queensland Brisbane River Session #42 And #43

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi everyone

Just going to do two more reports, both donut sessions. Hopefully I can manage some OK ones this weekend if I manage to even get out! The first session happened last week.

I went down to the local park, despite the weather looking very depressing. It was a high tide, so not quite ideal, but in a couple casts I had gotten a frog-mouth pilly and some OK prawns. There was some young guys fishing there (20's), who said they have caught one river perch. I had to put my lines in off the jetty, so i put one up on the mud bank, one near the mangroves, and one in the salmon spot. I kept throwing my cast net and also hoped the rain would hold off. 

Not long after, I did a higher throw. There was a screw sticking out of the jetty pylon, and yep, my net got bloomin' caught on it! I wasn't even tall enough to take it off, but luckily the other crowd was departing and noticed. One of them came down and gave me a hand to get it off. I kept fishing, but instead of having a line up on the mud bank I changed to a line next to some of the pylons with as live prawn. It almost immediately got an OK hit, but there was no connection. 

I moved my lines back up onto the wooden pier and put the cart under a tree. It started raining at this moment, so I just waited for a bit under shelter. There were no fish though, and there weren't even any picker nibbles! It was a very quiet day, and unfortunately it stayed like this for the rest of the time. My dad did come down at one point and caught some better prawns in the cast net. I sent these down in the cod/bream/flathead spot to see if anything was down there, and apart from pickers I got nothing 

Later, my mum came down and made me come home. I kept the lines in as long as possible, but unfortunately no fish. I missed some good hits (or it seemed that way) just as the sun was setting, which where taking whole, big, live prawns. I am wondering exactly what is down there, because as well as cod, bream of all sizes, toads, and flatties it seems there are a lot more fish down there. If only it was a bit cleaner...

Here are the stats of this little trip, which really wasn't that exciting - 

Stats of trip - 

Tide: The tide was running out as I fished. 

Tackle Used: 12lb, 14lb, 30lb braid mainlines, 20lb, 30lb fluorocarbon leaders, 80lb mono trace, size 2 and six ball and bean sinkers, larg-ish barrel swivel, size 4/o circle and suicide hooks, 6"6' Vemonat?? Graphite rod, 2M Rogue Firepoint boat rod, 8" Ugly Stik rod, size 2500 Diawa Shinabo and Shimano Nasci, size 650 Penn reel. 

Bait used: Live prawns, dead fresh prawns, live frogmouth pilchards

Fish caught: Zilch

Bait caught: Prawns and frog mouth pilchards

Weather: Gloomy, sad, overcast

Time fished: 2 something until 5 something

Overall Success Rate: 20% - crap everything

Here is the next report, unfortunately, also another donut. Tis one was a bit more interesting. My high school, on the Brisbane River, actually has a fishing club running. Since I have school band on certain days, I decided to do it on Friday - with the 9's-12's. I came 20 minutes early, with two rods, a little sack of gear, and a cast net. I was told just to keep a rod and the sack of gear, which was unfortunate. I was now using servo bait... for about the first time in yonks. 

I dropped my line down nder the jetty, and hoped for a cod or bream. It was quite rocky and deep, making it not so ideal for cast netting. In my experience, you want muddy, shallower areas for good bait. Looks like I will be doing a before-fishing-club-cast-netting-session next week! It wasn't long before I got some small nibbles, but they were just small. This kept happening, and I just kept fishing.

It was only going to be an hour session. By about the halfwayway mark, no one had caught anything. I had an average hit which may have had a bit more size to it, but it didn't hook up/I didn't strike in time. Someone eventually pulled up an eel, freshwater, which was about 60-70cm. Normally he would've been shark bait but I decided not to bother asking as I would have had to have freezer space somewhere  

It soon ended, and I went back to get out of the clothes and into school uniform. I kept my fishing rod in the office and then went to class. An OK fish for an 1 hour morning session, that's for sure! Here are the stats of that trip - 

Stats of trip - 

Tide: 2:30AM Low, .5M, 8:00AM, 1.6M, high

Moon Phase: First Quarter

Air Pressure:1024

Weather: Sunny, slight breeze, chilly

Time Fished: 7-8AM

Fish caught: Bugger all

Bait used: Servo Prawns

Bait caught: - 

Tackle Used: 12lb braid mainline, 20lb fluorocarbon leader, size 2 bean sinker, size 4/o suicide hook, Vemonat??? Graphite 6"6' rod, size 2500 Diawa Shinobi. 

Overall Success Rate: 40% - a nice fish

OK, thanks for reading those ones guys. The lone pic (panorama) of the gloomy day will be added later. Hopefully QLD can stay safe with COVID-19!  

Cheers Hamish