queensland Bay Snapper

[Another Wazza]

A few weeks back now, myself and a mate headed out into the bay in search of some Snapper, it was an early start that Monday morning and we were armed to the teeth with quality fillets of mullet, fresh squid, and fresh green king prawns that were probably too good to use for bait.

We fished the sunrise and weren’t doing too bad really, we managed a few undersized squire, and a couple of grassy’s, then my mate got a squire that went 37cm, so he was pretty happy. I decided to change tactics and rigged up a curl tail, second flick in, upon retrieval, got hit by a little school mackerel, nice, the little guy only went 45cm, he was quickly sent packing, the 3rd flick in, as I was hopping the plastic back to the boat, it got inhaled!, my mate knew straight away it was a quality fish, and quickly got his line in and assumed net duty, It fought quite hard and had a couple of good runs, but eventually surfaced and was guided toward the net, we were stoked!, a quality bay Snapper 

I snapped the pic with my trademark foot in the photo, and he was quickly dispatched, and put in the esky, alongside his smaller mate, he ended up weighing in at 6.1kg. What a morning!, I managed another hookup on an equally sizeable fish, but somehow dropped him during the fight, I’m still not sure what happened there, I didn’t have the drag locked up, so ruled out pulling it, I think he must have only just been hooked, and during his signiture head shakes managed to get free, oh well, you do get that, it was still a great day.

A week after that trip, the weather was good so decided on a little early morning solo run, I pulled up to a spot and rigged a floating pilly to send out the back, then began working the plastics, it wasn’t too long before I snared this little garbage truck who managed to find his way into my esky.

He measured 55cm, and unfortunately for him, I do enjoy their taste.

The action died down, and the bumps all but stopped, I reeled in the floater that had been out the back for a couple of hours to assess its condition, and it was unmarked, at that stage I decided to start a drift and sent the pilly back out, I continued working the plastic for quite sometime before I heard the floater screaming off at a rate of knots!, wooo hooo! mackerel time!, that’s what I thought at the start, but soon began second guessing my call whilst fighting this fish, you can only imagine my surprise when a very respectable Snapper came up alongside the boat.

He was around 82cm, I didn’t realise it at the time, but the arm of my sunglasses was in the pic, I do apologise for that, so after the pic I returned him to the water, swam him a bit, and he was back on his way. I ended up doing 1 more unproductive drift and then decided to make my way home, that Snapper turned a good trip into a great trip!

 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi Another Wazza

You clearly have a knack for catching fish in the bay, snapper, jew, and cod! Nice job. I hope I will eventually be able to catch fish like this LOL. I like cod too, they are one of my favourite eating fish. I wish I could keep them from the Brisbane River, the water is a bit dirty for me there.

Cheers Hamish  

[ellicat]

A couple of nice trips. It only takes 1 good fish to make it memorable.

My largest Bay cod was 53cm. They are a good eating size fish.

How was the boat traffic on those days ?

[Another Wazza]

Hi ellicat, to my surprise there were a few boats out and about on both days, I rarely get to fish the bay during the week, but have been able to capitalise on this lately, It’ll be a different story once work kicks off again

[ellicat]

Yes, I guess the current restrictions would see a few extras during the week.

I haven't fished the Bay proper for quite awhile. You're inspiring me to get back out there.

[kmcrosby78]

Couple of great snapper and a nice chunky cod there @Another Wazza - killing it  

[Allthegear]

very nice red's, congrats