A whiting donut

[Bretto77]

I have been trying, (to no avail), to get @ARKS2011 to put this one together. It looks as though dad is flying solo on the post fishing activities again. 
 Myself, @Kat and @ARKS2011 launched from cabbage tree point 3/1/23 a little after first light. We headed to the northern end of Macleay island. The boating equivalent of a Westfield carpark just before Christmas soon unfolded. The place was packed out.
 We had some of Kat's beloved yabbies that I had kept alive since our last trip. The loose plan was to try and get some live squid around the top of the tide close by, perhaps entice a snapper on the run out,  then later target whiting. 
 I couldn't raise any squid and yabbies were achieving only pickers. The first fish into the boat was a toadfish courtesy of Amber. It was promptly doted over and named "Puffy".  Many under sized fish abounded. Squire, bream, Moses perch, stripey and even a spotted grunter. Not surprising however, given the inappropriate nature of our approach due to me quickly giving up on the live squid.
 We headed for whiting county on the western side of the island and Kat saw a familiar vessel. A quick hello to @GregOug and confirmation of similar degrees of success for the day thus far. Into the shallows we went.

True to recent form, we were quickly onto another great patch of stingrays, but a single miniscule whiting was found on Kat's hook at some point in time. I latched onto something solid which wasn't a stingray and my spirit soared. My hopes of a good sized flathead were promptly dashed by a gummy shark around 90cm. A keeper bream by me and some running, (very crude), cast net repairs later, I netted some mullet and gar. I was beginning to worry that the stingrays would swarm the boat and overthrow the crew, so we high tailed it out of there. 
A show of fish in some deeper water produced a few keeper bream and one just under legal snapper. Unfortunately the snapper didn't release well and probably made a very easy meal for one of the folks that @ellicat has been appreciating so much recently. Things went quiet not too long after that and we moved to check an isolated bit of structure we had marked many trips ago. 
I got one really good run into the structure and very quickly lost the lot. Bugger. I think another legal bream was kept from this spot. There were three turtles hanging around in the area which Amber found fascinating. I was not so appreciative when one swam through my line and I lost another rig.
We headed down towards Karagarra to collect fresh yabbies and stumbled upon a situation which helped me to put our limited catch into perspective. Someone in a much larger boat than Kat's had decided that the Chanel markers weren't for them and parked it up high and dry for a tide cycle or two. It certainly didn't look like somewhere you would usually leave a boat like that anyway.

We may only have been sporting a few meagre bream, but at least we still had opportunity.

The gathering of fresh yabbies provided fantastic amusement with Amber playing "Master of the soldier crabs". Herding them like cattle, she all but had them in a single group when a lack of attention to where she was going saw her bogged and seeking our assistance. She managed to free herself, but not before her upright function failed and we had a very muddy child. A quick dip for Amber before we headed off to another spot where we had caught good whiting in the past.
Again, nothing but bream were to be had initially. At least there were a couple of keepers amongst them. Then I picked up a legal spotted grunter which lifted my spirits. I hoped that more than one of those would make it aboard, but no, back to the bream.
It was a pretty warm day and the ladie's "Whingeometer" had been indicating an impending meltdown, so it was around to Karagarra for them to have a swim. 
After their swim we met a couple of gentleman who spoke of similar experiences to @GregOug at north west island, a report that Kat has urged me to read. They were very friendly retired fellows with plenty of stories to share. Though it made me acutely aware of my imminent return to work, it was great to see some long time mates catching up for a quiet afternoon ale by the beach.
 Last spot for the day and Kat was pretty grumpy about having contributed a donut to the keep tally thus far. I started catching more bream and Amber was busy signing up to AFO. With an unattended line in the water Amber still managed to land a couple of bream. Kat was still flying the donut flag with great disdain and blaming her position in the boat. Amber finished her sign up and Kat pulled rank in her own boat. With a nonchalant and abiding "OK", Amber assumed her new position and almost instantly proceeded to land a keeper bream. Two more followed shortly after. The bream bite was hot. Amber and I couldn't miss and were releasing legal fish. Poor Kat was seething. Eventually Kat lowered the donut flag by putting a keeper bream in the esky. We had enough fish, but were all on a donut when it came to keeper whiting.
 Amber snapped some pictures of building storm clouds silhouetted by the late afternoon sun and we headed for home. The final keep tally was 10 bream and 1 grunter. A complete fail on the target species, but quality time together trumps that in my mind.

[Old Scaley]

Nothing wrong with a feed of fresh bream and grunter @Bretto77.  Nice report.

[ellicat]

28 minutes ago, Bretto77 said:

Looks like a perfect park to me. haha

Bugger about the whiting donut, but you got a decent feed put together.

You'll have to invest in some cuttlefish for your next holiday.

[GregOug]

I wouldn’t despair too much @Bretto77. You beat our final tally by 11 keepers! We gave up by lunchtime. We’d run out of beer by then. 

[Bretto77]

2 minutes ago, GregOug said:

I wouldn’t despair too much @Bretto77. You beat our final tally by 11 keepers! We gave up by lunchtime. We’d run out of beer by then. 

Running out of beer may have been the problem. Not much happened until after lunch.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Nice work guys, that’s a solid haul of bream! 

[GregOug]

1 hour ago, Bretto77 said:

Running out of beer may have been the problem. Not much happened until after lunch.

Running out of beer is always the problem!

[Bretto77]

3 hours ago, Old Scaley said:

Nothing wrong with a feed of fresh bream and grunter @Bretto77.  Nice report.

Grunter is up there with my favorite fish. I would have preferred 10 grunter and 1 bream. I have had some sketchy experience with bream in years gone by. I probably got a bit used to other fish in NQ.

[benno573]

Shame about the lack of target species. Still a bit of action to keep all on board amused though, and a few feeds to boot. Totally agree with you on the grunter though, I love catching them and they are very welcome in my esky too.

[ARKS2011]

His name was puffy the pufferfish and you took an AMAZING photo of him

[charlie.hans.fishing]

Nice report!

[Bretto77]

7 hours ago, ARKS2011 said:

His name was puffy the pufferfish and you took an AMAZING photo of him

Sort out the daytime brightness of your phone screen Amber

[ARKS2011]

2 hours ago, Bretto77 said:

Sort out the daytime brightness of your phone screen Amber

My brightness was fine