Day 2 was  a bit of a disaster. We woke to dark clouds approaching on the horizon and 20knot south wetserlies buffeting the coast. It was decided that would head over to Mia and hug the shore to hide from the wind.
There are a few sandy flats with small patches of rock between Monkey Mia and Peron Point where bream can often be found. Ira informed me of many good sessions on these flats and i had high hopes of finally cracking a 40cm bream.

We fished hard for 5 hours catching one small flathead after another. To break the boredom of landing yet another flathead the heavens would open and i would regret not having any wet weather gear .
Ira did manage to land 3 nice fat yellow fin whiting another first on the flick stick. With no bream in site we decided to call it a day and hoped for better luck tomorrow.

Woke up in the morning to much calmer winds but with the swell still pumping we were once again kept close to shore. We decided to fish some of the flats out from Denham. Good Choice .
Ira once again tied a Madeye Flick stick on so i decided i would fish the Mad Crab all day and see if our results would vary. As we pulled up on some broken ground in around 2m of water Ira sent out a cast to where the weed meet the sand. First cast he was on, it amazing how things can change in a day. We soon neted a large flat head and after a quick photo sent it back. I continued to prospect the water with the Mad Crab.

I spied a nice small bit of reefy weed and presented the Mad Crab just off the back of it. Ira cast a few seconds later landing about 5 m past the reef. I gave the crab a small lift off the bottom and was belted by an unknown. I told Ira to Grab the camcorder but before i finished speaking his line came up tight and we had a double hook up. These fish were strong and kept trying to get back to the reef. It took a bit of work to keep there head up. I had mine boat side first and netted a beautiful Black Snapper.

 Ira’s fish was still giving him curry and it took a little while longer before he had an even larger black snapper onboard. Black Snapper are stunning fish with electric blue “eyeliner” contrasting their motley black body that gives amazing camouflage.

This was my first Black snapper and while much smaller than the Pink Snapper we got the first day i was surprised at the fight they give . Pink Snapper have blistering fast runs at the start but then come in relatively easierly. Black snapper may not be as fast but they are like mini bulldogs with tons of power and they enjoying burying you in any near by rock or reef.

We continued  drifting this area for the next couple of hours. Once again the baldies and and tusk fish continued to find the Mad Crab irresistible and i would have landed at least 15 by the end of the day depleting my Mad Crab supplies.

The black snapper also stayed on the chew and it you never went any longer than 10min between hooking a fish. I say HOOKING a fish, landing them was another story. We both got blown away time after time and at last count our tally was at 13 smoking’s. It was the speed in which they did it as well. You had literally seconds to pull the fishes head up otherwise it was game over. We both up our leaders i went from 4lb to 8lb and then to 15. Ira went from 4 to 10 to 20lb and was still getting smoked.
My favourite capture of the day was a Black snapper of around 36cm that took off with his line as we came on top of a really rocky bit of ground. After being smoked minutes before he assured me he would be ready for the next fish. Sure enough as soon as this fish hit he struck hard then put in the fastest most furious pump and winds i have ever seen on light tackle. He manage to keep the fishes head up and polled in. I was nearly in stiches and was spewing i didn’t get a chance to get it on film.

We continued up a bit and found some deeper ground with a nice gutter running through dropping off into 4m. There were tons of mullet in the area and below them we could see Yellowfin Bream School. We probed the area hoping a bream would come and nail our presentations. Ira’s reel then screamed off. Could this be the bream we were hoping for. The run was much faster than the black snapper and we were unsure of what it could be.
To our surprise it was a nice Golden Trevally. These fish do show up on the flats in summer but are quite rare in winter.

I continued casting hoping t land my first Golden. I turned around to see Ira’s rod load up again. Once again another Golden.  Unfortunately these were the only two around. And while my Mad Crab had the advantage on the Black Snapper and the Tusk fish, the bait fish profile of the Flick Stick was to the Goldens liking.

We had only been fishing for 3 hours and had already landed 6 different species (flathead, pink snapper, black snapper, Tusk fish, Bladies and Golden Trevally) along with a few other unwanted. Still we were yet to come across a Bream or even a Tailor which are normally impossible to avoid. Would i finally break my 40cm bream curse?
Check back for Pt 3