queensland Finally went out fishing today

[Ed.]

Finally made it out to Morton Island today, it was touch and go though as to if we would get out at all, went to bed at 10:00pm last night but due to the heat and humidity, the 4:00am start didn't eventuate. By the time 4:00am rolled around I had only managed to get about 1.5 hours of sleep so need less to say we said, another hour in bed and then another hour and again and again. By the time 8:00am rolled around I only managed another 2 hours sleep, was having one of those sleepless nights. Not highly conducive to dragging my butt out of bed and out on the bay, but I figured it may be the last chance for a while so the missus agreed and and I said lets do it.

Got on the water by about 9:30am and headed off toward Morton Island. Conditions on the bay were quite good compared to the norm there and we anchored up in 12.5m of water just south of Comboyuro Point. Dropped the reef anchor and got organized to fish.

As soon as the bait hit the bottom all I got was pick, pick, pick. The first fish of the day was a Lancer, followed by more pick, pick, pick etc, a lot of fish feeding went on for a while. Changed the bait to 5 month old squid and started to get Grassies, Yellow Fin Bream,  a Wrasse, then more of the same. After 90 minute the current there started to pick up very fast, it was raging, I had to increase my sinker weight several times and ended up at using a 8oz snapper lead, and even then it only just touched the bottom before being swept down current, had to let out about 40m before it touched down again and we only in 12.5m of water.

Then it all shut down so we called it quits, only to find that our reef anchor had well and truly hooked up to the bottom, so spent about 20 minutes driving up towards it, over it, then sideways, and in the end we managed to straighten two of the prongs, it then pulled free and it came up nicely.

I let all the fish go as they were too small, although I was contemplating putting a much larger hook in the wrasse to see what might be interested in it but couldn't remember what the legal size was, so just let it go as well to grow some more. The Bream were legal size but couldn't be bothered, so not a total donut but didn't bring any fish home.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi Ed.

Seems like it was nice conditions on the Bay. At least you got out and caught some!

Cheers Hamish

[Hweebe]

Current does get strong there, so I tend to only fish there couple hours either side of slack tide. When currents raging half the battle is just getting the bait down into a strike zone.

 

[ellicat]

Shame about the lack of size, but I bet after such a long absence it was great to be out there.

Lack of sleep due to building excitement ? It usually is the case for me.

[Ed.]

I also have the same problem occasionally but that night the temp was 25C and we had very high humidity due to all the rain we have had lately so that kept me awake. The fan kept me a bit cooler but if I cranked it up to a higher speed then the fan noise would have kept me awake, so couldn't win either way. On the way out from Bribie we passed the first marker and it was like a car park, should have joined them as I had a chat with a guy who had just come back in just as we were about to head out,  and he said caught about 7 Mackerel there, but we kept going as I figured that if they were there, than they should be elsewhere in the bay. Wrong!

Only spotted 4 birds hovering around and then they landed, so headed towards them but that was a bust as all they wanted to do was land somewhere to rest. Still it was good to get out and take the boat for a spin.