queensland Caloundra report 22-23 dec

[Eug]

headed to caloundra a couple of days ago to kick back and get away from it all. stayed at pelican waters hoping to give the canals a shot and just check out the local area.

got there around monday and gave the mouth of the canal a quick flick with my sp outfit. managed a tiny flatty on a small minnow, was pretty stoked about my first sp fish. everyone's right it is a bit of a rush. sadly that was the only fish i got on softies for the rest of my stay, loads of hits but plenty of failed hook ups and many many lost jigs. i was starting to think that the hooks on the jigs were a bit too big?

spent the rest of the afternoon scouting and simply kicking back beside the pool with beers.

the second day got the missus and i out of bed early (but not early enough, as she wanted to sleep in). headed out to the old military jetty for a quick session, again lots of hits but failed to hook up. getting frustrated we decided to try some bait later on in the afternoon. tried to cast for some livies as i heard this spot regularly fires with some monster fish, didn't get much luck. however got this porcupine fish in the net.

went down to bells creek after lunch and walked out to the flats, managed a nice bucket of yabbies out on low tide and decided to give the military jetty another go on the afternoon incoming tide. it was doing reasonably well, we were on from bream, estuary cod, fingermark and butter bream non-stop for the next 2 hours. others were throwing prawns, squid and getting very few. it's such a good feeling when everyone just looks in awe at you nailing one after the other. they were bit small with only 3 bream between the 27-30cm mark. the missus was surely having fun and on light spin gear they definitely were better than donuts.

decided to jig for a few livies and only managed 1, since some guys were raping the entire area with castnets. surely more than they required! there must have been a total of 10 rods in the water (other groups) all with livies and none had been hit for quite some time. threw the little bugger out on a shimano 2-4kg spin rod, 2500 reel, 7lb mono and 10lb fluro leader. 5 minutes and the drag went nuts zzzzzzzZZZzzz i was busy fighting a decent sized bream when the missus panicked and wound up the drag TIGHT!! i saw the rod bend at such an extreme angle i thought it was going to snap, i quickly jumped and loosened the drag enough to let my stomach settle at my almost costly disaster. by this time we had gathered quite a crowd from all the fish we were catching and everyone was quite disappointed at how quickly i had hooked up a large one. i quickly called it for a hub cap and looked down at my reel and saw that meters were flying off at an extreme rate! i was merely meters from being spooled so i quickly excused myself as i made my way back across the jetty and started walking down the beach gaining back precious line. the damn thing hunkered down in the sand and the waiting game began, slowly i began walking closer avoiding to high stick the ray whilst trying to lift her off the bottom. i managed to get a bit of movement and took the opportunity to keep it off the sand and wind her in. 15 minutes later one very tired angler managed to get one very tired ray onto the beach for a quick cut of the leader, a photo and released back to fight another day.

not my biggest ray, i would have called it in at around 8-10kg (arms were a bit dead to give an accurate guess). damn good fun on light line none the less.

got back to the jetty for a round of applause and a general chat with the people there. most seemed a little envious at our luck, however i think the flurocarbon seemed to do the trick as the water was relatively clear.

all up a great couple of days to kick back, no stonker fish but good fun! pretty interested in getting into SPs full time but have yet to be entirely convinced especially when competing with live bait!

caloundra is such an awesome place, the waters are so healthy with ample sized fish. it's good to see people constantly returning the 'just legal' sized fish to improve the environment.

what are you poking at?

sea slug

some night photos of our resort

little fella hopping along

[brisfisher]

great report mate and congrats on your first lure catch:)

[Eug]

thanks for your spin gear dom!

[Swagger]

Very good report, those rays really can hammer hard! My best effort was a 36pd ray from the logan river, when they take the bait its a one way ticket no stopping stations!