"To Save a Fishing Lure" — Spin-a Story First Place

To Save a Fishing Lure…
By: Steven Speldewinde

I left Sweden toward the end summer and headed back home to Australia for the start of summer (furthering my pursuit of an endless summer for the rest of my life). I have managed to get out a few times with my brother who is a mad keen fishermen for a fish since I have been back in the home country. In fact not more than three days after I touched down in Sydney airport my brother and a mate whisked me off to Coffs Harbour on the Northern New South Wales coast for a few days of beach sunshine and fishing.

My dad had managed to acquire an inflatable kayak from a friend whilst I was overseas and my bro and I decided to explore and fish one of the many creeks that run into the Pacific Ocean just near Coffs. These creeks are teaming with fish Flathead, Whiting, Trevally and a bit further inland the much sought after Australian Bass… oh yeah and the scenery is stunning!

We inflated the kayak and pushed off with the incoming tide up the creek only to find that it had a leak. For one reason or another we had thrown the foot pump into the kayak before we left so we hooked it up and I pumped air back into the kayak at the same time as paddling whilst my bro trawled a soft plastic trying to attempt a Dusky Flathead or maybe a Bream. It wasn’t long before my brother managed to land a small flathead and my inexperience in ‘kayak paddling whilst simultaneously pumping and dealing with quite a strong current’ landed the kayak in a creek side tree poking another hole in it. As the kayak deflated, we ended up in the drink and had to swim it across to a nearby sandbank just barely managing to keep the rods, reels and tackle dry.

We decided to leave the kayak and wade the sand flats casting soft plastics and prawns into dips and holes trying to tempt a big flathead. I spotted a likely looking snag next to a deep hole and expertly flicked my lure straight into it ruing the inaccuracy of my non-fethastyx spin rod. The thought of losing my $2 soft plastic was too much for me so I swam over to the log to remove it. No sooner than I had de-snagged it, I noticed my brother hooking up – I quickly swum back to the sand bank and reached into my pocket for my bro’s water-proof camera to take some footage… it was gone. In the process of saving my $2 lure I had managed to drop my brothers $700 camera into deep water next to massive snag!

My brother and I put our extremely limited free-diving-without-a-mask skills to the test for half an hour only to come up with a lot of scratches and no camera. I was determined though and as I again descended again, this time I glimpsed a small patch of red buried in the mud just under a tree branch… it was the tiny red label of the camera case, with my last ounce to breath and subjecting myself to more cuts from the vicious tree I managed to lay my hands on it coming to the service arms raised in victory!

After a semi disastrous start to the trip the fishing only got better from there. My brother showed off his flathead expertise landing them on both soft plastics and prawn baits. He managed to land two 60cm plus specimens on very light gear by working the very same deep gutter that we had punctured the kayak on.

Having been completely out classed by my bro on the flathead front I decided to wade further up the creek chasing the many schools of whiting that were cruising the shallows. Fishing conditions were perfect, clear water and a seemingly endless supply of different habitats making every cast exciting. Nevertheless the whiting proved to be behaving very circumspectly sometimes approaching my bait, even touching it but never striking. It wasn’t until the next morning, when my bro and I headed out again, undeterred by the rain, that I was finally successful in landing a 40+ centimetre specimen. For those of you that don’t know the Australian Whiting, it is a reasonably close relative of the Bonefish, and is incredible sport on light tackle as well as being delicious eating.

A great end to the trip until my bro left the camera on the top of the car as we were packing up, we didn’t notice until a while later but when we retraced our drive sure enough we found it sitting in the middle of the road, on the other side of a roundabout somehow unscathed!