queensland Fishing off North Stradbroke/Boat Rock area, Report

[Bagless]

Finally after almost a year of being stranded on land I'm hoping to head offshore this Sunday. Planning to explore the area out from South passage, Boat Rock and such. I've read many good reports about this area over the years (mostly from tugger ), subsequently I'm very excited about finally giving it a go. That being said it's painfully obvious to me that it's not going to be a case of rolling up and bagging out in an hour or five . Much more likely to come home empty handed I would think.

With that in mind I was hoping some of the skilled regulars might be able to give me some pointers that will improve my chances of catching 'something' preferably edible, but at the very least to put a decent bend in the rod. Perhaps the odd unstoppable to keep things interesting . I have most of the required gear to cope with big snapper, cobia, wahoo and alike. Along with a good mix of terminal tackle. I also have a rough idea what to do with it but any additional guidance would be appreciated.

The techniques I'm considering are;

-Floating pilchards and other dead baits in the current.

-Soft plastics

-Live baits

Think that covers most of the usual options .

For each technique I have a few questions.

With drifting dead baits, if I was targeting Boat Rock for instance, would the objective be to find out the direction of the current and anchor up say 100m away then drift baits back towards the rock? Also would burly be any help?

With lures is the best bet to find some deep structure and send plastics to the bottom, give them a bit of a jig?

With live baits first question would have to be where are good marks to jig up some slimies and yakkas? Appreciate this might be guarded info but any help would be greatly appreciated (Pm if you like).

The next question is what to do with the livies, I have a couple of ideas on rigs, one to use a float and drift the live bait a couple of meters below the surface, the other rig is to get a pretty heavy weight with a 1m+ leader and send the bait down to the depths. Again this is all well and good but knowing where approximately to drop and drift these baits would be helpful .

I'm not really targeting any specific species. So whatever you think is the best technique to keep things interesting will be the go. If any advice given pays off I'll be sure to write up a report and share the results. In fact if anything noteworthy is caught I'll share it on here.

Cheers Bagless

[tugger]

I like the eastern side of the rock and drift pilchards with small ball sinkers from no3 to no6 size running straight onto the hook and rig the pilchard with the hook coming out near the head and put a half hitch around the tail to keep the bait straight. Livies you can do the same rig with the hook just through the top jaw and i also like to float another one out the back under a balloon.

I use 30lb mono enough on most of the reefies there but there will always be the unstopables that come along and dust you up. Anchoring or drifting works there is no right or wrong way sound around you will find good structure all around there.

good luck

[Bagless]

Had a pretty eventful if not particularly fruitful trip out yesterday. We tried for Live baits just to the North of the South Passage Bar and managed a solitary yakka and a small bonito along with lots of grinners and small flatties. Headed South East towards flat rock, tried a couple of spots on the way, nothing biting (don't worry didn't fish any protected areas ). Headed to boat rock and saw tugger anchored up with a balloon off the back, have to say given this was my first visit to the area I have no idea if these were normal conditions, but for want of a better description it was like a washing machine. Think tugger had about the best spot that was sort of in the lee of boat rock, everywhere else was on spin cycle. Guessing there must be some convergence of currents here? It was at this point my skipper needed to let his breakfast loose :sick: and we decided it wasn’t worth hanging around. Since we had to keep moving to prevent further sickness the call was made to try trolling down the eastern side of Stradbroke. Looking through my lures (and having never seriously trolled in my life) I figured my best option was an Abu Garcia toby spoon, something I’d brought over from my pike fishing days in the UK.

We began trolling at around 8 kmph and to be completely honest I thought we had next to no chance of raising a strike, particularly given my lure wasn’t really intended for this purpose. In order to reduce the time my lure was on the surface I was holding the rod and keeping the tip low, this kept the lure about a foot underwater with the occasional flick up to the surface. After about half an hour of trolling (and to my utter and complete surprise) my rod was suddenly yanked around and line began rapidly stripping off my loosened spool . There were a few seconds where I couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening before I eventually tightened the drag and looked back to see what I had snagged, because there was no way it could possibly be a fish :S . With my skipper throttling down we both looked back in disbelief as a black marlin around the 4 -5ft mark(including bill) leapt skywards :woohoo: . This was a hugely surreal experience. And sadly I didn’t get much time to enjoy the fight as after bringing the initial run under control a second run commenced and we parted ways . On inspecting my hook the trebles had been bent. This was clearly a good and a bad lure for inadvertent Marlin fishing. With our spirits raised we continued trolling (I swapped the trebles to a solitary gamakatsu 6/0 octopus), after an hour ,and again to my surprise, I got another strike, this time I was a little more prepared as a dolphin fish cleared the water (I initially thought it was another Marlin). Managed to play this one to within 15m of the boat where I could see it was a decent fish around the metre mark. It took one look at the boat and went for another run where sadly and frustratingly we also parted company :pinch: , again the hook came free. After that we carried on trolling for another 1 or 2hrs for no luck and called it quits.

All in all a pretty good session, not sure if I did anything wrong with the hook choice but I think I’m going to invest in some more Marlin specific trolling lures .

[aussie123]

A Marlin on a Toby spoon,that takes the cake,lol

Well done on the hookup and bad luck on losing both fish.

Grab yourself some proper lures and tow them at 7-8 knots and you will be all set to try again.

Where you seen us yesterday in Marks boat is our normal area for anchoring.

It is always turbulent there as like you said,the currents push down and hit Boat Rock which create a lot of pressure waves in that area.

Unfortunately it is something you just have to put up with there.

[tugger]

Yes it is a place for the people with strong stomachs nice one on hooking a blackie

[fishingnut]

About a K south it was flat as a tac and almost zero swell with plents of bait schools

[Bagless]

Yeah that was the strangest thing, once you headed South along the East edge of North Stadbroke it was smooth as, yet anywhere near boat rock it was a wave machine. Even the run from boat rock to the passage was pretty choppy in comparison.

[Shane69]

Nice work on the marlin. We tried for 3 hours couldnt get a hit.

Boat rock was a washing machine yesterday. Its good when its like that. The fishing is insane.

Once you learn how to fish it you wouldnt go many other spots.

What boat were you in. I was there drifing around in a black 465 centerconsole.

We did okay in the end. Got few nice fish in box.

Shane

Few fish for offstraddie on weekend.

My mate literally cleaned up on saturday and sunday. We did okay Sunday but had too much unstoppables. Need bigger gear lol

[Bagless]

Wow, you're mate really did clean up. Can't believe all that was caught over the weekend.

Would love to learn how to fish Boat Rock, although not sure how long I could last the spin cycle :dry: . Can see why it attracts a lot of fish though.

We were in a pretty distinctive boat, don't know the precise details or manufacturer as it's not mine, but it's a centre console tinnie over 6m, it's slightly unusual in that it's quite shallow relative to it's length and the console is set near the back, rides well over the chop though.

The Marlin I hooked was in fairly close, only around 2 - 2.5km from shore. As fishing nut mentioned lots of bait around, although strangely didn't see any bust ups.

This was the lure that almost did the damage,

It's only 18g and plain silver on the opposite side. Must admit swam very well for trolling and looked very much like a bait fish in the sunlight.

[Greenmachine]

Bad luck with loosing a couple of great fish but atleast you got some good action