queensland Week On Moreton 20.10.18 - 27.10.18

[benno573]

Hi all,

 

It had been far too long since I had a serious chill out holiday so I loaded up the truck and the Mrs and I headed over to Moreton.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and made it to North Point campground without incident, set up the camp with just enough time left for a quick dip on sunset before a sneaky bourbon and an early night.

 

After a leisurely start the next morning, we headed up North Point beach towards Tailor Bight to check on the beach conditions and check out the gutters.  I had a bit of a flick with some soft plastics in a couple of the gutters but only found a couple of small flathead and the ever persistent long toms.  We then headed down the eastern beach to see if we could find some pippies, it took a bit of work but we ended up with about 40 or so.  The sky was looking a little threatening and after a quick check of the radar we high-tailed it back to camp to prepare for the onslaught.

Thankfully all the extra ropes and tarps hastily put in place meant the camp stayed in tact and mostly dry and the lumps in the rain weren't big enough to bother the car.  Bullet dodged.  So after a hot chocolate to warm up we went for a walk down the beach to be greeted by

 

Next morning was another leisurely start involving far too much bacon.  The weather looked mint so I rigged up, grabbed the pippies from yesterday and headed over to my favourite rock fishing spot.  First cast I was on and the fish kept coming.  Highlight for the day was a 41cm tarwhine and a heap of XOS dart that are always great fun on the light-ish gear.  I had a request for a couple of meals of fish for the week so the tarwhine and a couple of big dart made it into the bag.

With dinner sorted, we headed back to camp for lunch.  After a feed and a cider, we decided to take happy hour to the beach so headed up to a nice gutter system I had identified the day before.  The Mrs had a swim, I had a fish and managed to hook and land 2 decent tailor on my light plastics set up which was great fun.  A 40cm and 45cm model were destined for a bath in some red curry paste and coconut milk, man that tasted good!

 

Next morning I was a little more motivated and got up early and went for an explore of some areas I though may hold some decent flathead.  I landed 6 flatties, 3 were legal but only 1 was really worth keeping, a nice 51cm model.

All fell victim to Z-man 3.5" paddle tails in a variety of colours.  I also landed the obligatory long toms and a decent bream that were all released.

The Mrs was keen for some snorkelling so we headed down to Tangalooma for a look-see around the wrecks.  Other than me deciding to headbutt a bit of steel covered in oysters, splitting my head a bit and creating a decent shark burley trail, it was an awesome swim.  Other than the usual suspects of big bream, parrot, damsel fish, wrasse etc, I saw a juvenile coral trout, a huge mangrove jack and a big flathead that would have been pushing 1m long, as well as a massive school of big eye trevally.  After stopping my head bleeding, we got back in the car and headed up the western beach around combyoro point to check out the gutters at that end of tailor bight.  Nothing that great was found so we headed back to camp, stopping in the champagne pools to get showered by some waves.  We again took happy hour down the beach, I had a bit of a half-hearted flick around and managed to land a decent bream and a small stargazer, both of which were released.

The next morning I was up early and off down the beach again, hoping for a bit more success than yesterday.  It started very slowly with only a couple of very small flathead landed.  Once the tide turned and stared to run out, it was like someone flicked a switch and the fish came out to play.  I landed a 48cm model which went into the bag, a 41cm model which was hooked up around the gills and unlikely to survive and then hooked something a lot bigger that took me for a merry dance.  After a few tense moments in the shore break I had the fish I had been chasing, a lovely 64cm flathead.  Again the 3.5" paddle tails did the damage with opening night the winner as far as colour goes.  Stoked with my morning, I headed back to camp.

After releasing the flathead fillets into the freezer, I suggested we go to the pub for lunch so after a quick dip in Blue Lagoon we made our way to the Gutter Bar at Kooringal.  I decided to heap up the western beach to go back to camp, haven't driven that section for some time and probably won't bother again, very soft and not really that much to look at.  The Tangers bypass track was chopped up and soft as so I was pretty happy to get to the end of that and back onto the eastern beach via middle road.  The Mrs wanted to go for a swim so we headed up north point beach to a nice little gutter where on my first cast with a soft plastic I watched a decent tailor snip the plastic clean off.  I re-rigged with a halco 20g twistie and the first three casts resulted in 3 tailor, all about the 40cm mark.  I rigged another rod for the mrs and she managed to land her first ever fish on a lure before the school moved on.  I persisted moving up and down the beach and eventually landed 12 tailor for the afternoon before the sun disappeared and we had to head back.  Epic little session, given we still had fish in the fridge and freezer, all tailor were released.

 

Thursday morning I went for another flathead mission despite the NNW, only managed the one decent sized fish, a bar tail at 52cm.  The day was a little cooler and overcast with some light rain showers so I gave in to the mrs request to hike the Rous battery track.  Unfortunately, as we got there, the skies cleared, the sun came out and the temperature rose about 6 degrees.  We didn't quite make the full 10km one way before turning around, we got to 7km along and my dodgy knee decided that was enough and we turned around.  It was a really nice walk, ours were the only footprints on the track.  Unfortunately there was a lot of signs of damage from pigs, there were a few traps set and signs about 1080 around so hopefully they manage to cull the numbers soon.  We headed back to camp, I really enjoyed the A/C on the way back along the beach.  We stopped to try and get some pippies, I only managed to find 5, with a trip back to the rocks planned for the next day this was potentially going to be a very short fishing session.  We took happy hour up the the lighthouse to watch the sunset and full moon rise. We caught the edge of a storm just after dark, spectacular lightning, thankfully not a lot of wind and rain.

 

I awoke early the next morning to a 20kn NNWer in the wake of the storms so I promptly rolled over and went back to sleep.  I made the call to head back over to the rocks, hoping there was enough W in the wind to afford us some shelter, thankfully there was and our little corner was breezy enough to be cool but not that windy that it was painful.  I managed to turn 5 pippies into 6 fish, I kept a dart and filleted it up for bait to keep on fishing.  After a couple of decent bream and tarwhine were caught and released, I decided to throw on a 40g slug just to see if there was a trevally or similar in the whitewash around some rocks.  Third cast I hooked something solid but pulled the hooks shortly after.  A few more casts and I saw a big flash of silver behind my lure, hooked up and the reel started singing away.  I was only on 10lb line with a 15lb leader so I tried to play this one as much as possible away from the rocks.  After about 10min of back and forth, the fish was tiring and I went for it, managing to land a very nice 55cm fat tailor.  Given we were heading home the next day, I decided this guy could come back to the mainland so bled it out and went and buried it in some cool sand. 

I fished for a little while longer and ended up hooking a little whaler for a short period of time before the tide dropped far enough for me to get onto my favourite rock for a bit of a snack.

 

We headed back to camp after this for some lunch, then went up to champagne pools with a few drinks to wallow in the cool water for the afternoon.  

 

The next morning we packed up early-ish, got away by 11:30 and headed to Tangalooma for another snorkel before getting on the 3:30pm Micat for the trip home.

 

All in all an awesome trip, a much needed unwind and a few bonus very nice fish along the way.

 

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

 

Cheers

Benno <'><

[Luvit]

Awesome write up Benno.

You must be totally chilled after that trip.

[benno573]

33 minutes ago, Luvit said:

Awesome write up Benno.

You must be totally chilled after that trip.

sure was, it was just what I needed mate. 

[ellicat]

Good to hear of such a good trip. I was short of breath just reading that. I'll have to learn to read not aloud.

Some quality fish for the week. Lucky stargazer - it must have been a small one. Long toms make for a nice oily bait.

Wayne should've rung you to go policing down the beach Saturday night.

Were Candice and co there ?

[benno573]

39 minutes ago, ellicat said:

Were Candice and co there ?

Candice the cross dressing curlew made an appearance every night

Jeff the Bandicoot was happy to clean up any scraps

And Pete the Python only made one appearance.  Big fella though, about 3m long.

So yes, the whole family was there. 

[jon]

Epic trip mate, with great eating fresh seafood as well, dosn’ t get much better than that. Well done

[Guest]

Top read Benno

Thanks

MSB

[kmcrosby78]

Aaaaannnnnnnndddddd ........ he's back!!!!  Awesome read @benno573, thanks for that. I filled more chilled out now than I did 10 minutes ago after a hectic first two days of the working week. Sounds like you might have a keeper on your books too ...... wahoooo!!!!!!  We won't ask what happened after those oysters were devoured ........  

[Angus]

Man those oysters look a bit awesome!

Great report!

Angus

[Poddymullet]

@benno573 awesome read...got to my s#$t sorted and do some camping over there...so close and yet. What a happy time spent together ... love how you get to fish and also bring the M along and both enjoy the awesome paradise we have on our doorstep

[lurez]

awesome mate

[natang]

Great read thanks for the report! 

[wesfish]

Bloody awesome report, really enjoyed the read and pics!

[Drop Bear]

Great report mate. Thanks for the read. Those oysters look top notch. Full as a goog. I love them off the rocks like that. 

Such great fishing. mixed bags are awesome and thanks for all the photos. I love that part of the world and I'm glad that not that many people go there.