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Karalee Sharking 03/01/2009

werewolf

By werewolf
in Saltwater

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werewolf Newbie

werewolf

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I arrived at the river at Karalee 5:00ish to have a throw of the net. It was mainly a waste of time though as all I got was freshwater prawn after freshwater prawn. In past experience this was a bad sign and it would be unlikely to see a bully about…

Oh well I threaded the biggest prawn onto a circle on top of four inches of wire and a couple feet of 80 lb mono and cast it out hoping for a hungry Salmon. Meanwhile I rigged up some frozen mullet on the other rods and then kept persisting with the net.

Romeo arrived around 5:45, only minutes before I realised I had something hooked on the big prawn. I started to fight it in and realised there was a bit more weight then what appeared originally! After a few brief runs upstream then downstream I called it for a bullie and Romeo did some sterling net work to land what turned out to be my PB bullie at 86 cm and 4.3 kg (previous best was 85 cm). A nice size for the area, but fought like a wet sock. As I eventually replace my mainline on my reels, I’m going to ditch the 14 lb for say 8 lb and wear the extra snag losses.

Things got a bit quiet for a while, and I pulled in a few catties on the prawn rod. Eventually Romeo’s brother in law landed a little freshwater eel on a mullet bait, so we quickly filleted it and replaced some of the mullet. The effect was near instant and Romeo soon had a run from a shark which left some nice teeth marks in the eel fillet. He recast his rod and within minutes another run which resulted in a tail rub-off. Dang, foiled!

Minutes after (around 8:45 AM) my eel fillet floated mid-water hooked up and after a bit more tussle than my first shark, I landed the second for the day at 84 cm and 4.6 kg (I think the scales are a bit suss, but the shark kicking about doesn’t help). We even got this one on video lol. To rub a bit of salt in Romeo’s and my ongoing fishing rivalry, his trace was hanging out of my shark’s mouth! There is nothing like a healthy bit of competition!

Fortunately Romeo saved a bit of face when 15 min later he hooked up again on the eel. After a bit of a tussle, in comes another 84 cm bullie at 4.2 kg.

That was about the end of the action after the little spurt of activity. Overall considering the water was DEAD – no bait and no surface activity, not to mention murky as – I was very pleased we caught something other than catfish!

An interesting point was the hook size used in the eel baits. The two sharks caught on eel ate hooks no bigger than say 4/0 (the bottom basher was a single hook and the bait floated up from the bottom anchor lead was a two hook job, all suicide pattern). Right beside these rods was a larger bait on an 8/0 and it didn’t even get a sniff. I’ve mentioned before to people that hook size is important, but here again is another example! Too big and a lot of sharks won’t bother. The best little bit of action started around midway or so through the run out tide similar to results we have had in the past.

All three sharks were beheaded, tailed, gutted and iced and were later skinned and filleted at home (two for my family and one for Romeo and wifey). This time round I also kept half of one of the belly flaps and cooked it for lunch and made flake burgers. I used to always chuck this bit out, as the meat was thinner and the stomach lining appeared really tough. Once cooked though you wouldn’t know; it was as tender and tasty as ever. The only annoying bit was it tending to roll up when cooking so next time I will cut it into strips.

And if anyone is really interested, here is my gun new flake recipe I invented. Next time round I’m considering added some bacon bits under the cheese and maybe a hint of garlic to boot. Queue drooling.

Cheesy Szechuan Flake

- Dust fillets in flour

- Rub some All-Purpose seasoning (stuff you put on chips) into each side of the fillets

- Sprinkle Szechuan pepper to taste on one side of fillets (it’s hot) or both sides if brave

- Chuck a bit of cracked pepper on

- Splash on a bit of Worcestershire sauce

- Layer cheese slices over the top of fillets

- Layer lemon slices over cheese

- Wrap in foil and cook to your hearts contentïŠ

I cooked them on the BBQ, and with the hood down the thickest bits of the fillet took a good 25 min to get through! Just check them now and again after say 20 min; just poke a fork in the thick bits and if it goes through easy guns then you are set. When done properly and served, the meat will fall apart on your fork it is so tender. I have cooked it twice now; once Saturday night for myself and again Sunday night for my folks. They were raving about it!

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wesfish Newbie

wesfish

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some good pics there werewolf , was that the junction or riverside, i was going to head up the bremer to a nice hole that holds alot of sharks but stuck it out at kookaburra with none landed , the bait is there but mainly about the 4mtr depth and mainly boneys , the mullet run hasnt started yet , as soon as it does thats when the sharks are in plague numbers.. cant wait..well done on your captures and keep up the quality reads..

wes

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werewolf Newbie

werewolf

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rayke1938 wrote:

Well done! Sounds like a good day and thanks for the recipe I will have to give it a go.

Cheers

Ray

Thanks yeah give it a crack. I love experimenting with food. I've tried a lot of recipies for fish and this is my favourite yet. I'm cooking it again Saturday for my girl:kiss:

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werewolf Newbie

werewolf

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wesfish wrote:

some good pics there werewolf , was that the junction or riverside, i was going to head up the bremer to a nice hole that holds alot of sharks but stuck it out at kookaburra with none landed , the bait is there but mainly about the 4mtr depth and mainly boneys , the mullet run hasnt started yet , as soon as it does thats when the sharks are in plague numbers.. cant wait..well done on your captures and keep up the quality reads..

wes

The junction. I haven't actually sharked at Riverside but there is a lot of bank access there so I'd be keen too. Do you know what the depth is like at Riverside Wes?

Yeah I got one tiny little mullet in the net. I'm suprised it didn't fall straight through. There was really no other bait around except for prawns (well in close to the bank anyway). Normally if that happens it will be a quiet one for us!

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jeff f Newbie

jeff f

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leave the warrego highway and go along mt crosby rd to the roundabout and go left on junction rd till you hit another roundabout and go straight throught it changes into arthur summervilles rd wich turns into settlers way through a roundabout along to the next roundabout and go right then right again onto park rd

it leads straight to the ramp

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werewolf Newbie

werewolf

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Rocket75 wrote:

Now that's a comprehensive report:) The tactics, the hunt, the chase , the kill and the recipe...what more could you aks for? (maybe pictures:lol: )

Thanks for a great read.B)

Rocket

Well actually if you really want more we got two of the shark fights on the HDD cam (plus some random stuff like throwing the castnet and baiting a prawn and even the eel capture lol), but I'm sure you don't want to waste 1 GB downloading themB)

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werewolf Newbie

werewolf

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Rocket I'll consider you tubing them, but I'll have to compress them a fair bit first. They came out in .mov format, so I haven't looked if any of the default Vista tools (doubt it) can compress them down. I don't really want to by DivX endcoders etc. BTW the fights weren't overally spectacular so you wouldn't be missing out on much. 14 lb is overkill on sub metre sharks, so going to have to go lighter.:lol:

LOL at the Schultzy reference. This was a boy only trip. Our girl's aren't too keen at getting up at dawn for fishing. Mind you they don't mind the occasional fishing tripB)

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wesfish Newbie

wesfish

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werewolf wrote:

wesfish wrote:
some good pics there werewolf , was that the junction or riverside, i was going to head up the bremer to a nice hole that holds alot of sharks but stuck it out at kookaburra with none landed , the bait is there but mainly about the 4mtr depth and mainly boneys , the mullet run hasnt started yet , as soon as it does thats when the sharks are in plague numbers.. cant wait..well done on your captures and keep up the quality reads..

wes

The junction. I haven't actually sharked at Riverside but there is a lot of bank access there so I'd be keen too. Do you know what the depth is like at Riverside Wes?

Yeah I got one tiny little mullet in the net. I'm suprised it didn't fall straight through. There was really no other bait around except for prawns (well in close to the bank anyway). Normally if that happens it will be a quiet one for us!

it only drops to about 3-4 mtrs ramp side of the river but just down stream near the rocks with a beacon on them is about 8mtrs
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wesfish Newbie

wesfish

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werewolf wrote:

thats one heck of a bike ride from Bundamba!
yeah we use to tell our parents we were goimg down the bremer , then we would cross the warrego bridge and take a short cut through the streets on the right and head out to the junction following the streets closest to the river, we use to leave at 3 in the morning and ride to mt crosby weir for a bass fishing aswell , until we got caught by my mates dad crossing back over the warrego bridge lol , they were the days lol
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