queensland Brisbane River Session #48

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hey all

Today my dad and I decided that because there was no tennis on this morning, we would make the most of it and try and get our name on the board for a species in Suburbs of Origin. Our plan was quite simple; keep one rod with a plastic/lure, and catch some livies for the other two. We planned to drift to the first spot, then fish that for a bit, then fish Cobia Bridge for a bit more, then drift back up with the tide. 

We were awoken at about 4:30AM by the alarm, and I believe we were collecting bait at about 5:30AM. It only took four casts to get about 15-20 good sized prawns, and then we loaded the yak and left. We decided to ditch the drift idea, as we thought it'd be better to paddle down with the tide and come back up with the rise. We arrived at what we call 'Three Pylon Creek', as there are three pylons out the front,  and started fishing. I did my first cast out in the middle of the creek, then another one to a jetty nearby... Then to the mud bank. My soft plastic lure, a 3 inch motor oil grub (thanks @samsteele115, legend!), was twitched once. Then twice. Then I felt some weight and realised I was on. all hell broke loose shortly after, and this thing was running around as fast as a cheetah! It leapt out of the water at one point early in the fight, and I saw some silver so I thought it was a salmon. I had my drag as tight as I dared, so it wasn't taking any runs. My dad was quick to grab our kayak net, and just before this he had identified it as a flatty!

We got it in just after it took a good run, but once it was on the boat all hell broke loose...Again! It went crazy in my dads legs, and was clearly very unhappy to be on the boat! After some rowers had a good time watching us muck around, we got it on the measurer. My dad called it for 55cm, so I was pretty happy with that, especially  because it's only my second fish on a lure ever! Here is the fish just prior to being released  

 While it's no biggun, it's a respectable Brisbane River fish.

After that, my dad got a few nibbles and an OK hit on the salmon line, but they were all small by the looks. I had a sinker that was probably to big for shallower water but still used that so I didn't have to change it. After our adrenaline rush subsided, we decided to set sail to our next spot - Cobia Bridge!  We got to the beach at about ten past seven, and did some cast netting briefly. My dad got nothing but some tiny prawns, which was unfortunate seeing as though the last time we were here we got mullet, biddies, and whiting in two throws! After some casting (only for a couple small hits), we hit the bridge pylons.

We put ourselves in the middle of two pylons which kept our yak from drifting. It was pretty cosy. I dropped the lighter line line down with bait, and after a couple minutes of nothing my dad did the same. It was very deep there, and I knew if I did hook a really big fish I'd probably get spooled because I didn't have much line. LOL. We stayed in this spot for a short while, (well about half an hour), and despite some small nibbles we still got squat all. My dad was really hoping this spot would produce, and I reckon it will too, we just need to fish it a bit more! It is nice under the shelter of the bridge but the bloody trains that go by every second minute are annoying.

Going under the bridge

The next spot is another small creek I pass, actually on my way to school. The tide had changed by now so it was ideal to drift back up towards it. There is actually a river walk project being built there, so there will soon be some EPIC structure for cod, salmon, bream, jacks, and god knows what in there. It'd only be fish able be boat/kayak, but there will be some spots you can fish from it land based when it's done at the end of 2021!  

https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/traffic-and-transport/roads-infrastructure-and-bikeways/bikeway-and-pathway-projects/indooroopilly-indooroopilly-riverwalk

I gave the pylons some good casts with my soft plastic grub, for unfortunately nothing. The actual creek was very shallow, though I still casted in there in hope of another lizard, or even bream. I have seen a big bream on the surface there on my way to school, as well as catfish swimming out. The structure is very promising, as there is a heap of rocks around and in the creek too. Despite my best efforts, and best skim-casts, this spot proved fish-less. "Oh Well!", we thought, "Next time for sure!". 

We then crossed the river and fished a bunch of the jetties. It would've been far more ideal if I had changed lure to a hard body, but I figured there was not much point as I could skim-cast and cast my soft plastic better. The slow roll and twitching retrieve wasn't working, and on some jetties we even trolled the lure along, so it was disappointing to not get anything. We eventually stopped fishing the jetties, and it is actually very lucky that my school is on the river and has a jetty! We pulled up there, and had a quick break - Basically, we got onto the jetty, and I casted my lines in straight away in hope of something like a good breambo. I tied the kayak up to the jetty with some rope I put in for this reason, and my dad and I ate some lollies and a PB sanga (well I ate the lollies and he got the sanga). The drifting we did before this was not very productive, with nothing but a snag and some deep rocky areas which could possibly hold fish.

Me looking very jolly like with the three finger salute

The tide was well and truly ripping in by now, so we paddled up back to Three Pylon Creek. My dad and I started the drift prior to the creek, and drifted down. There are a heap of ancient looking pylons there, so I'm wondering if it was an old wharf when they used to ferry logs and stuff like that up and down the river. We got to the creek which was far higher, and decided to actually go up it. I put the casts through the middle, in the snags, and on both banks, for nothing. We kept going up and up and up though, until we got to a bridge and the creek rocked out. It was also a bit stalemate and not much flow here, so we figured it was time to go back (that, it was getting hot, and we  were exhausted). 

Up Three Pylon Creek... With a Paddle!

The final paddle back was quite hot and tiring, though we eventually made it back to the jetty. After we unloaded the yak, had a quick snack, and packed up, we were off to home. The session was pretty fun overall, with the flatty and the good exploration trip. Some interesting things to note may be that there was a absolute truckload of  bait at Three Pylon creek (mainly mullet and herring), the flathead came out of about 20cm of water on a very muddy bottom, under Cobia Bridge there wasn't much bait and not many fish, and finally, around the new river walk project the pylons haven't been there for very long, maybe why the fish aren't there? 

That's the full session though, and here are the stats of the trip - 

Tide: 6:50AM, Low, .3M, 12:50PM, High, 1.7M

Moon Phase: 90% moon, so quite a bit of run

Bait used: Live prawns

Lures used: 3 inch Motor Oil Z-man Grubs on a 1/6th jig head

Bait caught: Prawns

Fish caught: 1 x Dusky Flathead, 55cm

Weather: Glass out, hot, slightly cloudy

Time fished: 5:30AM (or so) - 9:40AM

Tackle used: 12lb, 14lb, 30lb braid mainline, 20lb, 30lb fluorocarbon leader, 1/6th jig head on Z-man Motor Oil 3 inch grub, 4/o suicide and circle hooks, large barrel swivel, size 2 and 6 ball sinkers, size 2500 Shimano Nasci and Diawa Shinboi, size 650 Penn reel, 8 foot Ugly Stik rod, 6"6' Abu Garcia Venomat? rod, 2M Rogue Firepoint boat rod.

Air Pressure: 1020

Overall Success Rate: 80% - at least I got one good one!

OK, that's the report done everyone. Thanks for reading this session, I hope you guys at least somewhat enjoyed the report  

Stay safe with COVID-19! 

Cheers Hamish   

Some good bait prawns

[ellicat]

Nice one. Congratulations on the flatty.

Sounds like you've got a few spots to work out now.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

12 hours ago, ellicat said:

Nice one. Congratulations on the flatty.

Sounds like you've got a few spots to work out now.

Hey ellicat

Thanks for that, the flatty certainly made the session a bit more worthwhile.

There are a couple spots a bit more upstream I know of that I still need to try a bit more that will hopefully produce.  I reckon I may manage a good cod or bream in that creek too.

Cheers Hamish  

[Brodie_S]

Noice flatty 

[Old Scaley]

Well done, Hamish. Good to see that there are good fish to be found a long way up the river.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

42 minutes ago, Breaming with bro said:

Noice flatty 

Thanks Breaming with bro

21 minutes ago, Old Scaley said:

Well done, Hamish. Good to see that there are good fish to be found a long way up the river.

Hey Old Scaley

Thanks for that, and yep, it is quite amazing to see fish like flatties find there way this far up the river... And I know it's not a fluke because that's the third one in the 50-60cm range I've caught!  

Cheers Hamish

[jon]

Well done, that’s a great flatty and cool to see you get it on a lure too. Great report aswell!

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

4 hours ago, jon said:

Well done, that’s a great flatty and cool to see you get it on a lure too. Great report aswell!

Hey jon

Thanks for that, it's pretty good I got it on the lure too. We really couldn't believe it, but I guess there's a fair amount of them in there.

Glad you enjoyed the report  

Cheers Hamish

[Guest]

Nice flatty buddy , sounds like you had a fun day.

[kmcrosby78]

Great report and congrats on the flattie Hamish - looks like you've got some fun spots to continue to experiment with.

[samsteele115]

Yes!! So glad I handed  them over to someone who can catch a fish in them, they weren't catching much in my wardrobe

Very successful colour that, and if you get adventurous the 3.5 inch curl tails and 3 or 4 inch paddle tails I've had even more success on. I think sometimes larger flatties might get lazy with the smaller offerings, but every now and again you might drag a grub over its nose and you're on. 

Great flatty!!

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

2 hours ago, samsteele115 said:

Yes!! So glad I handed  them over to someone who can catch a fish in them, they weren't catching much in my wardrobe

Very successful colour that, and if you get adventurous the 3.5 inch curl tails and 3 or 4 inch paddle tails I've had even more success on. I think sometimes larger flatties might get lazy with the smaller offerings, but every now and again you might drag a grub over its nose and you're on. 

Great flatty!!

Hey Sam

Thanks for that, haha, I'd imagine the only thing they could catch in your wardrobe would be the odd shirt-fish  

I may have to try the bigger ones eventually too. I was actually trying to get a bream (but didn't use the light leader in case I hoked up to something bigger), so now I figure that the flatties will often hang right near next to the bank, as well as the bream 

I already am wanting some new plastics, Lol. I think you've gotten me addicted!  

Cheers Hamish

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

20 hours ago, kmcrosby78 said:

Great report and congrats on the flattie Hamish - looks like you've got some fun spots to continue to experiment with.

Hey kmcrosby78

Thanks for that, hopefully I can work them out as good as the local park eventually  

21 hours ago, Sneaky1 said:

Nice flatty buddy , sounds like you had a fun day.

Hi Sneaky1

Yep, a good day out it was, especially for me  

Cheers Hamish

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

On 06/09/2020 at 12:50 PM, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Hey Old Scaley

Thanks for that, and yep, it is quite amazing to see fish like flatties find there way this far up the river... And I know it's not a fluke because that's the third one in the 50-60cm range I've caught!  

Cheers Hamish

I also should say an interesting story...

When on a Scout camp a couple years back, at Allawah (which is near Colleges Crossing), we chucked out a line with eel and prawn.

While there was no fight to it, guess what comes in - a 65cm flatty. I was just sad after that I didn't get to reel it in because my dad thought it was a weed and let some others reel it in.  

Cheers Hamish

[samsteele115]

 

1 hour ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

I also should say an interesting story...

When on a Scout camp a couple years back, at Allawah (which is near Colleges Crossing), we chucked out a line with eel and prawn.

While there was no fight to it, guess what comes in - a 65cm flatty. I was just sad after that I didn't get to reel it in because my dad thought it was a weed and let some others reel it in.  

Cheers Hamish

Bream, jacks and flatties aren't too uncommon in brackish or even fresh! Not from personal experience, but have seen on the youtubes 

Edited September 7, 2020 by samsteele115

[samsteele115]

2 hours ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Hey Sam

Thanks for that, haha, I'd imagine the only thing they could catch in your wardrobe would be the odd shirt-fish  

Or maybe a Tailor 

[Cavvy]

A great morning even though Hamish got me out of bed at 5am - actually I lie, I got him out of bed because his alarm woke most people in the house except him!

Thanks for igniting a passion in Hamish for lures @samsteele115 .  We've been live bait mainly because of a poor strike rate with lures in the river but was great to hook a good flattie.  We'll certainly have one rod on the yak with a lure on it going forward.

Feeling a bit sore today with two days on the water paddling. Maybe I'll have to look at the electric motor someone has been pressing for......

 

[Drop Bear]

Cracking croc mate. @Cavvy that second photo is a framer. Well done. 

You two are making fantastic memories, great to see.

And fantastic reports too thanks for that. 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

21 hours ago, samsteele115 said:

 

Bream, jacks and flatties aren't too uncommon in brackish or even fresh! Not from personal experience, but have seen on the youtubes 

Hey samsteele115

Yep, I have seen too. I reckon the creek could hold some corker bream/flatties, judging by the amount of bait. Surely there'd be a jack or two around as well...

20 hours ago, Cavvy said:

Maybe I'll have to look at the electric motor someone has been pressing for......

Well I know I've been wanting that 300HP engine for the yak Dad! 

11 hours ago, Drop Bear said:

Cracking croc mate. @Cavvy that second photo is a framer. Well done. 

You two are making fantastic memories, great to see.

And fantastic reports too thanks for that. 

Thanks Drop Bear, glad you enjoyed. And we'll be remembering this one for ages as it was one of our first flatties off the yak too!

Cheers Hamish