queensland Port 28 jan "The Vermin Journey"

[polsis]

Went out around midday with 3 of the boys in our little tinnie, in a bit of an experiment to see how she'd cope with 4 passengers......barely, but with dignity I think we came up with.

she's a little '77quinrex 4.2m with an equally aged 25hp evinrude on the back, and she was screaming at our fat arses all day.

We're getting better at the cast net, so we headed over to the poo pipe and pulled up 6 or 7 little live baits, pretty generic species and headed out past the shipping terminals, about midway down the reclaimed land before it ends...

10 minutes in ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, my mate don's line just takes off. He's using the barstard combo i procured last week, 3-6kg rod, shimano slade 2500, 12lb line and 20lb leader. Jesus, did he have a fight! As soon as the thing got near either the surface or the boat, don would lose all his line to a 20m dash for freedom. In a sterling effort, he finally, finally surfaced the most monstrous stingray I have ever seen. This thing was enormous!! Poor thing lay there on the surface panting, don doing about the same, still in fantasy land that it was going to be a 4kg snapper....

Well, that set the tone for the day. Don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining, everything we caught was great fun to fight and reel in and we had a stella day (thankyou mr tooheys), BUT we then pulled in another 2 rays, 4 undersized squire/snapper, 3 bream (2 legal), about 3 catfish and a seemingly lost flathead

We're new to live baits, so maybe we have to be a bit more choosey to attract specific species, or a bit more particular about where we throw anchor to catch the jew, threadie, good size snapper or even bullie we're aiming for....or maybe it was just a bit of poor luck...

Anyways, only that day did i master the cast net, and landed a sting ray....in a 4m cast net, couldn't bloody believe it!! Not long after that i pulled up 2 legal size bream in it too! WAas unbelievable! Does anyone else have similar experiences with cast nets? Caught any absolutely weird things in them?

So, all in all, a great day, lots of fish pulled into the boat, just not the right types!

[mangler]

Good report mate, nothing wrong with a bit of vermin to put a bend in your rod. Sounds like you all had a fun session, and good to see that Mr Tooheys was on board!

Cheers,

Matt

[uglyfish]

i was out on the 28th mate,i got a heap of undersized squire,one keeper and a tailor...heaps of rays and shovelys..the other day i got a bullie of about 1m

[Terry H]

I can't catch a stingray to save my life. I'm going to have to follow some people around I think.

Might not have been the species you were after, but at least it sounds eventful

[nadders]

im pretty sure everyone has caught some fun stuff in the castnet before lol, for me i've caught 2 threadies, one about 50cm and one lil baby about 3cm

[uglyfish]

terry you want a ray?how big and how many?

[roobs]

i'm sure you're joking about how many since you can only keep one now with the new bag limits.

[Spoonys Nightmare]

good report dude.. was a fun day for sure

you forgot to mention we got a shovelnose too out at the reclaimed land.

so it really was a vermin trip haha

[uglyfish]

roobs wrote:

i'm sure you're joking about how many since you can only keep one now with the new bag limits.

mate i can keep 101 if i had the need to untill the first of march,when the new laws and bag limits come in...

[kriso]

TerryH wrote:

I can't catch a stingray to save my life. I'm going to have to follow some people around I think.

Might not have been the species you were after, but at least it sounds eventful

you would bethe only person i know that doesnt catch rays! theres fricken heaps in that stretch of the river!

[nadders]

a dead herring or something anchored to the bottom of pilon 99 should get you a ray within minutes, lol. or the mudflats around boggy crk mouth. theres heaps of them around there too

[mongrel jack]

I'd love to know how you avoid rays in that stretch of the river! :lol: There must be an art to that.

[polsis]

catching a threadie in the cast net, now that'd be something...

well it's good to know it's not just us...though i guess i didn't expect that it would be.

i think we'll continue on up to the end of the reclaimed land and around the corner next time, caught an awesome little sweet lip there a couple of weeks ago, and haven't got a ray or a shovelly there yet.

does anyone have an amateur opinion on why there are so many rays in that stretch of river and the mouth of boggy creek?