Caboolture River 11/02/12

[hulk]

Well it has been just over a month since I last went fishing mainly due to personal situation changing and being distracted by that. It worked out this weekend that the now EX wasn't working so I worked it out that she would look after the kids today whilst I tried to twist one of my mates arms to go for a fish.

Anyhow quick confirmation Friday arvo that fishing was a goer so up early this morning to get my gear together then head to mates place to pick his boat up and drop a line.Anyhow one quick stop to pick up another mate and we were down the ramp and launching about 630am to very low tide.

We first headed straight out the mouth of the river to the markers with flicking lures and using cooked prawns, mullet and sardines being the bait of choice for the day.

One of the most unusual things to happen for the day was the fact we couldn't raise a bite on the mullet even though it was fresh from the seafood market. The Sardines got some picks but by far the best performed was the cooked bay prawns.

We settled out front near the markers and after about 10 minutes Scotty got a big hit then was busted off.Minutes later he was on again and was having a pretty good tussle. We called it for a ray.Anyhow whilst Scotty was playing with the ray,Phil hooked up and quickly we had two blokes having a tussle with a ray each.

Phil brought his boat side and it spanned probably about the width of the courier mail opened up. Scotty's was busted off a few seconds later. The tide began to run quite quickly about then.

Phil then caught the first fish which was a monster 8cm cattie and this guppie of a specimen was quickly returned to the water to potentially annoy others for years to come.

After another half hour or so we decided to head back into the mouth of the river and try to get a few whiting or flatties on the sand flats.

Anyhow drifting down one side of the river Scotty got a pretty good hit on his rod and after a short tussle managed to land a Blackall/Blubberlip fish.It certainly had us wondering what kind of fish it was. I thought it may have been a Sooty Grunter(I knowit didn't seem possible but looking at the fish ID chart,it looked most similar) at first glance but after posting pics,James W identified it for me.

We drifted all the way back down towards the ramp when Scotty got another hit this time getting a good sized bream.

Phil and I needed to get a move on as Scotty had bragging rights and would be sure to let us know about it.

We motored back to the mouth this time drifting the opposite side of the river when low and behold Scotty says he's on again.Shortly after he's pulling in a nice sized whiting and is stoked as he usually has minimal luck catching fish.

Next thing he says is he would like to make his morning and catch a flattie. One more drift then my line goes bang then i'm pulling in a nice flatty to round off a good fishing session. All in all we were only on the water for approximately 3.5 hours but for most part of the morning the conditions were really pleasant with only a brief period where the clouds allowed the sun to shine through heating things considerably.

There were plenty of nibbles from crabs doing the rounds in the river however most reports from locals have suggested they are mainly hollow.Interestingly too was the fact that apart from the flatty, all fish were caught using mono line.All fish then went on the bbq for a very nice refreshing lunch with the pick of the fish being the garlic and rosemary whiting cooked to perfection.

[tugger]

Mono does it again great report and the whiting sounded delicious