A mixed bag in St Helens

Part of the deal with being involved in the marine industry is that sometimes you just have to put up with being where you might not be the most comfortable. And for someone who has spent a decade and a half in the tropics, the thought of winter close to the South Pole is always a little daunting.

With a Melbourne Boat Show behind me and a couple of seminars happening a week apart in Tasmania shortly after, I found myself at St Helens on the east coast of the Apple Isle, whiling away a few days.

"You should have been here yesterday" is an adage that still holds true even in Australia's most southern state. Driving north from Hobart the seas were as flat as a pancake - but the isobars on the weather map in the local paper indicated that this was to be short lived, and tomorrow would be another story.

Teaming up with Dave Silva and Launceston printer Michael Bok, we bunked down at the St Helen's Caravan Park, where Michael has an onsite home away from home.

COLD FEET
With outside temperatures maxing at around 11°C, we were pretty laid back, and decided that fishing "gentlemen's hours" might be the order of the day. With Michael's Stacer 570 launched seaward of the bar at the Georges Bay entrance at 9.30am, we gingerly poked the bow around the point to be met with the changing weather.

Merricks Reef is about four miles offshore and looked to be the best to try in the windy conditions, so we made our way there at a fast idle. With the swell running at two metres and seas cracking on top of that, it became more acute at the reef. The sounder showed good bait schools right on the reef and - with it near on impossible to fish without getting bruised - discretion was the better part of valour, and we idled back to the ramp.

The swell that runs into the entrance near the ramp makes boat retrieval a chore to say the least. In a big swell, this ramp is the best option - the only other option being to cross the bar at the entrance, which can get pretty ugly sometimes; a few lives have been lost there.

BY GEORGE!
Georges Bay is a big stretch of water and since commercial fishing has ceased, it produces some excellent seasonal angling for a variety of species. One of the biggest comebacks has been the bream population, which now roams the flats and oyster racks on the northern side of the bay.

Schools of salmon and tailor swim without fear of being hung up in mesh, and the flathead that use this area as a nursery can get on with the business of breeding. Judging by the hundreds of juveniles you can catch per day, the removal of nets has helped them also.

Another bread-and-butter species, the garfish, also appears in the Bay, and gets to a respectable, filletable size. Gars happened to be the only viable choice on our trip there, and saved the day with a fresh meal on the plate each night.

Launching facilities in the township are good, with the boat ramp capable of handling two boats at high tide. At low tide the ramp is very slimy near the water. A good floating pontoon is located along the side of the ramp to tie up when launching and retrieving, and parking the vehicle and trailer in the ample car park.

X MARKS THE SPOT
There is a lengthy 5kt speed limit to the first channel marker, and from there you can cruise on the plane to a variety of places. As you pass this channel marker there is water up to 14m deep on your starboard side. A drift through here for flathead is worth a try.

Shallow sandbanks on the portside are very weedy below the low water mark and are difficult to fish, as you continually have to remove weed from your hooks. The deep shipping channel runs along the north side of the Bay and produces some good fish.

The expansive flats on the south side of the channel have a few noticeably deep drains from which the flats' water exits on a run-out tide. There are a couple of boat ramps on the southern side of the Bay, but one has to traverse the flats to get to the main shipping channel.

During bream season, the drainage channels are the place to be on the run-out tide, fishing with soft plastic lures or live nippers, which can be pumped from the many sandflats exposed at low water.

GARFISH GALORE
On an incoming tide, the groins caused by the outflow from these drains provide ideal back-eddies from which to catch garfish. Once the depth on the flats has increased, the current slows slightly and garfish will move up the berley trail.

Commercially-produced berley seems to work well. Michael had some Rex Hunt berley, to which we added extra bread, crushed blue bait and tuna oil - which did the job nicely. We used cockles (pippis) and squid as bait, but you will have to alter your rig according to the conditions.

Faster current will necessitate a split shot or two, about half a metre up from a Mustad Kirby 4540-1/2 hook. The 0.5in longer shank on these hooks makes them easier to hold when shaking the fish off into the icebox. A size 4 or 6 should be fine. As the current slows, lighten the split shot accordingly. A small split shot is advisable, in any case, to keep the bait low in the water column - out of the reach of the petrels and gulls that will pick it up if given the chance.

Catches of up to five-dozen garfish in a session are not unusual, and when some of these fish may be up to 70cm in length, that is probably more than you'd need.

Even though winter fishing can be cold (it reached as low as 8°C while we were there) a slurry of saltwater and ice in the box will keep these fish pristine and their flesh firm, making them easier to fillet back at camp.

With increased vehicle and boat access to the Apple Isle from the mainland, St Helens is now a terrific trailerboat destination, with a wide variety of fish species available depending upon the season, and ample sheltered water in which to target them.