Crowded waters but still a fruitful expedition

I JOINED the conga line at the mouth of Sampan Creek last Thursday morning with my good mate Tam.

Regis Martin landed his PB barra at 111cm at the mouth of Tommycut Creek trolling on the incoming tide

I JOINED the conga line at the mouth of Sampan Creek last Thursday morning with my good mate Tam.

However, unfortunately for us, many other anglers had the same idea and at one stage there were well over 50 boats trolling the mouth on the incoming tide.

Undeterred, we continued trolling in among the chaos and managed to land five threadfin salmon and Tam landed a nice 94cm barra.

I heard some other good fish landed there over the next few days with a few metreys among them.

One such lucky angler, Regis Martin, landed his personal best at 111cm and he sent me this email detailing how he caught it. “The fish was caught at the mouth of Tommycut trolling on the incoming tide on a Reidy’s Big B52 in the 008 (green) colour.

“This was my favourite colour in their range for a long time, but even more so now.

“I had just caught a 93cm one the previous troll run and we were about two or three minutes into the new troll when I said: ‘I’m on! Oh by the way this one looks bigger.’

“At one stage I could not gain any line on it and had to ask Craig Grose, my skipper to try to follow her, as I started to be afraid of being spooled.

“But lucky me, instead of fighting in the middle of the channel she went for the shallow where the current was lesser and this made the fight easier for me.

“Still she did give me a bit of curry and dived under the boat to resurface on the other side of it. But in the end Craig was able to net her.

“She was quickly measured and photographed then we swam her back a bit and she started to kick and bite so I let her go and she swam away.”

If you want to see the full story, have a look at his fishing blog, which is theramblingexpat.blogspot.com