queensland brissie river mouth 19.04.09

[nadders]

took old faithful out tonight, last opportunity for 10 days, so i just had to head out. brought teck, webbfunk and his mrs along for a quick session, wasn't heaps of action but i scored a nice fish.

first stop was the sand bank just inside boggy ck, pulled up to cast the net for some livies. scored a couple of good sized mullet (30-40cm) kept the biggun and let the other 2 go. got a few herring, hardyheads etc so we decided to motor over to the pipeline.

was pretty quiet for a while, saw heaps of threadies (probably) on the sounder but nothing was really getting smashed. a few large waves from the micat made us pull anchor and we were drifting for a while before we realised. just about to pull anchor and reposition when.... bang! my herring got hammered, hard. clicked drag into gear and ooooops had drag locked down from when i washed it last, this fish was putting huge pressure on thought i was gonna break the rod. quickly loosened the drag and settled in for a decent fight. we were still drifting around and this fish had power, was towing the boat around a lil bit on long powerful runs. i called it for a stingray a few times, thought it was sticking to the ground but it was just keeping steady pressure and when it came up it didn't have the resistance of a hubcab.

a few more runs and a nice threadie in the boat, 110cm

tried my best to revive him, towed him around behind the boat but he was not having it he gave a half hearted kick but kept going belly up. eventually we decided he was done.

we moved over to the rockwall near the cement works hoping for some cod but donutted, only other fish was a nice bream by teck. called it a night at 8:30 or so and divied up the threadfin fillets. I wish i could have released him but i tried my best and he just buggered himself i think, he really did put up a good fight. next trip to the mouth i'll be hitting up somewhere else and trying for snapper

jordans mrs has photos i'll post them when i get em, or jordan can post em for me

[teckee7]

Was it a breeder?

[nadders]

not just any teck, not just any.

[faulked]

you just have to ask yourself was it a pretty one or an ugly one if its ugly its no breeder:P

[wesfish]

well done mate , dont feel too bad as the threadies give it every thing they got in the fight, and they burn all there energy up with them lightning runs.... you know what i mean when they run they run.... all you can do is fish really heavyline like 50lb to end the fight as quick as possible but even this will not garuantee a successful release, the other thing is that alot of people think that there is only a small population of threadies when in fact they populate every section of the river in every size from small to huge, which indicates that they have bred every season with success, there is more than what most people think in the river.....

congrats on cracking the threadfin on the sounder, thats how i would find them!!!

wes

[Rocket75]

nice fish that and a good report too, thanks for sharing.

Rocket

[chris_stewart14]

Wow mate - that deadset was my report from the Easter long weekend.. Got a 110cm Thready exactly at the BR mouth, tried to re vive it for half an hour and we would think it was ready to kick off then once it went, it kept coming back up belly up.. Like Wesfish said though - I think there are a fair few out there (or at least I hope) so you did everything you could.. Well done!

[braddo]

Hey nadders nice fish mate,

Don't feel too bad about it going belly up, they put on a hell of a first run and exhaust themselves. If anyone is concerned about not being able to release these fantastic fish back into the river you can donate the frames to the thready research project I'm running at UQ; that way they are not wasted and ultimately will help provide an understanding of the biology of this great species. Frames can be frozen, just give me a call (0401055589) and I'll come collect them.

cheers all

Brad

[crazyN]

nice thready. Its swim bladder would of been inflated like pretty much all of the threadfin cuaght at the mouth...

[nadders]

sorry braddo i completely forgot about your project, i will put your # in my phone now for next time

how is the project going anyway?

[nadders]

crazyN wrote:

nice thready. Its swim bladder would of been inflated like pretty much all of the threadfin cuaght at the mouth...

lol why would its swim bladder be inflated, in 2-3m of water? or would it get the bends during the fight from running all over the shop down deep etc?

[chris_stewart14]

Yeah I thought swim bladders were only for huge cod in like 100m of water..

[nadders]

i know fish get barotrauma problems pulling them up fast from like 15-20m but would really doubt 3-10m would be a problem unless the fish is skull dragged ultra fast from 10m

[Yellow Peril]

threadies are well known to be hard to release successfully, and are particularly subject to barotrauma. The best release method is supposed to be a release weight - a kind of BIG sinker with big hook with no barb upside down. You hook the fish onto the hook, lower it down to the bottom, and jiggle it to release the fish on the bottom. Second best, is to deflate the swim bladder using a needle. I keep a release weight on the boat now, but it has been ages since I caught a threadie to try it out on.

Jeremy

[nadders]

i've heard of that method yp but his swim bladder was not protruding and didn't seem full at all, the problem was he didn't want to kick off

i think if i lowered him down he would have just been a huge slab of shark bait, i was holding him underwater towing him forward for ages but the kicks werent there

for future reference do you put the barbless hook in the top lip or in the bottom lip with the point facing into the roof of the mouth if that makes sense? and how do you know if he's good to be released without seeing the fish, will you feel him swim off when he's ready to be jigged free?

[tugger]

nice threadie and how many times does that happen when you rjust about to pull the anchor and the rod buckles well done

[teckee7]

Nadders, next time you better apply CPR, you know how you enjoy pashing on with the fishy types ... lol

[nadders]

hell yeah i like the slimey scaley goodness :kiss: :kiss: :kiss:

[noname]

water pressure is a funny topic! when next at centenery pool, sit on the bottom of the diving pool, and feel the pressure. 10 mtrs is enough for a fish to aquire baratrauma, place the hook through the bottom lip. you will feel him start to kick and play up a little, but wait a 30-60 seconds more before releasing the baratrauma releasing system hook thingo.you will know when he's ready. another reason for them being hard to release is the fact they fight themselves to death and suffer from exhaustion? just a thought.

[Yellow Peril]

[img size=200]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/ReleaseWeight.gif here is a pic of a release weight

Goes through bottom jaw. Also, fish can be suffering barotrauma without having their swim bladder protruding out their mouth. Worth a shot anyway.

[nadders]

ah i see so you basically just lift it and it works free. thanks mate i will pick some up next time i stock up and keep em on a handline. what if you lower the fish and theres no movement and no revival, is it likely to slip out of the fish if you pull it up?

sorry for the questions just would like to have the best chance of releasing these fellas if i happen upon one too many etc

[Mack_attack]

Nadders if you're really keen on releasing the fish try going for a pic while the fish is still in the water just have a firm thumb grip. A lot of the bigger fish don't survive if taken out of the water for hook removal etc.

[nadders]

yeah thats a good point, i gave him a comfort lift cut the line (he swallowed by a good 10cm) but he wasn't out of the water for long, maybe 30sec. gonna look into those baro release things as i'm sure it would be easier in general and less stress on the fish to avoid all the handling trying to keep it upright in the water to swim

cheers mate

[webbfunk]

It was a nice way to spend a sunday arvo. Started off by watching people feeding a random dolphin at the fishermans island ramp.

Would have been better if I had caught something though.

Still good to see our Threadie spot produced again, this one being bigger than our last trip there.

Nadders the Threadie man... [img size=704]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/danthreadie.JPG

[Cowfish13]

They're easy enough to make. Just get a good sized sinker (6-10oz snapper weight work pretty well in moderately deep water, with a bit of current), some wire, and a decent sized hook. Connect the hook via the eyelet to the snapper lead with amout 15cm of wire in between them. Then either file or flatten the barb on the hook and you're done

[webbfunk]

"Old Faithfull" in all its glory [img size=704]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/oldfaithful.JPG

[Eug]

that's a nice looking boat mate!

[noname]

ahh tha serenity! did you know there is actually a camping ground around the corner. out past the pipeline. bbq, hut, running water, and pretty clean the last time i was there.

[braddo]

nadders wrote:

sorry braddo i completely forgot about your project, i will put your # in my phone now for next time

how is the project going anyway?

yeh mate is going well. starting to get some good data on their biology especially around the Rocky-Gladstone region but still a bit limited on numbers further south. Bottom line is, they need to get BIG to be mature females (at Rocky 50 % of fish change to females at 112cm fork - around 130cm total!). Brisbane fish may do it differently but we'll need a few more before we know. Kind of concerning about there numbers though, how many people have caught a thready greater than 130 cm in Brisbane lately?

Keep an eye out for the May edition of Bush 'n Beach - there's an article in there to drum up some interest for the project (kindly written up by Paul 'Chief' Graveson).

Cheers

Brad

[hisnhers]

That is a nice boat, what size honda do you have on the back, I'm looking at the 50hp it's the lightest one 4 or 2 stroke.

[nadders]

its a 50hp 4 stroke, no complaints from me.

braddo thats very interesting that they arent mature till 130. ive seen a couple caught at 130+ by the looks of them recently on other forums. i wonder if they feed/behave differently when they get to that size, and currently employed tactics are targetting the still maturing ones? do you know if the big'uns up north move out to the headlands or to different habitats etc?

all very interesting cant wait for bnb

[Angus]

Nice one nadders. Nothing wrong with keeping a feed sometimes. I know its annoying when you want to release and fish dies, but at least it wasnt wasted

Its when I see un filleted tailor carcasses on the beach at Straddy I get mad

Great report mate.

Angus