Fishing trips have been few and far between for me lately, so when I had a spare afternoon last week I intended to make the most of it. I wanted to try something different and after a bit of thinking, I settled on the somewhat ambitious goal of catching a king george whiting on a plastic. Back when I fished baits I used to fish for whiting a lot and I almost never came home without a few. So if I can catch them on bait, I can catch them on a lure, right? Right?
I decided to fish a little beach in Westernport where I have not only caught a lot of whiting, but also pinkies, trevs, salmon, etc. So I figured if I couldn’t tempt a ting, I should at least catch something. There is also a deep little sand hole here at high tide that is only about 25-30m from the shore – well within casting distance of lightly weighted plastics. It’s also just about my favourite place in the world:
Given the spontaneity of this trip I didn’t really have any plan of attack. I decided to tie on old faithful – an 80mm bloodworm wriggler smothered in sax – and immediately I started getting little hits. My plastics were getting absolutely massacred and it didn’t take long for me to find the culprit:
These guys were the bane of my existence when I used to fish for whiting with bait here, and they were no less annoying when flicking plastics around. Pretty cute though. After about 45 minutes and a bag of wrigglers, I finally hooked into something a little more substantial. And up popped this guy:
A female grass whiting! Not the intended species, but a whiting nonetheless (well grass whiting are probably more closely related to a wrasse than a whiting, but I was still claiming it). This was my first grass whiting on a lure and given they have a very similar diet and jaw structure to a king george, it gave me confidence that maybe I wasn’t wasting my time after all. I kept flicking for another hour or so for a couple more jagged toads when something belted my plastic. This guy was fighting just like a small king george and I was sure I’d found my target, but up popped this little fella (excuse the sand):
Another grass whiting! I was spewing. This guy was smaller than the last fish but he punched well above his weight, pulling all the way to the shore. I started casting again but by this stage the tide had started to fall and I was running out of water. About 30m from the shore there was a big rock and I knew that just beyond it is another big sand hole where I’ve pulled a lot of whiting in the past, but unfortunately I couldn’t cast far enough to reach it:
So I only had one choice – get my kit off and swim out to it! Luckily I had a few garbage bags stashed away in my bag so I bagged up my gear (I only realized I’d forgotten to put my camera in there after I took the photo):
Got my kit off:
And went for a swim. And after flopping around for 10 minutes trying to get Louie out of the water, we made it:
And it looked the goods!
I was thinking to myself – Pat you’re a bloody genius. This sand hole will be full of fish! And first cast, before my plastic had even hit the bottom, something whacked it. And after a short fight a little wrasse came to the rocks – but just as I was lifting it up, it fell off. Oh well, still a promising start! I threw the next cast into the exact same spot and let it sink to the bottom – snag. Unperturbed, I broke it off and retied. I put the next cast in a similar spot, let it sink – snagged again. F%&k! Again I broke it off and re-tied, still full of optimism. This process repeated itself for the next five casts until I realized the sand hole was a little further away than I remembered – I was actually casting into thick sea grass. I wasn’t feeling so clever anymore, and decided to tie on a hardbody instead to keep it above the seagrass. After a few half hearted casts I eventually had a tap and came up solid:
…to another toad. By this stage I’d had enough of this rock and the tide had gone out far enough for me to wade back to land (the water still came up to my chest and believe me it was not warm). And after having a quick bite to eat I admitted defeat and decided to head home. So I didn’t catch a king george whiting, but I did catch a new species on a lure. Was it worth all the effort? Bloody oath!
Cheers!
