queensland Sunday report but no pics.

[Bluevien]

The reason for no pics will soon be obvious, but it was a fun day anyway hitting up 3 spots in all.

Headed off from Nudgee with my son and mate at about 2.30am on Sunday. 25 minutes later we hit Mud as the conditions were better than the forecast. We jigged for bait and squid and came up empty but we had some frozen squid and pillies as back up as well as plastics. Fished around the northern and western side for about 3 hours only catching small squire until my mate landed a big pike we could use for bait. Around 6am had a bite to eat and then I became a little queasy. I had been trying to untangle a bait jig when all of the sudden I found myself burlying up from the front of the boat. It didn't help as we never did get a photo opportunity.

After that we were getting a little disheartened and I wanted to get the boat moving to help settle the stomach. I had the coordinates for Harry Atkinson's reef so we decided to head over to it. It didn't take long to realise where is was without the GPS as about half of south east Qld was there also, but we saw the amazing sight of dolphins jumping 10 ft into the air in between the boats as we got closer. We found a vacant park amongst the crowd and settle in again. There wasn't any significant structure under us but we managed to catch more under sized squire. It was then we realised why the dolphins were having a ball. The buggers were having an easy feed on the unders being thrown back.

After a couple of hours with no photo opps, we decided to head back towards the river mouth which none of us had fished before. We came across some locations we had read about but never seen. We drifted passed the sunken wall without luck, netted some poddy mullet in Boggy but still had no reason to use the camera. Getting up close to the Pacific Dawn was a highlight for the young fella. We heard someone radio the skipper asking if she will be ready to sail out after all the trouble it had and he had a chuckle at that so it was good see they had a sense of humour. At about 1pm we decided to call it a day and headed back to Nudgee. It was a slow, rough trip back for the little boat but she handled it well.

Overall it was a good day and we called it our re-con trip for future tries. Apart from Harry's, it was relatively quiet on the water. All up we boated about 11 small squire with most caught by the smallest decky and a pike, so not a total write off. Another thing was how the boat went. We hit up 3 spots over 12 hours travelling about 60-70 kms and she still used under 20 litres of fuel. That gives me a little more confidence and hope of getting out to more places more often.

Anyway, thanks for reading and hopefully I will have some pretty pictures next time.

Rob

[Eug]

Nice one Rob, I've been amazed at the fuel economy as well. We were up and down the river all Sunday night for about 6-7 L. certainly a great package!

[Mr FeLiX]

At least ya avoided the dreaded doughnut mate. Good report

[kreel]

It sounds like a win to me, taking the young fella out and showing him the backyard pool is a positive. I wish my dad had the time and opportunity to take me out when I was young.

[Terry H]

What was wrong with the P&O cruise boat?

When I was out offshore in the kayak I saw it had a tug waiting for it out near the blinker just off Caloundra early Sunday morn. Thought that was a bit odd to have a tug so far from port!

[Bluevien]

Terry H wrote:

What was wrong with the P&O cruise boat?

When I was out offshore in the kayak I saw it had a tug waiting for it out near the blinker just off Caloundra early Sunday morn. Thought that was a bit odd to have a tug so far from port!

Terry, I saw it being worked on in the dock on Friday and then it was being tugged back into port on the Sunday just before noon. My mate told me it had problems under the gateway when it first arrived into Brissy. From the radio conversation I heard, it sounded like it was due out with passengers the next day.

[Bluevien]

Eug wrote:

Nice one Rob, I've been amazed at the fuel economy as well. We were up and down the river all Sunday night for about 6-7 L. certainly a great package!

Eug, and it handled 3 of us really well and the other adult is a biiiiig fella.

[Bluevien]

Mr FeLiX wrote:

At least ya avoided the dreaded doughnut mate. Good report

You're right, Mr F, I didn't intend to sound negative... it was a good day out with enough happening to keep us happy.

[Bluevien]

kreel wrote:

It sounds like a win to me, taking the young fella out and showing him the backyard pool is a positive. I wish my dad had the time and opportunity to take me out when I was young.

Kreel, I wouldn't want to share it with anyone else. I am making up for my childhood too ... I didn't to get to do any of this stuff as a young fella either so I am making up for it now with him beside me... and he's the one showing me how things are done

[Terry H]

Eh, maybe it was a different P&O boat I saw out off Caloundra then. Didn't really bother catching its name. Only boat I've ever seen gettin a tug escort down from Caloundra though!