FLATS BLOW-OUT

FLATS BLOW-OUT

EVERY ANGLER DREAMS OF PERFECT DAYS ON THE FLATS. BLUE SKIES, CLEAN WATER AND TAILING FISH AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE. IF YOU’RE ANYTHING LIKE ME YOU SPEND THE MAJORITY OF YOUR TIME THINKING ABOUT THE FLATS, BUILDING IT UP IN YOUR MIND, PUTTING TOGETHER EVERY DETAIL, AND SEE- ING YOURSELF THERE (ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S -10 AND SNOWING).

Words and photos by Mickey “Finn” Shanahan

You may be stuck in traffic, behind a desk or feigning your way through an in-depth conversation with a loved one; in your mind though you’re far away on white sand, laying out the perfect cast to a monster Permit. Eventually you let these images take control of you, and your credit card, book a trip or rig up your boat and take off to an Aussie flat with massive expectations. You’ve swindled the time off, you’ve checked the forcast for your dates, put together all your gear and tied all your crabs and shrimp. You finally get where you’re going, after two or three planes or a long, long drive, you step off the plane/out of your car and… your standing in 30knot wind and driving rain; welcome to reality. Now instead of breaking down and crying for hours then going home (by all means go have a little cry first to get it out of your system), and here is what you do to make the most of a flats-fishing blow out.

PREPARATION PRE- VENTS PISS-POOR PER- FORMANCE

Now before your trip even starts,

you want to give yourself the best chance of flats success. Do everything you possibly can to give yourself as many good flats days as possible. Book the best tides and the best weather that you can for as many days as you can afford. You’re aiming for multiple shots. If you want one glory day catching fish, be prepared to book or plan at least three full days. Picking the best season changes from location to location, so stop what you’re doing at work, if your boss doesn’t understand then quit, and start researching. If you only have a limited amount of time, make it worthwhile. Pick the absolute peaks if you can afford them, there is a reason that some periods are so popular or expensive. Finally, and least importantly, start tying flies and prepping gear. Timing is everything. Yes, you want to have gear and flies ready, but probably better to spend that extra money on another guided day or more fuel than a spanking new rod if you’ve already got something that gets the job done. Not that gear isn’t important (more on gear later) it’s just ranked so far behind timing that it’s not even in the same field. Now you’ve done

all that prep and planning and the worst happens. There’s a freak event or perhaps you could only make the second or third best times work and you have just seen the usual bit of gnarly weather come in - don’t panic - just re-adjust. Depending on where you are, one of the best things about being an Australian saltwater fly fisherman is that there are usually back up options near by. This was cemented to me on a recent Gladstone trip that I took in early May. My aim was to hit the first of the consistent winter weather and the best tides, get out on the flats for as many days as possible, and try to tick off a Permit or a big Golden. Being a southern Trout and Murray Cod guide, I had to come in very early May before my peak end of season pick up. Although the weather looked good for at least three of the five days I was planning to fish, there was always a chance some scrappy stuff could show up, and it did.

One aspect of being prepared for a flats trip is being prepared to never get to the flats at all, hope for the best but expect the worst. In reality early May is still a shoulder season for flats

fishing in Gladstone, but again I have to get to places when I get time off from my guiding in the Snowy Mountains. This particular week suited me and my mate Justin Nye from Gladstone Fly and Sportfishing. I knew there would be a wide range of eventualities that could keep us off the flats, I had a similar trip in April last year. So although the flats were the aim, I was prepared to drive or run to different locations and it being only my second trip to the area, I was keen to see what else the Gladstone region had to offer. I not only brought spare rods, as you usually do, I also brought lighter rods, sinking lines and tied boxes of flies that weren’t just flats related. I did cheat and bring my Goodoo box for Barra, pretty much the same difference.

DAY 1

Barra were our first target as it turned out. The weather for the first day was always going to be a little rough so Barra were the best bet. If there is an obvious bad weather forcast and a run to the flats is pointless, then don’t pray for a miracle and waste a day in 20 knots and cloud. One of the best things about Gladstone is that Awoonga Dam is usually always

an option. It’s super close and convenient. There’s a massive amount of different structure to fish in any wind direction and it has lots of sheltered points and bays. Also Awoonga has lots and lots of fish. It is still a fishery on the rebound, it hasn’t reached the point that it was fishing before it went over the dam, but it is on it’s way back. There are lots of fish from the previous few releases in the 60-80 cm mark, but there are still big fish as well. Because we had the whole day we went to various places that held fish multiple times in a day. With the moon, tide, weather and bait concentrations all being factors in Barra feeding, it’s worth it once you find solid concentrations of fish to come back to them under different conditions. We had one 45 minute bite window when we probably got a dozen eats and landed four fish. We were re-fishing structure that we’d found fish on previously in the day, and during a short period of glass out and sun they ate everything. I’m used to these bite windows because they are the same as Murray Cod, so I don’t mind nailing a specific structure point over and over, knowing that the fish will eventually turn on. With a whole day on Awoonga you can expect results as long as you actually go looking for fish. We

saw a few guys with good sounders fishing the windward side of the bay we were on even though there wasn’t a single fish on it. Don’t rely on previous folklore or general knowledge. A blown-out flats day can be used to hone in on something that you might not usually do. Treat it as an educational bonus day and don’t pressure yourself with results too much, just aim to find a solid patch of fish and get the eat, that’s a little victory.

DAY 2

Although the bad weather had subsided there was still a pretty big swell kicking around, so Justin and I made a quick run out wide to see whether it would be worth getting over to the flat. It was pretty obviously dangerous even in Justin’s Galeforce, and he made the call to run up the Boyne instead and get a few species on the board. The Boyne is a fun little system that has plenty of Jacks, baby GT’s and little Queenies, as well as all the usual suspects.

For me though, Tarpon are the real stand out in this system. Having a #7WT and not just my #9 and #10WT flats rods made the day. Having packs of fish feeding on jelly prawns on the surface led

to some really exciting fishing and having never caught Tarpon before it was a really awesome flats consolation prize. The bust offs and jump offs alone on my light #7WT were enough to keep any large child, like myself, entertained for hours. Funnily enough, my American mates immediately started messaging me, most of them not realising that we had Tarpon here. Even after I explained that they don’t get as big as their’s I still have a few mates who’d be just as keen to come over and spend a day targeting them if their flat gets blownout. This makes sense as there are whole guiding seasons built around juvenile Tarpon in places like Cuba or Mexico. Perhaps the international appeal of these fish is undervalued in Australia. I’d like to hear any opinion from saltwater guides who have had experience with international clients on these fish. The Tarpon are reliable and varied, you can chase the bigger ones further down the system feeding in massive schools on a #7WT,

or you can go right up to the top of the feeding system with a #5WT and catch a silver bullet that pulls string and jumps like a big boy. Really you can’t get a much more willing eater when the flats are a no-go. After the tide change we made another quick run to Awoonga where we were going “hero or zero” for a big Barra, a school of which we’d marked up the day before. We spent the rest of the afternoon harassing one school of big fish. I got one bite that didn’t stick, even though it sucked down the entire bite leader. If I had stuck a big Barra that would have been a remarkable day right there, and I probably wouldn’t have missed the flats, too badly…

DAY 3

By this point the weather was still looking marginal for the flats but we decided to risk it for the biscuit, as it didn’t look like improving the following day. On the run to the flat we

ended up finding some early morning Queenies in the channel. We couldn’t get an eat and didn’t want to waste flats time but as a plus we located where they’d be feeding the next few days. This was one aspect of flats fishing that I thought was useful, using runs to the flat to explore. Rather than just flat sticking it from A to B, we cut a little wider and in turn set ourselves up with a backup. We could have even explored a creek or two on the way or followed up a patch of birds that weren’t that far of course; might as well kill two birds with one stone. Although the tide and water clarity were pretty good, the wind and sun were definitely not ideal. We did manage to spot one fish in the heavy glare close to the boat. It was tough to tell if it was a Permit or a Golden, but after getting some pretty good presentations and no eat, we called it for a Permit, so we chalked up one possible Permit shot. Then on the next flat we picked out a big Golden feeding, identified by the

water it was moving and a quick tail wave. The harsh glare and light chop made it tough to track though. We’d spot an occasional tail moving fast and try to position the boat ahead of it but we never got a decent shot. If only we’d been lucky and received a clear patch of sun we could have had an entirely different result. Still it was worth the run and a doughnut for a shot at a Permit and a big Golden.

DAY 4

It’s always disheartening when the weather forcast changes mid-trip. The last three days were meant to be perfect, but conditions steadily swung the other way as a big low settled over the region. We were looking at driving rain and an almost total white out for our second to last day, not ideal flats weather. On the upside, although the rain and cloud picked up, the wind dropped off and we ended up with a pretty good glass out. Justin made the call to swing

down to the flats, just in case, and then go wide in a big circle back to the harbour looking for Tuna. There are a ton of Longtail and Mack tuna moving around Gladstone in May and luckily in these grey and wet conditions, when the flats are at their worst, the Tuna can be at their best. We ran to the flats, called it instantly with the visibility, then went wide looking for the best birds and bait balls that we could find. By doing the usual approach of getting upwind and drifting into the hefty packs of feeding Tuna we had some awesome visual fishing. You can spend a whole day chasing schools around, waiting for the smaller schools to merge into feeding frenzies and catch insane numbers. Or you can attempt to single out the big Longtails from the smaller Longies and Macks and go for a trophy. Either way you’ll get multiple shots at big keg Tuna on tiny baitfish patterns and floating lines. We weren’t just looking for birds either, by watching waves closely for

flashes you could actually cast at free swimming fish that weren’t on bait yet. One of my best eats came from a big Mack that attacked the fly repeatedly on top before crunching it and screaming off without a bird in sight. Although it wasn’t a flat, that eat is still what I came for. Sure, we might have been in 40 meters of water, not two feet, but sight fishing to a big fish, seeing an eat and listening to a blistering run were all aspects of the flats fishing experience I was chasing that I got to enjoy that day in the deep.

THE FINAL DAY

All our prayers and blood/beer sacrifices came together on the last day and it looked like we’d have perfect weather for the flats. Before the sun rose though we went to chase some Queenies using the information we’d picked up on our previous run to make sure we were on the money. After a super-short run, we came up on Queenies busting up like crazy in

the channel and it didn’t take long to get hooked up. That first fish at sunrise was super satisfying knowing that it was just the start to a perfect weather day. We got a few more on clousers and off the surface. The fish of the morning was caught by Justin’s son on my #12WT and a popper that went 110 cm. The floating line eats were awesome, but for consistency you want fast sink lines and super heavy clousers in the strong current. This isn’t gear that you usually pack on a flats trip but one extra reel or spool can be the difference between connection to fish that day or not. After the sun had fully risen we ditched the Queenies to make the most of the perfect flats weather. Running to a flat in good sun and no wind was getting me pumped! After days of dodgy weather we were finally going to get a crack! Unfortunately, the gods of the flats had different ideas. The water that had been clean and clear on every day of dismal rain and wind, had turned an off-grey milky colour as we arrived at our main flat. All the little nooks and crannies that we pushed up into were dirty too. The pancake flats out wide were dirty. Basically, all the rain that had fallen had made its way into the system and now that the weather was perfect the water was not. It was disheartening to say the least, but our early morning Queenie session meant we’d seen some action. We wouldn’t have found them without running wide a few days before, and we also had all the other options above available to us as well. We ended up opting for the final option available to all flats fisherman that we hadn’t pulled out till that point; we drank tinnies in the sun and had a nap - always a great back-up option.

REFLECTIONS/LESSONS

The main thing to keep in mind when planning a flats trip are your expectations and the reality of the fishery. Do your research, get to know the area and it’s key times and you won’t be disappointed as a travelling angler. A good fly guide that will give it to you straight and give you back-up options as part of a trip is a massive bonus. Planning not just around when the best flats options will be, but when there will be other options, is a good move if you have limited time. Because of my guiding season, my trip was timed during a shoulder season for the flats. There are definitely great days to be had and we had shots that could have made the trip a flats success, but realistically the consistent winter weather was not there yet on this trip. You sometimes have to take what you can get. Luckily the Barra are there year-round, as are the Tarpon and other estuary species. The Tuna happen to turn up in these shoulder seasons too and they were the real bonus aspect of the trip. Ideally, I’ll be back to Gladstone in mid-winter, with glass outs and clear skies. Although the final option of drinking beer is always fun, you don’t want it to be the only one. Afterall, you’re there to catch fish. So if you need to make the most of an off-peak or freak event that blows out your flats trip, look for an area that has variety and be prepared. Do it enough and eventually you’ll get the flats day of your dreams, and in the meantime, as long as you are prepared, open minded and realistic, there’s tons of great fishing to be had. You might just discover a new fishery you’d never even dreamed about.