Finally went and wet a line.

[Ed.]

Well I finally got to go fishing for a few hours, Missus left me on my own as she went down to Brisbane for a night, so I decided to scrounge up some fishing gear and head down to the Urangan Jetty and do what the locals do. Quite a few people fishing there but most left when the temp dropped down, the wind was about 20 knots so pretty savage wind chill, not much being caught there at the moment although a couple of Spotted/School(?) Mackerel were caught yesterday.

Did the usual and jigged up a few livies but nothing bit them, as one of the baits had died, I filleted it and put a side on a hook and sent it to the bottom. It seemed to be twitching ever so slightly so I thought I would strike and see if there was anything at the other end.

Sure enough there was, and it started to peel off line against 8kg of drag, but it did it in a strange sort of way. I suspect it was a ray of some type and after a few minutes, it busted off my 60lb leader. I was using my Fathom FTH15LD2 on a custom 2m rod,  my terminal rig had a 50cm steel trace from a J hook to a swivel and then 60lb mono from the 40lb braid mainline to that swivel, when I pulled it up, the rest of the rig was gone and the mono have several cuts on it, so I think it's tail barb had hit the line and sliced it. It's all sand there, so no rocks to do any damage.

Still it was fun for a few minutes, left about 30minutes after that as the wind chill was freezing my backside off, as it was approaching low tide and the sun was setting it wasn't going to get any warmer so a nice hot shower at home was next on the list.

 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Nice work Ed. It’s good you got out and hooked up to a fish.  

Cheers Hamish 

[ellicat]

You'll have to go back now to try again. haha

[Hweebe]

How do the foreshores around Urangan fish? Maybe some better cover from wind on the exposed jetty?

 

[Old Scaley]

36 minutes ago, Hweebe said:

How do the foreshores around Urangan fish? Maybe some better cover from wind on the exposed jetty?

 

Fishing there is patchy. Whiting and flathead around the flats sometimes. There used to be good yabbie banks south of the Pier, but I couldn’t find them last time I was there? If you are like most people there and happy to target whiting, you might be better getting some yabbies around the Eli Creek estuary and fishing there or straight off the beach at Shelly Beach or Torquay. The Pier should fish better in the warmer weather. 

Even better, find a neighbour who has a boat and needs a deckie. A lot of boats sitting in front yards in the Bay. Good luck!

[Ed.]

Hey Hweebe, don't know how it fishes lately as that was the first time I wet a line there in many years and especially not in Winter. In case you don't know the area, in Hervey Bay there are huge flat shallow areas of sandbars, the jetty crosses 2 of those sandbars  which become dry at low tide, the resultant channels cause a very strong tidal run between them, the bait fish congregate around the jetty as it is about the only big structure in the area and it is over 800m long which  ends in deeper water. The predators such as the Sharks, Kingfish,Trevally and Mackerel patrol those areas. As the jetty juts out from  a land point the wind gets funneled up between the mainland and Fraser Island from the Tin Can Bay area and then over it.

Because it sticks out so far in to the bay there is no protection there, heading west towards Point Vernon along the shoreline, it is also shallow and has huge flats which contain soldier crabs and other sand critters, no vegetation as such just sand with some silt, there are the usual suspects there such as Whiting and rays.

Apparently Trevally also visit that area, although I haven't seen any there, but most of them seem to prefer the Jetty, probably because in normal times there are huge schools of bait fish there. There are a couple of smaller groins/jettys to the west of Urangan which are more protected  from the prevailing southerly winds but haven't heard of anyone getting big catches of anything there, just isolated Bream and Whiting here and there.

In summer the wind is quite welcome as it cools you down, in winter however not so enjoyable. If someone is after larger fish and land based then the jetty is probably the place to go. Hence the reason there are a lot of local fishermen at the end of the jetty ballooning for the bities.

[Kat]

Pics of fish are better but 2nd best are the sunrises and sunsets when you are out fishing!  Beautiful one there - glad you finally got out.  What were you targeting with that outfit?

[Ed.]

Thanks Kat, basically anything that was tempted to take my bait, such as Trevally or Mackerel. Ray's weren't on my preferred list but it was still fun, even a decent shark would have been nice. It has been a very long time since I hooked a fish so needed the practice, so better to practice on and lose a ray than a decent fish .

[Kat]

7 minutes ago, Ed. said:

Thanks Kat, basically anything that was tempted to take my bait, such as Trevally or Mackerel. Ray's weren't on my preferred list but it was still fun, even a decent shark would have been nice. It has been a very long time since I hooked a fish so needed the practice, so better to practice on and lose a ray than a decent fish .

Agree - some days I wish I could catch a ray!  Better than catching 2inch stripies lol

[Hweebe]

I've been to hervey bay but usually have the boat in tow to fish, so haven't really fished the jetty.

Only done the walk out to check out if there is any fishing action happening. Ballooning out from the jetty would be a cool way to get onto some mackeral.

I do see myself moving further north towards hervey bay / maryborough for the fishing but i've got a couple of decades of work to go

Was looking at buying something just before all the floods were happening, which has scared me off buying a bit because its not clear which areas were most recently flood affected.

 

[Ed.]

Hey Hweebe, I have sent you a PM.