It had finally come to a pass. After over a month of no real fishing, and a complete lack of time to myself, I finally had a day to myself. With the weather being the way that it was, the decision to head over to Magnetic Island, 5km off the mainland was easily arrived at. Not only would the water be cleaner, but the mountains would afford a little shelter; a valuable thing, especially when waving a 5wt with a 1/0 clouser around over the flats.The day started early, at sunrise at a bay named after a piece of iron stapled to a horse’s toenail. After finding a shallow embayment, where dozens of little mullet were hiding, and shepherding them out to sea, things started to happen. Unfortunately for me, I could neither pin anything for any length of time, nor get bites from anything of decent size. The morning was a wrap with a jumped off wolf herring and ladyfish, the best results. Now, given these depressing circumstances, I was feeling a little dejected, so I opted for a drink or two and a bit of food before heading off, back to the ferry terminal.It was only upon arriving at the ferry terminal that I learnt the true meaning of serendipity. As it turned out, my mistake in reading the timetable resulted in an extra hour or two of fishing time. After a short walk, I’d arrived at a canal where several private yachts were moored on their own private pontoons. Casting for a while with a spin rod with a 4″ soft plastic resulted in very little indeed, with only a couple of half-hearted bumps from one pontoon in particular. After running out of pontoons to cast at, it was decided that it was time just to walk down and see what was down there. The sight had me completely aghast.Dozens of long, green and gold backs were passing under and around the pontoon…and though I wasn’t sure what they were, there was always a chance that they’d eat something. A coupla drops with the soft plastic resulted in very little. It was then that I laid eyes on my forlorn 5wt, still rigged with a tan and white rattling clouser. Why the hell not, eh?Plip, watch it sink, watch it sink … Oh, dear Lord, there’s one right there! Schlur, strip …OW! Line burn and total shock set in, resulting in me allowing the tarpon a little too much line. I was subsequently cut off on the pylons for my lack of gumption. The second one was not so fortunate, as I decided to see just what a 5wt could do. The results were good, and a beautiful 2.5-3kg Indo-pacific tarpon was lifted out of the water for a few photos.During that fight, the rest of the school suddenly decided it was feeding time, and the action really heated up. There were tarpon rolling and chopping directly in front of me, with an intensity I had never seen this kind of activity at 2pm in the afternoon. As it turned out, that first tarpon was the only one I landed, though I hooked and dropped several more and had one considerately wrap my $100 fly line around a pylon. Nevertheless, it was definitely a good day, and worth the effort. Come to think of it, I might do it again in two days time. Yah, that sounds like a good idea.
Sweet! … Just when you thought the day was a bust .. and you were gonna go back to the main land … everything changed, for the better. So often, things work out like that … just when it seems hopeless, it turns out to be epic. Tarpon on a 5 wegith .. nice! Anyway, you have some amazing opportunities there in Australia and that is a place that I would love to fly fish some day. What other types of saltwater fish might you encounter on the flats of Australia? If there is as much fish life and activity as there are exoctic birds and wildlife .. I would imagine that Australia is an amazing place to fly fish.
Cool, that is the first report of this species being caught on fliesandfins.com. Did the fish jump a lot like an atlantic tarpon? The two species seem very similar.
Very cool story.
As far as I know there’s really few anglers that have caught pacific tarpon regarding the atlantic tarpon.
It seems that the population of pacific tarpon is lessr than the Atlantic one.
Really that’s a very good catch. congrats!
Yeah, was a good thing it happened that way, I was going to be very dejected indeed…
As for diversity of species to target, we do indeed have thousands of options on the flats here. Golden trevally (much like a flats specialising jack crevalle), queenfish, ladyfish, the tarpon, giant trevallies, and in some areas, reef dwellers such as tuskfishes, all your snappers etc., ‘cudas, barramundi, and if you find some floating flotsam, tripletails. Lots of options indeed. The stars of the show seem to be the golden trevally though, a very challenging target requiring quick and accurate casts. They feed off the bottom, and spend all of two seconds with their heads in the sand before moving on at warp speed. Oh, forgot to mention, we do actually have our own variety of bonefish, and permit. Never caught either, but I’m hoping it’s only a matter of time…Another real up and comer’s known colloquially as the blue bastard, or painted sweetlip, not like anything you’d get in the Northern hemisphere unfortunately.
Cheers,
Owen
Indo-pacific tarpon jump a lot too, but it varies from fish to fish sometimes. You’ll get ones that go ballistic, but others that prefer to slug it out down deep.
From what I can see, our indo-pacific tarpon are a little stockier for their size than the Atlantic variety. They also don’t grow anywhere near the size, which is a shame, but on the light stuff, they compensate for that well enough.
Owen
I don’t know if there are fewer of them, in fact, I think there’s more, but they’re definitely smaller, and can be VERY weather dependent. I myself have never caught an Atlantic one, but would absolutely LOVE to…THese things go hard enough at 6lb, can’t imagine one at 100lb…
Our tarpon also like to hang about in schools, not sure if that’s the case with the Atlantic variety…You can have dozens of them in one spot, and rarely have I seen them alone. Good thing though, that just means there’s that many more fish that’ll potentially eat your fly, should the others ignore you. 🙂
Owen
Forgot one thing, I’ve missed at least a coupla different species there, and it’d probably be more accurate of a picture if you could see the place…If you have time, look up both Weipa and Hervey Bay/Fraser Island. Both are renowned flats fishing destinations in Australia, and I can swear to you that at least one has the option of billfish off the beach…