queensland weekend tweed river report

[novrain]

hi all, report on the tweed river outing as follows

3 cars going in total so we each all set out from our respective houses. 3 ladies, 6 guys. plan was to meet at 530am at coomera service station for last minute food and coffee before driving in convoy down to the tweed. 2 cars got there first but mine was stuck at beaudesert. some cargo train was going past and it took ages to get through. by the time we got to coomera, it was close to 6am. the other car was there waiting while the other one was already at tweed!

finally got to tweed at around 645 QLD time. drove around for a bit finding the boat hire place but finally found it. so all 3 cars were there and we started unloading our stuff onto the boat while I signed us in.

Hire guy was pretty friendly and he had this super friendly labrador 'sunny' running all over the place. he pointed out the spots that we were 'promising', gave us some boat tips, ran through the do's and don'ts and then we were off! we weren't sure if the boat had a license but we bought some the night before. turns out we didn't need them if we were fishing off the boat.

we first went over to the mangroves just beside the boat hire place and dropped off 2 crab pots with chicken frames. had a bit of a manouvering problem so me and another had to jump in and actually tie the pots in. they had floats with our names so we left them and went about our business.

drifted along a little but didn't get any hits. we were using cut up prawns and live yabbies (pumped from the night before). mostly small nibbles which stole our bait most of the time. i was tossing around soft plastics while the rest used bait but nothing took it too

decided to try under the boyds bridge so we tried anchoring up under one of the pylons but turns out it was one of the passing through channels so we had to re-position ourselves. we ended up parallel to one of the pylons so a couple of us decied to jump on. Man, there were heaps of bait fish under and i mean heaps! there were like millions milling around the pylon. i was so tempted to just chuck out the cast net but i did remember reading somewhere about cast netting not allowed in NSW. anyway, we went to the middle of the pylon where there was a gap and there were loads of biggies holding up from the current.

small ones on top but biggies at the bottom. I dropped a little bait in and bang! i was on.. took off for a bit but i didn't hook up properly and it snuck away. i was reeling it in and i foul hooked onto something. brought up a decent sized lucerick but i chucked it back in.

shortly after, bro-in-law hooks up on something big and he brought up a massive luderick but just as he was bringing it on to the pylon, it wriggled free and splashed back in.

few minutes later, nsw fisheries rocked up and said we couldn't be there. apparently there's a law that says we can't anchor beside a pylon and that we can't be on the pylon. so we buggered off

headed towards the main tweed river where we drifed and caught mostly whiting and baby flathead. baby flatties were around the 5-10cm mark and they looked absolutey adorable. they were all thrown back.

it was whiting the whole day and again bro-in-law pulled in one around the 31cm mark. that went onto the barbie immediately. i was switching between bait, SP and hard bodies but nothing was taking it. got bored and switched back to bait and just lazed about. suddenly the line twitched and i was on... pulled in a 35-ish flattie. that was about it for the day. the rest were bream and whiting which weren't overly interesting. i was hoping for some decent sized tailor so the guys could have something to talk about rather than smallies but nothing doing.

copped a bit of rain but that was alright as we had shelted. just as we were about to head back, one of the ladies dropped my reel handle in the drink. i was so distraught so i jumped in and tried searching the bed but the water was super freezing the the current too strong. oh well, another one bites the dust.

headed back to return the boat and check out the pots. didn't get anything in either so the guys were pretty disappointed. one of the floats had disappeared, not sure if someone cut it or it something.

got back on land, got charged an extra $15 cos we went over on fuel. a little disappointed at boat hire guy for doing it cos he did say we would have heaps of fuel for the whole day. anyway, paid up and left. went to the bridge and tried fishing from pylons but only ended up snagging. all rods snagged so we packed up and headed back to brissie.

still was super fun day with laughs galore, sea, sun, sand. nothing beats good company.

i'd like to bring them out again and target bigger ones but need some advice on spots again. i wanted to get live prawns the night before but was too tired.

no pics yet as i don't have the camera with me.

thanks for reading

[Angus]

Nice one mate. SOunds like some lazy fun.

Thanks for the detail!

Angus

[marty]

Sounds like you had a good day on the water, even if the fishing was a bit slow. You may want to check, but I am pretty sure you can't even have a castnet in your boat in NSW?

I fished the Tweed on Sunday and did pretty well with over 20 fish - mostly Flatties to 55cm and a couple of horse Whiting. All fish were caught on soft and hardbodied lures.

The Tweed can be a funny spot to fish and you really need to move around the find the fish - we travelled up and down the river before we found a spot that held a number of fish.

It can be limiting in the hire boats as they take a while to get anywhere, and lack the 'finesse' of a smaller boat - quite often you need to move away form the popular spots to find fish.

Marty

[novrain]

thanks Marty,

will have to find out more about the cast nets.

yeah that was one of the major problems we had. the big boats take ages to get anywhere and they're not very quiet. mind you we were also laughing and talking loudly but that's the way it goes.

the rest of the guys have the idea that if you drop the bait in, you'll get a bite pretty much immediately so yes, it was a litle tough for them.

will have to 'refine' and 'train' them though we were all out for a good time anyway.

we did move around a bit. i was looking for deeper channels and drop offs but was difficult to do so.

am taking a boat license next month so will be able to hire more powerful boats

[Feral]

Next time get the livies with the cast net in Qld before you head down in to mexico. Also dont have the net in the boat with you, leave it in the car boot. Its the same fine whether your using it or not.

[Rocket75]

and the tweed river will never be the same again!...I can just imagine you all jumping into this boat, keen and excited. Lots of laughing (and screaming...girls)jumping around in and out of the boat, dropping reels overboard and getting busted by the fuzz:P No wonder the big ones eluded you...they were scared of interupting all your fun:ohmy:

Perhaps a little more stealth will help, next time leave the other guys and just bring the girls:kiss:

Thanks for the report Merv.

Rocket

[novrain]

good idea feral

thing is i'm the only who can use the net and i don't want to bust my back doing it. thanks for the advice on not bringing the net. don't wanna get a fine for taking it on board.

but livies will definitely be the way to go... no more smallies to nibble at them.

rocket - great idea! just girls, me and the open sea.

well, its sort of a everyone is in kind of group so we cant leave anyone out.

will just have to tell them in a 'nice' way to quieten down

[Leighton]

great report mate, its a magic part of the world down there.

Hands down beats the crowds of the Broardwater