting tuna can be pretty much anywhere, just keep on the lookout for bird action. It's pretty straight forward, a nice long cast with a plastic or metal slug into the school, let it sink a little and wind as fast as you can, should see your rod buckle over and reel begin to scream. If not, it's usually because the fish are so focused on the baitfish that if you don't match it perfectly, with what you have on offer, they will just swim past it. So try to keep you lure on the smaller size and rummage through your bag/box for something that resembles a whitebait.

Rooney's Point, 9 nautical miles north from Wathumba Creek, is no secret spot and can get busy, especially if the word has spread that the blacks have moved in and are in good numbers. It's a great place to target mackerel too and with the constant tidal flow, bait can always be found stacked up around here somewhere.

I`ve had a lot of success slow trolling live baits for mackerel at Rooney's. I usually troll two baits, however I have trolled up to four baits at once... and that ended in chaos when all four baits got annihilated by Spanish mackerel over 10kg, with just my wife and I on the boat. It was all going pretty good until a couple of whalers arrived on the scene and started harassing the mackerel, sending them darting in every direction, jumping and tangling everything up in the process. We only landed one of the four and hence why I now only troll two baits.

One bait is trolled on top and the second off a plainer board that acts as a downrigger about 2-5m below the surface. But if it's a little quiet I can`t help myself and end up putting out another bait. It's a good idea to always have a plastic at the ready and when a bait goes off the person standing by can drop that plastic into the school and hopefully turn it into a double hook up.

The baby blacks can turn up anytime from October to mid-November and usually hang around until January. They can be found pretty much anywhere from the Breaksea Spit to the mouth of the Wathumba creek, with Station Hill and Roonies being two very popular locations that produce fish consistently.

Trolling skirts is the most popular method, although fish landed to strike ratio can be very poor. The baby blacks are still finding their fins in the ocean and can be very sloppy eaters, thrashing away at their prey with their bill and missing the hooks when they bite is not uncommon.

Pitch baiting will increase your landed fish quota substantially and it's also a lot more fun. I like to sow a belly strip of tuna into the teaser. When the fish bites it, it gets a taste of flesh, reassuring it that what it is trying to eat is indeed food, rather than a hard tasteless lump or rubber and plastic. They tend to hold on longer and not lose interest as quickly, giving the crew on board more time to pitch back the offering laced with a razor sharp hook, to a fish that is angry and willing to eat just about anything that's placed in front of it, whether it be a fly, plastic or small live bait.

Another very popular option and the main reason many anglers come to chase the blacks is sight casting them on the flats. The dark profile, clear water and white sand makes them quite easy to spot. As like all flats fishing a stealth approach is key and an electric motor is you best friend. If you're like me and don't have one, utilise the wind and shut off the engine and pray that the fish doesn't change direction before you reach casting distance. A ZMan 5" StreakZ and 1oz TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jighead is my combo in this situation.

For the estuary angler Wathumba Creek itself is a great option, if not venturing out into the bay. I`ve never fished the creek personally, however I have snorkelled it several times and seen bream, whiting, flathead and mangrove jack. After walking the flats early one morning, when the tide was dead low and everyone was still in bed, it looked like a flathead enthusiasts dream. Long twisting channels, drains and flats for days. In certain places there were more flathead lies than you could poke a stick at, so definitely worth a look. I did hear a story from one of the locals that a large crock calls the creek home, however whether there is any truth to that yarn who knows... anything is possible I guess.

Another 11 miles from Rooney's Point is the Breaksea Spit. If you thought the fishing on the inside was good, east of the Breaksea is on another level again. If you're going to go though, make sure you have plenty of fuel, a solid weather forecast and a boat suitable for bar crossing. The Breaksea in poor conditions is one of the gnarliest bars in Australia. I`ll save that fishing rundown for another time.

Gear List:
ZMan 5" StreakZ
ZMan 5" Scented Jerk ShadZ
ZMan 7" Scented Jerk ShadZ
ZMan 5" StreakZ Curly TailZ

TT Lures HeadlockZ HD jigheads
TT Lures Hard Core Metal Slugs