Wowee what a day to remember! This trip won’t be forgotten anytime soon 🙂 My mate Jonathan and I paddled the Logan/Albert River today and got caught up in a storm!
We headed out today from the Alberton Boat ramp at 8am. I had to crawl out of bed at 5am to make it there. During work days I wouldn’t even wake up that early to go to work. Anyways dead low tide was 8am. On arriving we realised there was still a bit of going out current so we followed it for a couple of hundred meters to the bend then turned around and headed back in with the tide. On the turn, I hooked onto a little bream measuring in at 25cm to the fork.
The trip in was easy as the morning was particularly quiet. Not a breath of wind! We had 3 deep divers in tow. Jono was next to scream fish on. A nice little fight with heaps of head shakes. The speculation was obviously a flattie; however, it wasn’t meant to be! After a short fight, Jono pulled in a pair of dreaded whiskers…….on a lure! After a bit of cursing and swearing, he released it …deeply disappointed 😂🤣
We had done some research before hand and heard of a 14m deep hole somewhere along this section. I managed to locate it using the fish finder and threw some white curl tails down, skipping it along the bottom I hoped to entice a strike but nothing. Despite heaps of large arches showing up on the sounder nothing was interested. A bit further past this section I decided to change lures to a spanking brand new 60cm storm lure. Shiny n sparkly in colour I yearned for a flattie to take it. The first cast I snagged up onto a weed bed and lost it 😡 @&$#! $10 down the drain😭. This however, wasn’t about the only lure I lost today! I lost yet another 2 during the course of the day!🤣
Around 200m towards the junction of the Albert River and the Logan River I hooked onto something solid; hook in 5m of water! Head shakes and massive runs circling my kayak I was very happy but deeply fearful at the same time. What runs so hard, massive head shakes, weighty and runs in circles? I dread the dreaded whiskers. To my amazement, after an awesome battle, I netted a trevally! 2nd trev I’ve ever caught on a hard body! The last one was over 10yrs ago! I decided to keep this fella for dinner as I haven’t caught one in a while. It came in at 38cm to the fork.
The rest of the day was fruitless however the adventure didn’t just finish there! Jono and I decided to explore the Albert branch of the system. We paddled at ease with the tide thinking the return trip would be just as easy as tide turn was scheduled for 1pm. Oh wow, big mistake again! Due to us going so far up the system the tide change was an extra hour behind! We only decided to turn around at about 800m past the Eagleby Jetty on Ramu St. How far we’ve gone in we had no idea however on opening google map we were terrified!
We were both exhausted and low on hydration fluid. One of our kayak buddies who pulled out on the trip earlier in the day due to family reasons only lives 10mins away from this spot. After a couple of phone calls, our knight in shining armour came to our rescue bringing two bottles of refreshments. Big shout out to Tony Blanch! Thanks mate!!!
After a few minutes rest and exchanges of updates we parted our ways. Jono and I proceeded to our return journey. Now forecast was an afternoon thunderstorm. Seeing how willy weather had been way off on the last couple of forecast we didn’t believe the latest predictions either! It was sunny and the wind was howling at 25knots…. what storm!!? Oh how wrong we were yet again. Storm came in an hour later as we were half way back towards the junction. It hit hard! Each to their own we drew on all our strength and battled out the wind and the rain. I pray all our gear survived as we were hit very very hard! On the re-arrival at the junction somewhat 2hrs later we both looked like drenched rats… wet from head to toe!
After the junction Jono and I used our trolling motors to fish each side of the Logan River. Jono did the rockwalls while I trolled the flats. Nothing! I busted off two more of my prized lures. Berkley Flicker Shad in Gold and Jackall Ghost Shad in white. Both of these lures had been weapons to me but now laid attached to a snag on the river floor 😞
We arrived again at launch spot on 4pm. Pain everywhere from legs to arms. Jono received yet another storm warning on his phone. We quickly packed up and made our way home in yet another bit of miserable weather 🙂
Thanks guys! Stay safe on the water!
