queensland Brisbane River Session #20

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi all

As some of you may know, it is my birthday today, so after some convincing I got my Dad to wake me up at twenty to five this morning to go fishing at the local park, seeing what we could catch. In the cart there was a new landing net, perfect for me because of its size. After I had put three layers on and walked down there, we got the lines out baited with a mix of prawn, live and dead, and a bully line out just for fun with a piece of eel. 

After all of 2 minutes, we had our first strike. I leapt over to the rod, hoping to be on. To my dismay, nothing was on the line. "Oh well," I thought, and got my line back into the strike zone. In no more than ten minutes, I was on. After tightening the drag and doing some pumps, I could tell whatever this thing was it was heavy. I was proceeding to pull it in, saying to my dad I might need a hand because whatever it was, it was a good fish. When I was about to see it, it took a pretty decent run out, so then I started having a fun little fight and a bit of practise for big tough fish. After a couple more runs, I saw the unmistakable shape of a catty. It was a pretty good fish, but another one of the brown ones. These ones seem to be bigger, fatter, and fight harder. It measured 40 cm and was still dark when we took the photo - 

 A nice catty just before dawn

Also, I know it sounds a bit silly but is this a different species of cat to a forkie? I find even forkies at this size don't fight as hard and these go really hard on both light and medium gear. Also, I think these ones practically live in the mud because you can see how dirty the fish is, compared to pulling up a salmon catfish (forky). Maybe that just happens with all big cats. As well as that, these guys bleed all over when de hooked. Any ideas? 

OK, back to fishing. While the lines were set we were [well, my Dad had 'volunteered' (I totally didn't make him LOL) thankfully] throwing the net. The prawns we were getting were great. The first few casts resulted in only one or two, but after that they went off. The bait tank had a good amount in no time, so live prawns for the day. Hooray! While my Dad was going with the cast net, I saw the 8 foot rod getting pecs so I picked it up. I was on straight away, and I felt the really brutal but small head shakes of a perch. The size prawn it took was impressive, but I find good size River Perch don't shy away from big live prawns (for anyone targeting them, even though there's not much to target them for ). I got it up, proceeded to get a photograph, de hooked it and sent it on its way. Here it is - 

A 20cm-30cm River Perch

Even though he wasn't the biggest perch or in the best condition, it was still nice to catch him and see him swim off to grow bigger for next time. I then re casted my lines and started having a go with my cast net. After one or two prawns, I looked up. In the space of about five minutes, my dad was holding the rod, ready to strike. Then, he yanked hard. Since the drag was so loose the line came out crazy fast, and luckily after he tightened it it was still on. He eventually got it up, and up came another solid (not massive but good sized) River Perch. Here it is, it was safely released - 

Certainly not in the worlds best condition, but a solid, gold, BR River Perch.

By now, we were in full swing. Four lines out, all targeting different things - shark, salmon, cod/bream, and vermin/perch for the sport. After that nice little perch, I see the heavy line bent over. I sprint down to the jetty and pick it up, and I could tell it was probably a catty. This catty however had lots of go in him, and it was probably my fault I'd set the drag a tad to tight but if it was looser it would've been a hell of a lot more fun! LOL. Just as I surfaced him, he pulled really hard and to my shock my leader knot pops. My immediate thought was, "poor fish!" because it now has a hook and 2 metres of line dangling out of its mouth, so I decided to figure out why. My four reasons are the following - Leader knot slipped (not very likely though as I check all my knots, especially leader knots and that didn't slip); line was weakened from the knot (most likely); the drag was to tight and something wasn't up to scratch; or finally the fish had somehow worn the line. Whatever it was, I was disappointed but it was an old hook so it will rust out in no time . 

After that, my friends dad happened to be passing by and since it was also Mother's day today (what great timing )off my Dad went. I didn't have any camera also, so for the next catch you'll just have to believe me. Both the lines up on the pier (I reeled in the shark line because legally I'm only allowed to have three lines out in tidal waters in QLD) and it took about one million attempts to get the hook out but eventually I got the hook out of my eel bait and threw it away. I then looked down at the jetty and saw that my line was on. I ran down and started reeling in whatever fish I had. It turned out to be another big catfish, measuring around 40cm. This guy went really hard also, next time I'm battling one I'm loosening the drag off completely and just going to have some fun.  Sorry there's no pic, but he flopped out the hook and I just slid him back in to the drink. I also think I'll start giving bigger catties a proper release instead of a flop down, a bit better for them. 

The bite went really quiet after that. The bait tank still had a good amount of bait in it, so no need to do any netting. I just sat down and watched the lines. The odd nibble occurred, and the big one just kept getting pecked off, over and over. it had been happening all morning, and when I saw it going off I ran down (about 45-60 minutes minutes after the bite went quiet). Whatever it was had dropped the bait, and a couple more nibbles almost confirmed to me so. I started cranking in the bait, and I think this is what set the hook. I realised I was on, and started fighting the fish. It didn't stand a chance on 80lb line I thought, but for the pound to pound fight it was great. Trying to go under the jetty and around the pylons, when I got this fella up I knew I didn't want to lose him. How I wished my dad was there to scoop it up and christen the landing net... Oh well, I got it up. You may be wondering what this fish was. Well, it was a 30 cm bream. A nice fish by most people's standards, and a very welcome by-catch. Now that I think of it, 3/4 of the last sessions I've had I've caught a bream, the three being morning. It's not even Winter yet. I am thinking the bream in Winter will be promising here, but like usual, no promises! LOL. I politely asked some passers by to take a pic and they did quickly, and I got him back. He kicked off straight down, hopefully now he's fine living somewhere else. Here he is - 

While it may not be the best pic, it was a welcome catch on 80lb line!

After that bream, I decided to start washing the mud and other assorted river gunk off from the jetty from the net. Hopefully that makes it a bit better and cleaner for others.  There were a couple more hits and strikes nad taps along the way, but nothing stayed connected so I reckon if they weren't breambos they were catties. After I'd cleaned up, I began discarding some smaller live prawns (made sure they were alive). I got rid of them and kept the bigger one, most of the big ones we'd caught had been eaten, LOL, but all up if we were cast netting all day we easily would've gotten 30, we probably had about 25 in total. Just to show the average size of the prawns we were getting, here is one in comparison to my hand (would've been about a 12cm prawn) - 

Back at home, I washed up, packed the gear away, gave my mum a Mother Day pressie, got my parents pressie, and cleaned up the gear. A very good and exhausting b'day, that's for sure. I hope you can all stay safe even though these restrictions are gradually easing, we still need to go by the rules.  Sorry for any errors in the text also. Here are the statistics of the trip - 

Stats of Trip - 

Tide: High, 1:00AM, Low, 7:20AM, High again at 1:00PM. 2.5M, 0.4M, 1.8M. I fished the last of the run out, the change, and the first of the rise. 

Moon Phase: Full Moon, which may be a reason why there were so many prawns. 

Weather: 19c, 8Km/h winds, 59% humidity

Fish Caught: Catfish x 3, River Perch x 2, Yellowfin Bream x 1

Bait Caught: Bucket load of prawns and a couple frogmouth pilchards

Bait used: Live prawns and frogmouth pilchards

Tackle Used: 6"6' and 8" Ugly Stik Gold rods, size 1000 and 2500 Shimano Sienna and Nasci, 14lb mainlines and 20lb leader, size 650 Penn reel, 30lb braid mainline, 30lb fluorocarbon leader, size six and two ball and bean sinkers, large barrel swivels, size 6/o and 4/o circle and suicide hooks, 2M Rogue Firepoint boat rod, Size 5000 Jarvis Walker with an Aurora Rod, 30lb braid mainline (that's my cheapy combo, 20in 80lb Halco wire trace. 

Overall Success Rate: 80% - no target species caught but a great day out!

Hope you enjoyed, 

Cheers Hamish  

The fully loaded cart for a finale picture!

[kmcrosby78]

Entertaining session there Hamish. Happy birthday - did your dad sneak in a quick nap this arvo ...... ?

[Angry51]

Cart's loaded up but where's the beer esky?

[GregOug]

Well done Hamish.

[ellicat]

Good day. Net looks like a beauty.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

8 hours ago, kmcrosby78 said:

Entertaining session there Hamish. Happy birthday - did your dad sneak in a quick nap this arvo ...... ?

Hi kmcrosby78

Thanks for that, I think he tried to and he came very close to dozing off on the couch but when my brother and sister (two fourth graders) decided to come along he woke up in a heartbeat LOL. 

8 hours ago, Angry51 said:

Cart's loaded up but where's the beer esky?

Hey Angry51

Well now that you've said so I guess it will be the next thing I add. Hopefully in the next month it will be on there  

Cheers Hamish 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

6 hours ago, ellicat said:

Good day. Net looks like a beauty.

Hey ellicat 

Thanks for that, I hope it will scoop up some big fish soon!  

8 hours ago, GregOug said:

Well done Hamish.

Hi GregOug

Thanks for that, I just hope next time that if I'm getting pecked I remember to cast a line out for bream. 

Cheers Hamish  

[rayke1938]

When I was younger we used to target the river perch every April ( From Memory) Always a sunday afternoon because if dad was not working on a Saturday he would be listening to the races. ( Sacrosanct kids not allowed to speak so we used to take the dog and go and play in the bush).

 Fishing gear was cord lines on wooden spools.

Walk a mile from Ekibin up to the tram at Chardons Corner and catch a tram into town where we used to buy a shillings worth of prawns form the bait shop that used to be under the Victoria bridge and then walk up past the Grey Street ( William Jolly ) bridge . We would fish to dusk and half fill a sugar bag with perch  not many forkies those days but dad would occasionally hook into a jew which he had no chance of landing. 

Then a repeat of tram and walk back home and then clean the fish. We would never take more than half a sugar bag of fish as in those days we did not have a fridge and kept everything in an Mawson ice chest.

 Iceman came 3 days a week delivering from a horse and cart. Milkman ,baker, also by horse and cart  and paperman rode a horse with the papers in large bags over the withers;

 All the fish scraps were fed to the chooks after some of the heads were boiled up to make stock.

Fish for the five of us till Wednesday which was grocery day when my sister and I would then walk from school up to Manahans the grocers at chardons corner and meet mum and we all used to carry the grocerys home.

Sorry for going off subject I tend to remissness in my old age and waffle on. Life was so much simpler in those days.

Cheers Ray

Edited May 10, 2020 by rayke1938

[kmcrosby78]

I am sure I speak for a lot of us on here that we always love hearing/reading it Ray - always good to hear about yesteryear and how times were different  

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi rayke1938

Thanks for that story, I've always heard that once you could fill a sugar bag with them - I guess that's true (even though you only did half one). 

Like kmcrosby78, I like hearing the stories from yesteryear, that was was particularly interesting about the perch.  

Cheers Hamish 

[fishingnut]

Well done on the river perch, can honestly say I have never caught one .

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hey fishingnut

Thanks for that, all my perch have mainly just been by catch (Or just out on the line I cast into the middle of the river). I think they are at most spots in the middle reaches, and can be caught with dead/live prawns (if you want one ).

Cheers Hamish