# NSW: Basin Blowout 14/10



## premium (Nov 23, 2011)

Hi All,

Decided to hit St Georges Basin Last Sunday, after an unsuccessful trip a week prior, where I got rained on for four hours straight and missed the only decent strike that came my way... :-x

So after stewing on that for a week, and After a few tips from a bream fishing mate, I decided to stick it up the place and go back and give it a proper run... Conditions at launch soon had things looking up:










I headed away from the Boat ramp to prospect some flats near the mouth of a feeder creek... stacks of tailor jumping everywhere, but my little berkely scumdog surface walker wasn't tempting them for the time being... 
after 40 mins of casting, i finally got what i wanted, some boils behind the lure, then that sweet sound of a bream slurping the lure off the surface...
there was plenty of weight straight away, and it ran straight towards me, until it saw the yak, upon seeing me it took the deep option, and soon enough... POP!









Yep, the Scumdog gave up the ghost in spectacular fashion...

After that dissapointment, i tied on a cheaper lure, and went to prospect the creek itself. on the way ran into a few hungry tailor, so i kept one as a dinner insurance policy.
Eventually found myself in the creek, and began prospecting the shallows and snags with the surface gear... after a few hangups and complete miscasts, i caught sight of a large surface swirl a couple of snags up.
Manouvering into position, I somehow fired a cast that landed pretty much where i needed it, only a few cm from the bank.
flipped the bail, and gave the lure a few wiggles and Boom! a lovely big surface take and plenty of weight had my fishy instincts screaming BREAM! 
it dove down away from the bank, then back towards it, then came up and towards me, where suddenly i realised she was long and brown, and not short and silver!
a few adjustments of rod angle and some net contorsions, and a 53cm flatty was welcomed aboard... first on a surface lure, and a new PB.








After a quick dispatch, i played around in the creek some more, but only found undersize tailor, so after while made a move for soft plastics and some deeper stuff, as the sun was on the rise.

Pedalling out into the Basin, i noticed what i thought was a mates boat a way away, so i figured i'd paddle over and see how they were doing. about halfway over, made a quick stop for some sun protection, and was joined by a cormorant chasing bait around.
About to take off, i decided to fire off a quick cast, and bugger me if it didn't land right near where the cormorant had just dived. "Here we go, i'll hook the bloody bird" i thought to myself.
no less then 3 seconds later, and the little 1000 saros started singing me a song, in the key of "ZZZZZZZZZZ..."
"Bugger" i thought to myself, watching the line head away from me. AS i was contemplating how to unhook the thing, all of a sudden the bird popped up a few metres away and flew off... 
Turns out we have a fish on, and a nice heavy one at that... the 4lb string didn't have enought lifting power to bully it to the boat... so i played it slowly, and after afew minutes sulking near the bottom, i managed to raise a lovely big flatty:








62cm on the lie detector, and very fat!








headed over to what turned out to be my mates boat (which was made harder by the fact they'd seen me and where slowly cruising away under electric power...) for some happy snaps, then released her to swim another day.

So all up, a lure blowout, and a big blowout in my Flatty PB too... not a bad day.
The scumdog now has pride of place in lieu of some fluffy dice in my other outback:


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## kayakone (Dec 7, 2010)

*Great reading Premium*. Days don't get much better than that!

Interesting re the lure breaking....I've never had that happen. I take it from the post that it is not an elcheapo? I've had hooks straighten, but not a failure like that. Any others had that or similar happen?

trev


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## premium (Nov 23, 2011)

Yeah it was a good day, that's for sure!
Hmmm it's a Berkely Scumdog, usually 12 or 15 bucks, usually pretty good quality, but i'm no lure aficionado...

I think the lure failure may have had something to do with leaving the lure on the rod, connected via the rear treble. 
i know people say don't leave your lures in the sun etc... well i am probably guilty of leaving the lure connected to the rod in a hot car for multiple days, so i'd say that might have something to do with it as well...


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## bunsen (Jan 2, 2009)

Nice flatties.


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## southcoastmatty (Jan 21, 2009)

v nice. love the basin. love the flatty.


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## keenfisho (Aug 22, 2012)

Nice flatties and well done on the pb.
Interesting regarding the lure, i regulary use the berkley 3b lures and have had no trouble until yesterday.
I had the dame thing happen twice once on a subdog but still had the eye left on the split ring but the prawndog the whole hook was just gone


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## Ado (Mar 31, 2008)

Great report Premium and good reward for perserverence. It's been a very long time since I caught (or at least netted) a Flathead that big. Good on you for returning her. I think I'll have to try more styles of surface lures. My popping is not going so well.


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