queensland 2 Solo Trips

[Neil Stratford]

1. With “Ray The Bass King” still laid up , Decky Grant still towelling off after falling over board last week and Number 1 son cancelling on me to do a Spanish mackerel trip , I enjoyed the solitude of a couple solo trips in the salt water  this weekend .

Friday was spent siting on anchor down towards the Pin enticing a few quality whiting into the esky. Got about 10 or so on  bought cribb island worms without putting in too much effort.

Saturday afternoon was the 2nd outing .I put in more effort this time and cast net a dozen mullet for live  bait . Then spent a good 1/2 hour sounding around  down at the mouth of the Brissy River till I found some Threadys .  I spot locked on top of them and hooked up pretty well straight away . Things didn’t feel quite right and sure enough up came a bull shark. I cut him off after a short tussle allowing it go and bother someone else. I could still see the threadies under me on the sounder ,but I had to wait a couple of hours till the tide started to slow up before I got my next bite. In typical thready style it had some big blistering runs with plenty of big head shakes before surfacing next to the boat. Happy with getting a half decent one and because  it took me so long to get that one bite,  I packed up and went in . Attached are a couple of photos of my spoils.
regards

BeastMaster

 

[Brodie_S]

Seems like you had a alright sesh those whiting look like they will be good . Great job on the threadie to they seem like a pain to target but rewarding when you catch a decent sized one 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Great job Neil. Those are some great whiting you managed.

Nice thready too. I'd be over the moon with that one. 

Cheers Hamish

[Kat]

Nice solo trips!  Can I ask how you knew you had sounded out some threadfins?  Rather than just some biggish fish?

[kmcrosby78]

Couple of nice sessions there Neil, well done.

[Drop Bear]

You will be eating well mate. Well done. 

[Neil Stratford]

Hi Kat I’m often asked how to differentiate fish species on the sounder.

I guess it comes with experience and learning your  specific sounder and changing its setup as to what your chasing.

I’m very lucky to have 2 boats the small one has a Lowrance HDS 7 even though this unit has down and side imaging I like to use the standard sonar ,but in saying that , I often overlay the down image over the top of the std sonar image  this tends  to give a little dimension to the bottom structure in sonar mode.

ie Feeding Bass show as a series of thin  red lines , almost zig zagging all over the place in a horizontal plain.

Non feeding Bass show as just your plan ordinary fish red arch or a Inverted v shape. When they are like this sometimes they are very had to catch as they are not active.

i always change my sounder to freshwater mode and shallow water mode in the dams.

The Threadfin have huge swim bladders and more often than not are found in packs of about 6 or sometimes more close to the bottom - so look for huge big red arches approx a metre off the bottom in groups of about 4 or more.

Mulloway are similar -big red arches but are often up off the bottom but usually in the bottom 1/2 of the water column .They will often rise higher if there’s bait in the water.

I have a larger boat with  Furuno FCV 588  -even though this sounder does not have down or side imaging  its a very good instrument and is my preferred sounder over an old lowrance unit also in the boat.

When I fish for Spanish mackerel I look for big red flatter type arches stacked vertically one on top of each other usually found near big schools of bait or around structure like reef edges . When in Accufish mode , It puts a circle and measurement like this “  ️ 1200 “Around each individual fish ,and I’ve  then set it to buzz an alarm if it detects fish ranging from 750 to 1800mm . This is very effective locating Spanish mackerel .

When I go fishing for snapper offshore say in 80m of water it shows snapper as red arches and pearl perch as blue blobs.

A good sounder is a very handy tool,  but spending a lot of time setting it up adjusting filters etc and learning how to use and interpret what your looking at will pay big dividends long term .
I hope this has helped a little .

Regards

Neil

 

[Jimmyjack]

Outstanding comments thanks Neil.

[Kat]

Hey @Neil Stratford  Sorry I have been slack and only just read your response.  Thanks soo much for the detailed advice!  Obviously sounders can be really useful if you spend the time properly learning how to use them.  

I presume you learn what the particular fish look like on the sounder when you match  up what you have seen on the sounder with what you have caught.  Combined with knowledge of feeding/swimming patterns of the fish etc.

Thanks again 

Cheers Kat

 

 

 

 

[Neil Stratford]

Hi Kat , yep pretty much it - catch what you see on the screen a few times and take a grey matter note of it and then you’re your confident in what to look for in the future.

regards

Neil