queensland Magic Day On The Bay

[benno573]

Hi all,

 

the forecast for for Saturday was just too good to ignore. Add to that it is May - the best month (in my experience) to fish the bay.  Add to that it was just after a full moon. Add to that the change in ‘rona rules and I decided it was time to get the old band back together so @Old Scaley and I hit the water.

 

we managed to beat the worst of the rush at manly boat ramp and headed for some of my old spots around mud. Conditions on the trip over were tough...

we arrived at the spot and threw some placcies around for a while. Steve promptly went into negatives with a grinner, I got two undersized snapper and then a small school mackerel. Steve hooked onto something more substantial and despite my initial call of green sea toad I soon slid the net under a lovely cod at 49cm. Happy Steve.

it was getting later in the day so we put the plastics away and deployed some baits. A steady stream of undersized snapper and grassys came over the side before my half of a bony bream bait got smashed. A good fight ensued on the lighter gear and a 47cm snapper was boated. Happy Benno.

word must have gotten out because more and more boats kept appearing near us and the bite shut down. After landing the second “it’s time to move” fish (trumpeter) I made the call to head to an area I found ages ago that is quite a way from the island and usually attracts very few boats. Without a mark in the GPS and the change in markers around Mud in the last few years messing with my old reference points I closed my eyes and pointed and said I think it is about there and with more ar$e than class hit it pretty much bang on.

 

it was close to slack water and the bite was slow at first. As the tide picked up the bite also came on. 2 x tuskfish, a tarwhine, a random butterfly bream and even an unlucky school mackerel found their way into the esky. Awesome little sesh, plenty of undersized of the right species, a few bust offs, bite offs and near misses. And.... no other boat within about 250m of us which on a day like Saturday is unheard of. GPS mark promptly added to new unit in Steve’s boat. We made the call to head in just as the NE sea breeze was starting to come on so couldn’t have timed it better if we tried. Ramp wasn’t too bad but I think if we’d arrived back an hour later it would have been a very different story!

 

heres a photo of the catch (less the cod and less some unwanted bits) 

 

 

dragon getting his share - mackerel tail entree

 

and just one more conditions shot because it was so horrible...

 

thanks heaps to @Old Scaley for the day out, was an absolute corker and hope to do it again as soon as home life allows such things. Hope the cod went down as well as the tuskfish last night. Mackerel Thai red curry tonight - can’t wait!

cheers for reading

benno <‘><

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi benno573

Looks like an absolute cracker of a session you had there, much better than mine today (where the only surprise was a bream on 80lb LOL). 

Did you catch bait on the water, buy it, or already have it in your freezer from a previous trip? 

Those fish look very tasty. 

Cheers Hamish  

[Old Scaley]

It was a great day on the Bay. Plenty of action to keep us motivated and a healthy esky for a busy day. @AUS-BNE-FISHO, we had a mix of plastics and quality bait (prawns, mullet, squid, pilchards from Mr Bait) and some leftover cast net scrap that @benno573 had lying around. Had the cod last night and it was delicious as usual.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hiya Old Scaley

Alright, sounds like you had plenty to try and to catch with. 

I find cod delicious too, I prefer them to bream and whiting (my two favourite fish are really fresh small GT's and cod). 

Cheers Hamish  

[ellicat]

Good to see you got yourselves a feed. Steve is the cod king.

Always a nice day on the Bay, weather permitting.

[kmcrosby78]

Good session there fellas and yep, conditions were terrible .......  I don't think I've every seen/heard of a butterfly bream before @benno573 - just looked them up but couldn't find too much info, have you caught many before, are they a regulated species, any idea how big they get and what do they taste like (lots of questions there, sorry ..... ).

Took my dad and boys out on Saturday but only managed a few legal bream (only kept 3, others were too borderline) and lots of smaller stuff. Interestingly no grassies for us this time. Launched around 9:30am eventually after first trying the north Manly Harbour ramp before going to the south one, which was about as full (and yes, more cars parked in boat trailer parks, grrrrr!!!!!!) so I ended up parking in a garden bag, which I'm nervous about doing in case I cop a fine. Coming back in revealed about 30 boats milling around waiting to get out of there, but luckily everyone was playing by the rules and getting their boats on the trailer quickly so could have been worse.

[Hweebe]

I headed out to mud from manly on Saturday after a detour from rous to try and get onto some whiting. After Nothing but grinners and baby grasslip we legged it to mud around 9am to try our luck. We were using squid, fishing 8-12m but got mostly small pickers. 3 tuskfish, 1 legal and 2 let go just under. Back at the ramp around 2pm where it was busy but not a long wait. Any tips on avoiding the pickers at mud?

[Dinodadog]

Gee the lawn looks neglected in that pic with the dog

[benno573]

3 hours ago, Dinodadog said:

Gee the lawn looks neglected in that pic with the dog

Had a bad case of the lawn grubs mate. Wasn’t game to spray them with the dog around either.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

7 hours ago, Hweebe said:

 Any tips on avoiding the pickers at mud?

Hey Hweebe

Sorry, I'm no expert but in general some ways could be - 

Use lures - They'll last longer and can be eaten by pickers and larger fish

Live Bait - In my experience, I've only ever had larger fish on larger live baits

Big Baits - Maybe use some bigger/different baits. 

Hope that helped, 

Cheers Hamish  

[Hweebe]

1 hour ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Live Bait - In my experience, I've only ever had larger fish on larger live baits

Would love to use live baits but still new to fishing moreton bay, any bait grounds from Manly to mud?

If i get on to some small winteries I know this is gun live bait. But would be good to find herring or yakkas. Outside of the beacons, I'm not sure where i can sabiki herring or yakkas for livies.

Anyone tried grinners either live or as cut bait?

[benno573]

2 hours ago, Hweebe said:

Would love to use live baits but still new to fishing moreton bay, any bait grounds from Manly to mud?

If i get on to some small winteries I know this is gun live bait. But would be good to find herring or yakkas. Outside of the beacons, I'm not sure where i can sabiki herring or yakkas for livies.

Anyone tried grinners either live or as cut bait?

Hey mate,

as far as avoiding the pickers - there’s no set answer. Live baits help but not everything out there will eat a live bait, and same with lures. Plastics generally are most successful first up in the morning or at dusk - during the day I tend to be a bait fisho around Mud.  I tend to move about until you find an area with decent structure in deeper (6m+) water and try a few different baits. Small snapper are inevitable but if you are also getting grassys or tuskies you aren’t in the wrong area and persistence will generally pay off. Try floating baits just off the bottom or using bigger baits to deter pickers - whole dead herring, small-medium mullet or chunks of gar all work pretty well and are generally avoided by pickers. Just remember a big chunk of a bait like squid or mullet can still be picked to bits. Octopus is another good option as most fish have a hard time picking it off. 

grinners aren’t much chop as cut bait, they are good shark bait and crab bait though. 

Also - If you start catching trumpeter - move. They school up and will destroy any and all baits that get near the bottom. They aren’t much good as a live or cut bait either. 

 

Another option would be to put up a “going fishing” notice and see if someone who knows the area you plan to fish is available to come along and show you a few bits n pieces.

[Hweebe]

Thanks for tips Benno573

Have only used placcies land based for flathead and have tended to go straight to bait at mud . Makes sense now that you say not much success with the plastics during the day there.

Will have to try floating baits just off the bottom. I’m guessing u are only very lightly weighted if any weight?

I’ll have to go the old adage big bait big fish  seems to be the theme.

I’m forum hopping at the moment, trying to work out which one is most active to invest some time and meet some people out on the water in Moreton bay. Will post “going fishing” next time.

Havent ventured beyond tangalooma but would love to tag along to the cape on a good day. Lots of getting used to fishing from a boat with the misso as deckie (or I should say captain)

I’m on many fb fishing groups but the convo just has not real depth like your post just now.

 

 

 

[benno573]

9 hours ago, Hweebe said:

I’m on many fb fishing groups but the convo just has not real depth like your post just now.

No worries at all mate, happy to help out where possible. I found a lot of other groups/forums were all about a “look what I caught” peacocking session, but while the traffic on AFO may not be as high as others you’ll generally get a reasonable response to a reasonable question (like if you just ask for gps marks or something you are unlikely to get a reasonable response).

i’ve been on this forum for about 12-13 years now and have met some top blokes through here who I catch up with regularly, not always for fishing purposes either - bbqs, camping trips etc. I have also unfortunately met @ellicat who makes me carry all his gear when we go rock fishing which is far from helpful.

I used to have a 5.3m boat and spent a lot of time trying to crack fishing in the bay and the areas just out from the cape. Welcome to get in touch if you’d like an additional deckie one day, happy to show you some spots/techniques that I found worked for me.

[ellicat]

50 minutes ago, benno573 said:

I have also unfortunately met @ellicat who makes me carry all his gear when we go rock fishing which is far from helpful.

You told me you wanted the workout. lol

10 hours ago, Hweebe said:

I’m forum hopping at the moment, trying to work out which one is most active to invest some time and meet some people out on the water in Moreton bay.

Not sure if AFO is the busiest forum since Facebook emerged, but I feel it is one of the friendliest sites around. Like most things, you get more out of it the more you put in. Also, AFO is slowly getting busier as people realise what you have regarding getting better responses and having a conversation.

 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

10 minutes ago, ellicat said:

You told me you wanted the workout. lol

Not sure if AFO is the busiest forum since Facebook emerged, but I feel it is one of the friendliest sites around. Like most things, you get more out of it the more you put in. Also, AFO is slowly getting busier as people realise what you have regarding getting better responses and having a conversation.

 

Hey ellicat

Yes, I very much agree with you. While it isn't as busy as it was (I'm just assuming because back in 2008 there seemed to be a lot of people on here, that's judging from some older threads) it is still a good, helpful forum. I remember back to when I made my first post I had some great help straight away ( I was asking about eel spots for bullies LOL). It is good for the site that we can all contribute too, and help others out on. 

Cheers Hamish  

[benno573]

On 10/05/2020 at 8:58 PM, kmcrosby78 said:

Good session there fellas and yep, conditions were terrible .......  I don't think I've every seen/heard of a butterfly bream before @benno573 - just looked them up but couldn't find too much info, have you caught many before, are they a regulated species, any idea how big they get and what do they taste like (lots of questions there, sorry ..... ).

Butterfly bream

 

Not regulated. This one was about 32cm so about max size for them. Nice little fillet.

i can attest to them making great bait on the reefs but this will be the first one I’ve bothered to eat and it’s purely off mr grants comments above. Will report back shortly on taste.

[benno573]

Well worth the effort. Beautiful flavored white and flaky. Side by side with snapper certainly wasn’t any lesser quality.

[jon]

Good catch especially on a day like Saturday. I heard endless stories of donuts or near donuts due to the crowds apparently it was crazy at all ramps

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hey benno573

Thanks for the great tip, if I ever catch one I'll know it can come home for a dinner!  

Also, is that a Grant's Guide book? I always hear everyone talking about how good they are to ID fish and I might look into getting one. 

Cheers Hamish  

[benno573]

14 minutes ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Hey benno573

Thanks for the great tip, if I ever catch one I'll know it can come home for a dinner!  

Also, is that a Grant's Guide book? I always hear everyone talking about how good they are to ID fish and I might look into getting one. 

Cheers Hamish  

You should. A very worthy investment and not going to be available for much longer. Shame it’s nearly a year until your birthday!

[benno573]

17 minutes ago, jon said:

Good catch especially on a day like Saturday. I heard endless stories of donuts or near donuts due to the crowds apparently it was crazy at all ramps

Thanks mate. Did you get out on the weekend??

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

59 minutes ago, benno573 said:

You should. A very worthy investment and not going to be available for much longer. Shame it’s nearly a year until your birthday!

Hoi benno573

OK, thanks for the tips. Yes, it is a bit of a shame, 363 days and counting! LOL. Hopefully I can pull some money together and find a second hand one in good nick.  

Cheers Hamish 

[Hweebe]

2 hours ago, jon said:

Good catch especially on a day like Saturday. I heard endless stories of donuts or near donuts due to the crowds apparently it was crazy at all ramps

Can confirm that was the case at manly. Trailers parked on garden beds, kerbs and side streets when I headed back around 1pm. Heard it was mayhem around 2pm at the ramp.

[Hweebe]

1 hour ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Hoi benno573

OK, thanks for the tips. Yes, it is a bit of a shame, 363 days and counting! LOL. Hopefully I can pull some money together and find a second hand one in good nick.  

Cheers Hamish 

They are available as an Ebook as well on Apple, google or kindle. 

[jon]

9 hours ago, benno573 said:

Thanks mate. Did you get out on the weekend??

Nah had to work the whole weekend unfortunately. plan on doing a few sessions late next week weather pending

[GregOug]

17 hours ago, benno573 said:

You should. A very worthy investment and not going to be available for much longer. Shame it’s nearly a year until your birthday!

Yeah. I’ve had one for many years. Although not the sort of book you take out ion the boat with you. Weighs a Tonne!

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

8 minutes ago, GregOug said:

Yeah. I’ve had one for many years. Although not the sort of book you take out ion the boat with you. Weighs a Tonne!

Hi GregOug

Alright, thanks for the advice. I wouldn't of been anyways (due to that exact reason, weight). I plan to have it when I catch something I can't identify so I don't have to go trolling through the DPI website only to find nothing, LOL. 

Cheers Hamish