Exploring is half the fun!

by Lee Brake on 9 Sep 2013 It has been a top week for flying kites here in North Queensland, but though the reef has been off the cards, there are still plenty of places to hide from the strong wind warning. This week Lee heads inland in search of new sweetwater hotspots and elusive saratoga, sooty grunter and maybe even the Mackay unicorn species – the jungle perch.

Living where I do in Mackay, I feel that I am very blessed with the plethora of piscatorial options available to me. In saying that, I am always looking for new hot spots and honey holes and I find the adventure of exploration to be a large part of the fun.

Last week I took Burdekin-based fishing writer Cliff Mann over the Sarina Range in search of the leichhardti saratoga that inhabit the catchment of the Fitzroy River. Cliff had never fished for toga before, so was understandably excited. After a two hour drive we reached the site where we could launch the canoe and within a dozen casts Cliff was on to a horse. This 70cm-plus beast smashed a 3.75 inch weedless-rigged jerkshad and leapt from the water before heading under the canoe. Of course it headed straight for the electric motor and within seconds had the line wrapped around the prop and was free. Bugger!

From then things went quiet from quite some time. It was the middle of the day and not the ideal time for toga fishing. Saratoga love low light conditions and hate being exposed in the open once the sun gets high in the sky. That means some low, accurate casting was required to put or plastics into the shady spots below overhanging trees. I missed two fish before landing a nice sooty which not only smashed the lure but was followed by two big fork-tail catfish determined to snatch the lure from its jaw.

Finally though, Cliff had a second chance. He cast in low beside a very spindly snag and a toga every bit as big as his first charged from structure and took the lure within sight of the boat. He took it very easy of this fish and our hopes began to grow until, at the last moment, the toga opened its bony mouth and the hook came free. With our time running out and a big drive ahead Cliff admitted defeat but was understandably happy to have at least hooked two of these majestic predators.

My next trip later in the week was a lot more of an exploratory adventure. Good mate Sam McCowan and I had been pouring over Google Earth in search of accessible sweetwater spots at the top of the Pioneer River. Ideally we were after somewhere that might just hold a jungle perch (JP). JP's are in the Pioneer and the odd fish does get caught from time to time, but they are incredibly hard to find. Apparently the prefer rocky pools right in the forested, hilly headwaters of river systems. With this in mind, we were happy to accept a fun session on sooty grunter. After some careful study we selected a 4x4 track that ran off Welshs Road. This looked to run up into the hills to the headwaters of Blacks Creek, a tributary of the Pioneer and a possible JP haunt. Unfortunately when we arrived we found a fairly hostile-looking sign declaring the track was private property (if anyone knows the owners, I'd love to give them a carton in exchange for fishing rights???).

Not to be completely defeated, we backtracked and began looking for entry points to the headwater of the Pioneer itself. It didn't take long before we found a walkable access track and slogged down with rods in hand.

At first the trickling stream looked way too shallow to hold fish, but we pushed upstream with hopes of finding a honey hole. Sooty grunter are amazing in that they will hold in water as shallow as a foot deep and love nothing better than a fallen log in a slightly deeper stretch of water, especially if there is some flow in the stream. We found the trifecta. At the base of a series of rapids was a fallen tree submerged in over a metre of crystal clear water.

Not only did it look amazing, but as we drew near we could clearly see a school of 30cm-plus sooty grunter swimming around the tree.

And, do you know what? We tried everything! We cast every lure we could think of at them and watched as the lures moved within inches of the fish, which just ignored them with disgusted indifference like a wine connoisseur offered a cask of Passion Pop. It was more frustrating than trying to talk sense into a room for of Green's voters.

Eventually we gave up and left them to it (probably getting ready for spawning...). We moved further upstream and found a few more likely spots, including a nice deep, snag-studded bank that yielded a nice sooty for yours truly.

The fish came out of a snag in around two metres of water (I know because I had to retrieve a lure off the same snag later) and fought like a typical thug. It charged for any and every snag in sight and took every fibre of my 1-3kg spin stick to keep it in the clear.

Following that fish we made the decision to head for home, but it had been an interesting day and I'd learnt a lot about the art of sweetwater fishing. We pulled fish and saw fish in a lot of places that most people would have walked past. Often we'd actually see the fish in the snags that we were casting to, because they were swimming in such shallow water. It was quite the rush and I can recommend it to anyone who enjoys flicking a lure.