Shorncliffe Pier Bust offs 20/10/09

[Jaymz711]

Well me and my fishing buddy been shifting his place for the last 4 days and after we finished everything the first thing on the agenda was a fish ( and also a beer )

Got to Shorncliffe Pier at around 11am right on top of the tide. Caught up with some of the locals and there was alot of bait fish around, both herring and mullett. Me and my friend were using assorted baits of cooked prawns, raw prawns and strips of fresh legal whiting.

The aim of the day was to fish for summer whiting and maybe some flathead..

first few casts nothing much happens. One of the locals picks up a just under legal squire and some asians pull in a nice little tailor.

Then things started to get intresting.. most of the other fishos were using livies or strips and someone got hit by something big but the tussel only lasted about 20 seconds with the leader being bitten through. Then he reeled in his other rod which had ganged hooks and wire trace to find the wire was cut through.

My mate reels his line in to find no hook left ( he was using left over hot potato chips from lunch! )

I reel in one of my two rods to find no hook. Then I wind in the other one not knowing there would be something that felt huge on the other end.. that fight lasted about 5 seconds since I was only using 15lb leader. (this was on raw prawn) I upgraded my leaders to 25lb after this which is my heaviest line.

Anyway over the next 45 minutes I think we all got busted off around 15 times together.. sometimes winding in to find no hook and sometimes a fight but always a short one. Nothing was ever brought to the surface and not even close.

So what do yous think it was? I'd be convinced it was sharks with it being such a bloody hot day but are sharks known to take hot potato chips?

With the volume of bust offs in such short time I think it could have been massive school tailor.

Anyway that was my days fishing.. no fresh whiting or fleathead tonight but some motivation to catch whatever it was another day!

Thanks for reading

Jameson

[rob316]

big sea toads...they have jaws that can bite through bone...tis the time of year they show up

only guessing - but had almost identical situations and they were the culprits...

[kriso]

yeah i rekon the mighty sea toad.! they can deadset bite through anything! and well eat everything and anything you put in the water.

[jeff f]

toads, copped a few bite offs from them at mud on saturday

[Jaymz711]

Eyy yeah I do run in with basketball size sea toads everynow and then..

But they usually fight like a dead weight and one of the runs this dude got today peeled half the line of his spool before he could reach his rod and tighten the drag..

And its hard to believe they can smash decent size live herring in one shot with that little rabbit mouth.

[ellicat]

Not such a small mouth, and the dentistry is evil !

[ellicat]

Here's a flattie that a toad had a good munch on. The toad dropped off.

[Jaymz711]

ellicat wrote:

Here's a flattie that a toad had a good munch on. The toad dropped off.

:ohmy:

[natang]

Bloody Hell I didn't realise they got that big!!!!!!!!!!!! :woohoo:

[Whiskers]

1

[Whiskers]

Fishing the reefs betweem tuan and fraser one day and could not get away from these guys!

Absolutly everywhere! They would take hooks with no bait! Just a barstard of a fish

Made me wonder what could possible survive with these fish around? Not much cause there all we caught

[brissy fish]

Mate that sucks about the bust offs... i was looking forward to hear about ur catch. remember we did catch 1 or 2 a couple months ago..

how long are these big toadies around for??

[Keechie]

Unlucky mate, these things are a big pain in the arse. They really know how to clean a whole mach tuna thats out there for shark bait. Goodluck i hope you can get away from them next time.

[tugger]

when you said 1 took off and peeled line quickly its probably a school mackerel they got teeth that will bite most lines off and they are regulars to the jetties. go single strand wire there is little chance any thing will snip that through but multistrand gets in the corner of their mouths and each strand is cut 1x1

mark

[Jaymz711]

These fish are pretty nuts hey.. Thanks for the tip tugger about the single strain wire I'll give it a try!

Are sea toads known to fear any preditors?? I think I heard someone say that black marlin feed on them in the deeper sea but I could be mistaken.

Ive never had these wierd bust offs or caught or seen one caught in dusk/night time.

So gunna hit it up maybe tomorrow night for the run up.

Thanks for the input guys.

[barnzy]

Was reading an article about a guy up at airley beach walking knee deep in the water when a big toad bit his toe off right through his reef sneaker. then it took a big chunk out of his shin then beached itself chasing the poor bloke up the beach for another chomp.

Those mungrels show no mercy

[burger93]

Hahahhaha poor bloke.I have neva heard or seen them before only little ones like in the shallows of the creek ect.

cheers sean

[jeff f]

sailfish ball them up and get into them then they lay around on the surface stoned on the poison

i've also seen huge trevs hit them at he end of urangan pier

[Davo_Dinkum]

bro reckons that all they get at night up hinchinbrook big sea toads and sharks .

[Jaymz711]

Wow thats quite chilling :ohmy: there should be something done about them on river monsters! haha

[MoparKevUk]

Sea Toad @ Colmslie; 25th March 09

[PumpyChowdown]

Aren't these Sea Toads the fish that the Japanese get their famous and sometimes deadly Fugu sashimi from?

[Feral]

I'm amazed you managed to land that Kev, the mongrel things can bite through a hook like butter.

[Jaymz711]

Has anyone else noticed there is two different types?

- one is fat, spikey, and blows up to a basketball..

- the other is more slim, slender, doesnt inflate and has no spikes.

[MoparKevUk]

Feral wrote:

I'm amazed you managed to land that Kev, the mongrel things can bite through a hook like butter.

Would they go through that 5/0 in the left hand side of it's gob??

[natang]

Does anyone know what teh DPI says on them? I had a quick look at the website and couldn't find anything. If these things are such big pests which we all know they are why does the DPI not bring something in to eradicate or cut hte numbers down???

[Cowfish13]

natang wrote:

Does anyone know what teh DPI says on them? I had a quick look at the website and couldn't find anything. If these things are such big pests which we all know they are why does the DPI not bring something in to eradicate or cut hte numbers down???

They are pests to us as fisherman, but not to the ecosystem. They are a native species, with a specific niche in this environment, and should not be killed simply because we don't like them. Same goes for Catfish

[wesfish]

pics a little fuzzy , this is a TT jig head with a nice bend in it from a sea toad from mud

would have been frustrating for every one to loose so many hooks

[gonefishin]

i caught a soccer ball size toad in the cast net up in bowen and it had pretty much a whole chewed up mullet fillet in its gob

[Ry_]

And now with video! Caught this giant pufferfish at Shorncliffe Jan 09.. he made a mess of my 40lb wire trace so I thought it was worth a quick phone video

[video type=youtube]kyIFkKq8ahg