queensland First Sharking Attempt Pays Dividends

[Sulfuras]

After a few weeks of research and accumulating the right gear I finally convinced the old man to take me to Kooka park in his SeaRay. We arrived at about 4:30pm and tried our luck with a live Cattie (about 20cm) hooked through the shoulder with a 8/0 suicide hook and the tail with a 6/0. These were crimped on a 80lbs nylon coated wire trace on the end of a 50lbs mono leader and 30lbs bionic braid as the main line. The rig was held together with the appropriate Al Bright and Bimini twist knots. (Special thanks to a family friend for helping with these)

I thought we were pretty well equipped and that even a novice sharker like myself had a good chance. Unfortunately after 4 hours without a single strike and only a few nibbles on my other weak lines we decided to head back home towards jindalee. I released the poor Cattie and we arrived home at around 10pm.

Instead of calling it a night I decided to try something a bit different and set up my line with chunks of eel I had caught early that day as bait, I also used styrofoam to float the line to get it off the bottom. I even went as far as to rig up an old 100lbs handline I had lying around with a float, a wire trace and some eel and let it float off the pontoon to increase my chances. It was just coming off low tide so there wasn't much current to drift the lines to the side.

After about 1 and a half hours of nothing we heard the unmistakable sound of styrofoam breaking and the handline came alive. The absence of the float let the fish carry the bait and the hook set. I wasn't sure how this would turn out as I had the handline around my arm and the rod in my hands. I gave the rod to my mate and started reeling in what I hoped was a bullie. I had only let out about 10-15m of line so it wasn't a long fight. He gave me a bit of an aerial show and I did not even let any line out as I was aided by the fact that the fish decided to swim straight for my pontoon and I had to pull him out from underneath.

After landing it there was no mistake, it was a decent size bullie. It had taken one of the two hooks deep and i could barely see it down its throat. After some photos I tried my best to get the hook out with pliers but it was definately fixed in its gut so I clipped the wire as close to the hook as I could and tried to get him swimming but he was clearly a gonner. So I decided to bag it for some tucker. Filleting a shark was a new experience and I found the skin very tough and smelly but I got plenty of good meat.

I was pretty stoked with my first bullie which measured 84cm and the next day I tried the leftover eel that was getting pretty smelly. I tried the same technique as last time but the tide was pretty strong and I'm not sure if the sharkies like off eel so I didnt get a strike.

Looks like I'll be sharking from home from now on :laugh:

Many thanks to everyone who gave me advice or published info on sharking including Feral and his top notch article on live rigs which can be found here: http://www.australianfishing.com.au/forum/4-tackle-and-accessories/240514-livie-rigs-how-do-you-do-yours#240845

and also check out this article which comes up alot of the forums and is very helpful: www.australianfishing.com.au/tacklebox/helpful-articles/255-light-tackle-shark-fishing

48cm Eel

Shark after landing

Me and my mate holding up the catch

[Dano]

nice!!! what part of the river were you fishing?

[Do$tylz]

Well done mate and fantastic to see that it was AFO articles and help that got you your first bully

[kriso]

congrats mate well done

[taib]

Good work mate!! Even better work on having guts to touch the eel! Dirty and slimy suckers they are! ....but they make great bait.

[Troy_79]

nice one man:) well done

[Angus]

Well done mate.

Heres to many more!

Angus

[mick fillet]

nice going fellas.its a clean looking bullie .fishing from a carpeted pontoon must be nice on the feet.