queensland Prawning Trip In Quampie - Report Added.

[Drop Bear]

I'm heading to Vic point on Wednesday with @tugger to have a bit of a stab at some prawns. Cant wait!

I am going to pull out the seats and any tackle boxes so it is all deck baby.

Plan is to try at the mouth of the Vic Point boat ramp and head to a few spots including saltworks. Very gentlemanly 9am start!

I will need to have a few extension ropes on the net as I think I only have a 10m on there now. 

Wish me luck. Yay

[Doyley]

Good luck @Drop Bear. Hope you get onto them.

clearing up space is a good idea. We pull everything out and sit on the esky while travelling. We also have a fish crate/bin each to put the net straight into after you pull it back onboard.  It catches the majority of the water still in the net and any prawns which fall out the bottom pockets so u aren’t chasing them around the boat.  Just empty the crate over the side when needed and prevents you from having to run muddy water constantly through your bilge pump. 

[ellicat]

Good luck !

[Old Scaley]

Looking forward to this report @Drop Bear.  This site just keeps my head spinning with local options. Too many things to do, so little time (not for much longer ).

[aussie123]

You should be launching at Weinam Creek, Redland Bay.

It's quicker to the Saltworks area and there was a lot of prawn around the creek entrance at the leads this week.

[Drop Bear]

1 hour ago, Doyley said:

Good luck @Drop Bear. Hope you get onto them.

clearing up space is a good idea. We pull everything out and sit on the esky while travelling. We also have a fish crate/bin each to put the net straight into after you pull it back onboard.  It catches the majority of the water still in the net and any prawns which fall out the bottom pockets so u aren’t chasing them around the boat.  Just empty the crate over the side when needed and prevents you from having to run muddy water constantly through your bilge pump. 

Pro tip! Thanks. 

[Drop Bear]

33 minutes ago, aussie123 said:

You should be launching at Weinam Creek, Redland Bay.

It's quicker to the Saltworks area and there was a lot of prawn around the creek entrance at the leads this week.

Yes we are. I have not been there before so probably typed the wrong one. Are you pumped for PNG?

[Drop Bear]

1 hour ago, Old Scaley said:

Looking forward to this report @Drop Bear.  This site just keeps my head spinning with local options. Too many things to do, so little time (not for much longer ).

woohoo! get amongst it mate!!!!

[Drop Bear]

1 hour ago, ellicat said:

Good luck !

TX

[aussie123]

2 minutes ago, Drop Bear said:

Yes we are. I have not been there before so probably typed the wrong one. Are you pumped for PNG?

Sure am Robbie.

We have 4 weeks to wait and time seems to be going very slow at the moment,lol

My new rod arrived today and I also went to the docs to get a malaria script and docs letter for my medications so I am now ready and good to go.

The boats have been arranged  and we have 1200 liters of fuel and a drum of 2 stroke oil patiently waiting for us.

[kmcrosby78]

Good luck fellas - hope you clean up! 

[Drop Bear]

2 hours ago, aussie123 said:

we have 1200 liters of fuel

That is crazy! amazing. BTW I am only pretty small and would fit in your suitcase... with a bit of a squeeze. 

[aussie123]

Just now, Drop Bear said:

That is crazy! amazing. BTW I am only pretty small and would fit in your suitcase... with a bit of a squeeze. 

Sorry mate, too many lures in there now 

[Drop Bear]

Just now, aussie123 said:

Sorry mate, too many lures in there now 

[tugger]

15 hours ago, Drop Bear said:

I'm heading to Vic point on Wednesday with @tugger to have a bit of a stab at some prawns. Cant wait!

I am going to pull out the seats and any tackle boxes so it is all deck baby.

Plan is to try at the mouth of the Vic Point boat ramp and head to a few spots including saltworks. Very gentlemanly 9am start!

I will need to have a few extension ropes on the net as I think I only have a 10m on there now. 

Wish me luck. Yay

Been practicing the casting hope i can catch more than just grass and leaves

[Drop Bear]

14 minutes ago, tugger said:

Been practicing the casting hope i can catch more than just grass and leaves

Well I am going with low expectations of bagging out. If we can all go home with a feed I will be thrilled. 

[rayke1938]

Think you would be better off going out from Nudgee they have been doing ok there. Be prepared for a visit from fisheries if you go there,

A lot of fresh is coming down the Logan which will put the prawns down all the gos says Nudgee with the prawns between Nudgee and River mouth. They are only medium size but everyone bagging out.

Cheers

Ray

[aussie123]

1 hour ago, rayke1938 said:

Think you would be better off going out from Nudgee they have been doing ok there. Be prepared for a visit from fisheries if you go there,

A lot of fresh is coming down the Logan which will put the prawns down all the gos says Nudgee with the prawns between Nudgee and River mouth. They are only medium size but everyone bagging out.

Cheers

Ray

Saltworks and Lamb has the best prawning at the moment Ray.

Once they lift, guys who can throw a net properly are getting half a bucket a throw 

The prawns have been up to 4m deep at Lamb this week.

[aussie123]

Quampie success   

[Drop Bear]

1 hour ago, aussie123 said:

Quampie success   

Sure was. I cant do the report until I have made dinner. apparently reports need food in them now haha Thanks for your help. I like that throw.

[Drop Bear]

@Tybo had taken me prawning during the blakersley's social last year so I had seen the Saltworks with him but sadly they weren't running that day not to mention that I couldn't throw a 12 foot net. Another time@Luvit came on the quampie up to Deep Water bend a few weeks back and we got a nice feed of prawns but I have been keen to do the southern bay and really get amongst them. @tugger rang me up and said he would show me the spots he knew so I was extremely excited and even more so when he said @aussie123 was coming along too. 

@Luvit and I got a few prawns up in the pine but I had heard that it was common to bag out. 10 liters of prawns! That is exciting and more than a prawn sandwich! 

I left home at the crack of noon... well it felt like that... 7am is a gentlemanly hour for sure.

Picked up @tugger and made our way to Weinam Creek boat ramp in Redland Bay.

It is a cracker of a ramp at high tide. Very sheltered with no current flow and has a large pontoon for picking people up. (with a strangely long ramp to get to it haha)

@aussie123 was already there so we launched quickly and tugger showed me the way to get to the grounds. Its a pretty quick trip and at high tide.

We had a bit of a southerly in the exposed waters but as we got in amongst the islands it glassed of and I could let Quampie go.  The prop is in trouble now. Way too many bumps on rocks and logs. I will have to replace it but as Aussie said it will make a great spare. The engine seemed to over rev a little flat out and it didn't jump onto the plane as it used to. 

So as we approached the Saltworks I was surprised to see not one boat there. We sounded around a bit and Aussie felt jealouse of the guy at the the southern island cooking up bacon and eggs. Note to self - cook up bacon and eggs next time.

(subnote. I have to get on a plane soon so will have to keep this short. sorry for the typos)

We saw the mosh pit further up and joined in the fun. 4 or 5 prawns per cast was great.

Similar to what I had done before but prawn sandwiches were assured. Aussie had a GPS mark where his mates had caught a stack of prawns the day before so we sounded around for a while with not much luck. Back towards the mosh pit and we saw some good shows on the sounder. This was better. All of us catching a good size top pocket.

The buckets were filling up ok.

Then the switch flipped and they were gone. We sounded around some more and found a great show. On again. Somehow I got a photo of @aussie123 smiling. I told you I was a great photographer!!! This guy has caught 500kg of prawns in one night back in his pro days so I have to say its pretty hard to get him to smile in a photo  Thanks mate. 

@tugger was smashing them with his custom net big time now with plenty of prawns per cast. It is funny. Some of my worst casts got most of the prawns and some of my best casts, with the sounder chockers with prawns, got a donut. 

The photos above were not the best we did but when they were really think I didn't get any photos.

This repeated for about an hour and we check the buckets and had 2 x 10lrts full of prawns.

Back into it and soon filled half of a third bucket then... like a switch going off... the sounder went blank... they had gone. 

We had a sound around at the salt works but there was again nothing there. The little creek mouth to the west held a few very small prawns that aussie grabbed but because they were small and few we headed back to the ramp. 

So thanks so much for organising this trip and showing me around @tugger and it was great to catch up @aussie123 and hear about your PNG trip.

Again I have benefited so much from the generous people on AFO and so has my family and my stomach

I boiled some for lunch and they were sweet and tasty. They are so much better than the ones at the shop. 

We had Japanese prawn salad with mango, fresh ginger mayo and miso dressing for dinner.

I will try and write the recipe down next week. it is a good one. 

The boys are heading off shore today so I hope they bag out on some serious Spanish.

Thanks

Drop Bear

20180228_094152.mp4

 

 

[Old Scaley]

Worth the wait for that report @Drop Bear. Thanks.

[Luvit]

Great report again Robbie and that would have been a one happy boat full of fisho’s. 

The prawns in the bay seem to better size than the river.

Have caught them off saltworks to just over 8” long. 

 

[The Mad Hughesy]

I really should be out there collecting for bait for the upcoming snapper season. thanks for the report!

[Drop Bear]

4 hours ago, Luvit said:

Great report again Robbie and that would have been a one happy boat full of fisho’s. 

The prawns in the bay seem to better size than the river.

Have caught them off saltworks to just over 8” long. 

 

Wow wee! They were nothing like that. 

[kmcrosby78]

Great work three amigos - going to have to go do that sometime (again, and again, and again ......). Some nice feeds coming up!!!

[rayke1938]

Shows what a little local knowledge will do.Neighbour went on Monday and used tank of fuel for 2 litres of prawns,

Cheers

Ray

[Angus]

Nice! Very very very nice!

[tugger]

Thanks for taking us out Robbie we did well for our 1st prawning together next time we should drop some crab pots in before we chase the prawns mmmmmm mudcrab 

[Drop Bear]

7 hours ago, rayke1938 said:

Shows what a little local knowledge will do.Neighbour went on Monday and used tank of fuel for 2 litres of prawns,

Cheers

Ray

First of the run out

[Tybo]

Great to see you went back Robbie and got onto them. In years to come you'll be getting your bucket in three casts there.

This rain should really flush the prawns out now, and the size should improve immensely. I haven't been out yet, but am planning to go down off Nudgee, they should be down there at the end of this rain right up until after Easter. The trawlers are working in close between Scarborough and the Brisbane rive, so I'm guessing they're chasing the bananas that are already out there.

[Tybo]

On 3/1/2018 at 6:37 AM, Luvit said:

Great report again Robbie and that would have been a one happy boat full of fisho’s. 

The prawns in the bay seem to better size than the river.

Have caught them off saltworks to just over 8” long. 

 

Now they're the bananas you want to get. Dad got one out the front of Shorncliffe back in the mid-90s, 200g+ it went on the scales at home. I wish we would've got a picture of it, but we didn't have any film in the camera( remember those days) at the time.

[Drop Bear]

20 hours ago, Tybo said:

Great to see you went back Robbie and got onto them. In years to come you'll be getting your bucket in three casts there.

This rain should really flush the prawns out now, and the size should improve immensely. I haven't been out yet, but am planning to go down off Nudgee, they should be down there at the end of this rain right up until after Easter. The trawlers are working in close between Scarborough and the Brisbane rive, so I'm guessing they're chasing the bananas that are already out there.

So is that a high tide thing?

Is it left as you leave the river?

[Tybo]

3 hours ago, Drop Bear said:

So is that a high tide thing?

Is it left as you leave the river?

Nah, I don't think so. It will just be every morning, on dawn, until they're gone.

Basically, but a bit further around. It is anywhere in between Cabbage Tree Creek and the mouth of the Brisbane river, that doesn't fall into the green zones. The prawns apparently come to the surface and 'boil' just on dawn. Everyone hopes to find this, but after 40 boats have hit the school it disperses, and then you just play the chasing game, hoping to get the prawns that have gotten away. Most of the time, 2/3s of the boats are done by 8am, but there's always boats there till after lunch.