queensland no complaints! [brisbane river session #223-#228]

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi all

I'll try and keep this short - this report will be about fishing the last week in the river. Now that I'm into holidays I've been making best use of my time, and although I haven't really done anything else - 6 sessions in 6 days is decent going. 

The first session I'll talk about was with @Thorbjorn Hale at one of our spots. We got the earliest ferry we could and started off by gathering bait on a jetty. Although it wasn't plentiful, we eventually got a decent amount of biddies and herring - enough to start fishing. It is also worth noting I caught a 25CM or so school mackerel in the net, which was a cool catch for the river (upstream of the Gateway Bridge). 

Mackerel

We eventually arrived at our spot, and deployed some livies. It was pretty quiet at first, but I netted a bunch more biddies, and also hooked the first fish of the day - a decent river tailor somewhere in the forties. Hopeful a few more of these would be getting around, baits were redeployed to the middle of the river.

Tailor

Sure enough, I hooked another slightly more formidable model, which I believe provided some aerobatics for us. If I remember correctly, this one was the largest of the day at 52CM, and was also released as we had just started fishing.

Largest

I got a few more baits in the cast net but after catching a copious amount of ponyfish in the net (if you don't know, these are one of the worst pests - they are slimy, spiky, garbage bait, school up, and get stuck in your net) I gave it a rest. This didn't stop the tailor, and I got my third and final fish for the day. This one was another forties model, and seeing as though Thorbjorn had some tags we decided to tag it. I'll be excited to hear if anyone ever catches it again. 

Last One

The bite went quiet now, and even though things were looking promising we could not really manage anymore fish. I was even fishing with some of the prawns I cast netted the other night which were getting no love at all. Around midday, Thorbjorn hooked up to something on his heavy rod. We were pleased to see a quality breambo surface, which was a nice capture for this spot.  

Thorb's Bream

I ended up staying until about 6:00PM (yes, I was desperate for a fish), but only caught one catfish on a ponyfish. The bait was really dead, and even though there were lights there were no prawns on dark. Here are the stats of the trip:

Stats: NH

Tide: 4:30AM, .7M, Low, 9:45AM, 1.9M, High, 3:43PM, .5M, Low

Moon Phase: New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Silver biddies, herrings, ponyfish, prawns

Air Pressure: 1013

Humidity: 84%

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. Thorbjorn used similar weight rated Penn gear. 

Overall Success Rate: 60% - good to catch up with a mate and catch some fish

The next day was Monday, and my first real day of holidays. Charlie and I met up and decided to hit a spot we hadn't been to in a while. He did the report for this session, which is worth the read!  

Stats of Trip: BW

Tide: 10:30AM, 1.8M, High

Moon Phase: New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Live herring

Fish Caught: 3 x Jewfish 

Air Pressure: 1011

Humidity: 61%

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. 

Notes: Good day for the jewies. I also got busted off by one because I was using 30 pound. 

Overall Success Rate: 90% - great day for the jewies, good to see Charlie got his first. 

On Tuesday, it was just me, so I went back to the spot the jewies had been caught the day before. The tide was gushing in, and I was the only one on the jetty when I got there. It wasn't long before I had a fair few herring in my bucket and was fishing, watching my rods like an eagle, brimming with anticipation.

An older fella came down for about an hour who I had a good chat with, but disappointingly, the only thing I managed was a couple catties. By about 10AM, things were looking grim. It definitely cheered me up to see Thorbjorn and Steve coming down on the jetty, who proceeded to get some herring and their lines out. I also met another nice fella named Mick. 

We were all fishing, and it was pretty crowded at this point. Despite the lines out, it was not meant to be, and it took ages before the first decent fish of the day was landed. Luckily, it was just what we needed, as bait was running low, and Thorbjorn had the perfect idea to strip bait his tailor for us. This resulted in a bunch of fish including catties, pike eels, and a small flounder for me. I left a little past three, and no one caught any big ones for the day. 

Stats: BW

Tide: 11:00AM, 1.8M, High

Moon Phase: New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Live herring, tailor strips

Fish Caught: Flounder, catfish, pike eel

Air Pressure: 1012

Humidity: 47%

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. 

Overall Success Rate: 30% - still a fun day on the jetty

That Wednesday, Charlie and I hatched a plan to give a spot we hadn't tried for ages a crack. We were there before sunrise, and even though it was freezing, I got to cast netting. The first cast brought a rather large sea mullet, which we kept for bait, but after that I struggled to get livies to start fishing. By about 7:30AM, we were so cold (hands numb, feet numb, freezing cold) we were about to call it quits. Luckily, the sun came out and we started to feel better. 

When we did get our lines out, the bite was slow. The first set back of the day was when a Citycat hooked one of my lines, dumping my whole spool in a few seconds. Luckily I ran back from cast netting and cut it off before all my line was lost, and seeing as though I salvaged about 50 metres of line I locked my drag up and casted a bait back out there.

While netting, I caught a decent size flounder, which caught me by surprise. Small flatties have been a common catch recently and it seems these are getting thicker too - this one Charlie kept for a feed. Also, one of my rods had a big run while netting, but annoyingly it didn't hook up. 

Flounder

Eventually, I got a nice size school of poddy mullet and called it quits for the cast netting for the day. Charlie and I enjoyed ourselves while I made sure all the ferry drivers knew I had lines out, and sure enough about an hour later one of my lines was getting the tell tale jewie 'nibbles'. The first half of the fight was me just pulling in the dead weight, but before long, the vicious headshakes started. Then, it was onto the first run. The rod which hooked up was actually the rod which only had 50 metres of line left from the ferry, so the drag was locked up. This fish stripped line like it was nothing. Hopes were high - would we finally crack a monster from the river?

It wasn't meant to be. When we were mere seconds away from seeing the size of whatever fish was on the end of my line when it took one last bid for freedom right under the jetty, snipping my line off in seconds. Whatever it was, I hope my hook is out of it's mouth by now, and that I'll catch it again soon!

After that explosive bust off, the bite went quiet. We gave it until we ran out of livies but decided to call it quits by about 2:30PM. 

Stats: KP

Tide: 6:30AM, .6M, Low, 12:00PM, 1.6M, High, 5:40Pm, .4M, Low

Moon Phase: 8.5%, just off New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, winter whiting, silver biddies

Fish Caught: Zilch

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. Charlie also used similar gear. 

Air Pressure: 1016

Humidity: 64%

Notes: Need to fish heavier and be quicker with getting fish in when around structure. Live mullet and whiting best bait at this spot. 

Overall Success Rate: 50% - at least we had a bite

The next day, I decided to go back to this spot with some mates from school. They aren't serious fisherman, so the aim of the game was to pull in at least one nice fish and teach them the basics. We got there by 10:00AM and after catching a few livebaits, we were set to start fishing.

The bite was slow, but to sum up a pretty relaxed day I ended up pulling in one squire. I noticed a large amount of slack line, and thinking a fish had taken the bait and swam up current I wound in and discretely struck. That's how I ended up getting in a 43CM squire without anyone noticing . Also, I ended up keeping this guy for a feed for once.  

Squire

Stats: KP

Tide: 12:15PM, 1.6M, High

Moon Phase: 15%

Bait Caught and Used: Mullet, winter whiting, silver biddies

Fish Caught: Squire x 1

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook

Air Pressure: 1015

Humidity: 74%

Overall Success Rate: 80% - fun day with the boys

Anyways, the final session of this report was another solo one. It was back at the same spot as the previous two sessions, and I decided to sleep in a bit so ended up getting the 7:24AM train. I was there by about 8:45AM though, but to my disgust, some grubs had been there the last night and left so much mud all throughout the walkway you castnet off it would have been wrong not to spend half an hour cleaning it up. 

After I had done that, I got some bait of my own. It was slow going at first, but I eventually got some solid mullet - about half a dozen. It was looking like it was going to rain, but luckily the storm cell avoided me. The river was really busy though, and with some nearby bridge construction, regular ferry services, and prawn trawlers going back and forth, it was very hectic. It is worth noting the prawn trawlers were killing it, doing multiple runs and getting what looked like a great amount of prawns and minimal bycatch in their nets. If you're buying Moreton Bay prawns at the moment, I'd say there's a good chance they're coming from upstream of the Story Bridge. 

Personally, although it may make the quantity of bites go away, I think a lot of large boats stirring up the river also stirs up the bite for predators. It was quiet at first though, and after about an hour and a half of fishing and dodging boats, an absolutely massive barge came through. It was powered by a couple of tugboats (Pt. Mary and a couple others, I think), and just about took up the whole river. I am unsure what it was for, but I wound in my lines and casted out shortly after it passed.

Another hour or two ticked by, and having eaten my only food early on I was feeling hungry. Luckily, a fish finally was too, and I saw my rod getting tell tale bites. I let the fish eat for a minute, before putting the reel in gear and checking if I was on. Sure enough, the weight of a decent fish loaded up my line, and I started cranking it in. A few seconds into the fight, the headshakes started. Drag clicked off, and I made my best effort to keep tension.

Then, the fish woke up. The reel screamed into life, with line flying off like a rocket. I continued to fight the fish though, and as it got closer I realized it was pretty much identical to the fight of the big bust off a couple days ago. Anticipation was higher than ever, and with a big crowd watching me now the pressure was on. As the fish got closer to the pylons I held the spool to slow him down, and boy, was I stoked when I saw the silver scales of a 88CM Brissy River Jewfish surface. 

Happy days!

The dilly was lowered down into the river, and after a few gut wrenching moments he was on the jetty. High fives were had all round, and although I tried venting and swimming him for a while he wasn't interested in swimming off so unfortunately I had to keep it. I bled the fish on the jetty and bagged him up, ready to go straight home on the ferry and train. I made sure to clean the jetty down before heading home, where I filleted the fish. It wasn't the best filleting job ever but I got two nice fillets off, so I hope it tastes nice. I was going to put some crab pots in tonight/go prawning but was far too knackered so just chucked all my old fish frames away and packed/cleaned up my gear for the week.

Stats of Trip: KP

Tide: 7:40AM, .6M, Low, 1:15Pm, 1.6M, High

Moon Phase: 22.3%

Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, silver biddies, whiting

Fish Caught: Jewfish x 1

Air Pressure: 1009

Humidity: 87%

Tackle Used:  I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook

Overall Success Rate: 100% - target species acquired

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far. I hope you enjoyed the report. I won't be fishing over the next couple of days as I'm getting ready for a trip to Yeppoon, where I'll hopefully be able to get some landbased flatties, trevs, and mackerel. A couple things I've noticed about the jew fishing are (as I realize I've encountered a few in these sessions, but been busted off) that they seem to bite best on lively live baits with a long trace around high tide change. Hopefully this will be the first of many jewies I catch in the river, not the first and last...

Cheers Hamish  

[Bretto77]

Perseverance pays off. Well done Hamish

[ellicat]

Woohoo ! Congratulations on the jewie.

Some pretty good sessions beforehand too. These new spots you've discovered recently are really paying off.

 

Strangely, only the last two photos are showing for me. Anyone else not seeing the them ?

[Bretto77]

Same here with the photos 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

2 hours ago, Bretto77 said:

Perseverance pays off. Well done Hamish

Thanks Brett. 

47 minutes ago, ellicat said:

Woohoo ! Congratulations on the jewie.

Some pretty good sessions beforehand too. These new spots you've discovered recently are really paying off.

 

Strangely, only the last two photos are showing for me. Anyone else not seeing the them ?

Cheers Brian, and yep, the new spot is paying off. I'll have to be sure to go back there when I get back from Yeppoon. I can see all photos fine on my HP Probook and using Chrome, but it doesn't work on my phone or on Edge. 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Is that working now guys? I tried reuploading all the photos. 

[Bretto77]

Yep. Can see them now.

[ellicat]

Yep, all good now.

The river must be a bit salty for the macks and Tailor to be getting around.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

1 minute ago, ellicat said:

Yep, all good now.

The river must be a bit salty for the macks and Tailor to be getting around.

Surprisingly, tailor have been quite a regular catch as far up as the Story Bridge for the last few months, so I guess they don't mind the dirty water. It must have been really clean and salty for the mack, though. 

[charlie.hans.fishing]

Awesome report Hamish it was a good read. Nice work on finally getting your jewie.

[Rebel]

Top report.

Great photos.

Nice Flounder.

Well done.

[Another Wazza]

A few nice fish there Hamish, enjoy your Jewie, well done

[Angry51]

That's a good jewie Hamish.

There's a couple good fish all up. Sounds like a few good sessions you've had there.

Enjoy your trip to Yourspoon and be safe.

[Neil Stratford]

Well done , your on fire!

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

7 hours ago, TheCharliefisho said:

Awesome report Hamish it was a good read. Nice work on finally getting your jewie.

Cheers Charlie, now to crack the meter!  

4 hours ago, Rebel said:

Top report.

Great photos.

Nice Flounder.

Well done.

Thanks Rebel. 

2 hours ago, Another Wazza said:

A few nice fish there Hamish, enjoy your Jewie, well done

Thanks Wazza, will do. 

1 hour ago, Angry51 said:

That's a good jewie Hamish.

There's a couple good fish all up. Sounds like a few good sessions you've had there.

Enjoy your trip to Yourspoon and be safe.

Thanks Angry, it was a few good sessions after a long fish drought. Hopefully the fishing is on at Yeppoon.

7 minutes ago, Neil Stratford said:

Well done , your on fire!

Thanks Neil. 

Cheers Hamish

[Doughnuts]

Great work Hamish, congrats.!!

[ubnt]

Great report and guess you are happy about the jew fish caught. 

Just have a question about your sedona 6000. Do you think it is an overkill for jew and thread in rivers? 

Thinking about getting a 6000 or 8000 from bcf as they are on sale at the moment. 

 

Thanks! 

 

[Brodie_S]

On 23/6/2023 at 10:26 PM, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Hi all

I'll try and keep this short - this report will be about fishing the last week in the river. Now that I'm into holidays I've been making best use of my time, and although I haven't really done anything else - 6 sessions in 6 days is decent going. 

The first session I'll talk about was with @Thorbjorn Hale at one of our spots. We got the earliest ferry we could and started off by gathering bait on a jetty. Although it wasn't plentiful, we eventually got a decent amount of biddies and herring - enough to start fishing. It is also worth noting I caught a 25CM or so school mackerel in the net, which was a cool catch for the river (upstream of the Gateway Bridge). 

Mackerel

We eventually arrived at our spot, and deployed some livies. It was pretty quiet at first, but I netted a bunch more biddies, and also hooked the first fish of the day - a decent river tailor somewhere in the forties. Hopeful a few more of these would be getting around, baits were redeployed to the middle of the river.

Tailor

Sure enough, I hooked another slightly more formidable model, which I believe provided some aerobatics for us. If I remember correctly, this one was the largest of the day at 52CM, and was also released as we had just started fishing.

Largest

I got a few more baits in the cast net but after catching a copious amount of ponyfish in the net (if you don't know, these are one of the worst pests - they are slimy, spiky, garbage bait, school up, and get stuck in your net) I gave it a rest. This didn't stop the tailor, and I got my third and final fish for the day. This one was another forties model, and seeing as though Thorbjorn had some tags we decided to tag it. I'll be excited to hear if anyone ever catches it again. 

Last One

The bite went quiet now, and even though things were looking promising we could not really manage anymore fish. I was even fishing with some of the prawns I cast netted the other night which were getting no love at all. Around midday, Thorbjorn hooked up to something on his heavy rod. We were pleased to see a quality breambo surface, which was a nice capture for this spot.  

Thorb's Bream

I ended up staying until about 6:00PM (yes, I was desperate for a fish), but only caught one catfish on a ponyfish. The bait was really dead, and even though there were lights there were no prawns on dark. Here are the stats of the trip:

Stats:

Tide: 4:30AM, .7M, Low, 9:45AM, 1.9M, High, 3:43PM, .5M, Low

Moon Phase: New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Silver biddies, herrings, ponyfish, prawns

Air Pressure: 1013

Humidity: 84%

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. Thorbjorn used similar weight rated Penn gear. 

Overall Success Rate: 60% - good to catch up with a mate and catch some fish

The next day was Monday, and my first real day of holidays. Charlie and I met up and decided to hit a spot we hadn't been to in a while. He did the report for this session, which is worth the read!  

Stats of Trip:

Tide: 10:30AM, 1.8M, High

Moon Phase: New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Live herring

Fish Caught: 3 x Jewfish 

Air Pressure: 1011

Humidity: 61%

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. 

Notes: Good day for the jewies. I also got busted off by one because I was using 30 pound. 

Overall Success Rate: 90% - great day for the jewies, good to see Charlie got his first. 

On Tuesday, it was just me, so I went back to the spot the jewies had been caught the day before. The tide was gushing in, and I was the only one on the jetty when I got there. It wasn't long before I had a fair few herring in my bucket and was fishing, watching my rods like an eagle, brimming with anticipation.

An older fella came down for about an hour who I had a good chat with, but disappointingly, the only thing I managed was a couple catties. By about 10AM, things were looking grim. It definitely cheered me up to see Thorbjorn and Steve coming down on the jetty, who proceeded to get some herring and their lines out. I also met another nice fella named Mick. 

We were all fishing, and it was pretty crowded at this point. Despite the lines out, it was not meant to be, and it took ages before the first decent fish of the day was landed. Luckily, it was just what we needed, as bait was running low, and Thorbjorn had the perfect idea to strip bait his tailor for us. This resulted in a bunch of fish including catties, pike eels, and a small flounder for me. I left a little past three, and no one caught any big ones for the day. 

Tide: 11:00AM, 1.8M, High

Moon Phase: New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Live herring, tailor strips

Fish Caught: Flounder, catfish, pike eel

Air Pressure: 1012

Humidity: 47%

Tackle Used: 

Notes: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. 

Overall Success Rate: 30% - still a fun day on the jetty

That Wednesday, Charlie and I hatched a plan to give a spot we hadn't tried for ages a crack. We were there before sunrise, and even though it was freezing, I got to cast netting. The first cast brought a rather large sea mullet, which we kept for bait, but after that I struggled to get livies to start fishing. By about 7:30AM, we were so cold (hands numb, feet numb, freezing cold) we were about to call it quits. Luckily, the sun came out and we started to feel better. 

When we did get our lines out, the bite was slow. The first set back of the day was when a Citycat hooked one of my lines, dumping my whole spool in a few seconds. Luckily I ran back from cast netting and cut it off before all my line was lost, and seeing as though I salvaged about 50 metres of line I locked my drag up and casted a bait back out there.

While netting, I caught a decent size flounder, which caught me by surprise. Small flatties have been a common catch recently and it seems these are getting thicker too - this one Charlie kept for a feed. Also, one of my rods had a big run while netting, but annoyingly it didn't hook up. 

Flounder

Eventually, I got a nice size school of poddy mullet and called it quits for the cast netting for the day. Charlie and I enjoyed ourselves while I made sure all the ferry drivers knew I had lines out, and sure enough about an hour later one of my lines was getting the tell tale jewie 'nibbles'. The first half of the fight was me just pulling in the dead weight, but before long, the vicious headshakes started. Then, it was onto the first run. The rod which hooked up was actually the rod which only had 50 metres of line left from the ferry, so the drag was locked up. This fish stripped line like it was nothing. Hopes were high - would we finally crack a monster from the river?

It wasn't meant to be. When we were mere seconds away from seeing the size of whatever fish was on the end of my line when it took one last bid for freedom right under the jetty, snipping my line off in seconds. Whatever it was, I hope my hook is out of it's mouth by now, and that I'll catch it again soon!

After that explosive bust off, the bite went quiet. We gave it until we ran out of livies but decided to call it quits by about 2:30PM. 

Stats:

Tide: 6:30AM, .6M, Low, 12:00PM, 1.6M, High, 5:40Pm, .4M, Low

Moon Phase: 8.5%, just off New Moon

Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, winter whiting, silver biddies

Fish Caught: Zilch

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. Charlie also used similar gear. 

Air Pressure: 1016

Humidity: 64%

Notes: Need to fish heavier and be quicker with getting fish in when around structure. Live mullet and whiting best bait at this spot. 

Overall Success Rate: 50% - at least we had a bite

The next day, I decided to go back to this spot with some mates from school. They aren't serious fisherman, so the aim of the game was to pull in at least one nice fish and teach them the basics. We got there by 10:00AM and after catching a few livebaits, we were set to start fishing.

The bite was slow, but to sum up a pretty relaxed day I ended up pulling in one squire. I noticed a large amount of slack line, and thinking a fish had taken the bait and swam up current I wound in and discretely struck. That's how I ended up getting in a 43CM squire without anyone noticing . Also, I ended up keeping this guy for a feed for once.  

Squire

Stats:

Tide: 12:15PM, 1.6M, High

Moon Phase: 15%

Bait Caught and Used: Mullet, winter whiting, silver biddies

Fish Caught: Squire x 1

Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook

Air Pressure: 1015

Humidity: 74%

Overall Success Rate: 80% - fun day with the boys

Anyways, the final session of this report was another solo one. It was back at the same spot as the previous two sessions, and I decided to sleep in a bit so ended up getting the 7:24AM train. I was there by about 8:45AM though, but to my disgust, some grubs had been there the last night and left so much mud all throughout the walkway you castnet off it would have been wrong not to spend half an hour cleaning it up. 

After I had done that, I got some bait of my own. It was slow going at first, but I eventually got some solid mullet - about half a dozen. It was looking like it was going to rain, but luckily the storm cell avoided me. The river was really busy though, and with some nearby bridge construction, regular ferry services, and prawn trawlers going back and forth, it was very hectic. It is worth noting the prawn trawlers were killing it, doing multiple runs and getting what looked like a great amount of prawns and minimal bycatch in their nets. If you're buying Moreton Bay prawns at the moment, I'd say there's a good chance they're coming from upstream of the Story Bridge. 

Personally, although it may make the quantity of bites go away, I think a lot of large boats stirring up the river also stirs up the bite for predators. It was quiet at first though, and after about an hour and a half of fishing and dodging boats, an absolutely massive barge came through. It was powered by a couple of tugboats (Pt. Mary and a couple others, I think), and just about took up the whole river. I am unsure what it was for, but I wound in my lines and casted out shortly after it passed.

Another hour or two ticked by, and having eaten my only food early on I was feeling hungry. Luckily, a fish finally was too, and I saw my rod getting tell tale bites. I let the fish eat for a minute, before putting the reel in gear and checking if I was on. Sure enough, the weight of a decent fish loaded up my line, and I started cranking it in. A few seconds into the fight, the headshakes started. Drag clicked off, and I made my best effort to keep tension.

Then, the fish woke up. The reel screamed into life, with line flying off like a rocket. I continued to fight the fish though, and as it got closer I realized it was pretty much identical to the fight of the big bust off a couple days ago. Anticipation was higher than ever, and with a big crowd watching me now the pressure was on. As the fish got closer to the pylons I held the spool to slow him down, and boy, was I stoked when I saw the silver scales of a 88CM Brissy River Jewfish surface. 

Happy days!

The dilly was lowered down into the river, and after a few gut wrenching moments he was on the jetty. High fives were had all round, and although I tried venting and swimming him for a while he wasn't interested in swimming off so unfortunately I had to keep it. I bled the fish on the jetty and bagged him up, ready to go straight home on the ferry and train. I made sure to clean the jetty down before heading home, where I filleted the fish. It wasn't the best filleting job ever but I got two nice fillets off, so I hope it tastes nice. I was going to put some crab pots in tonight/go prawning but was far too knackered so just chucked all my old fish frames away and packed/cleaned up my gear for the week.

Stats of Trip:

Tide: 7:40AM, .6M, Low, 1:15Pm, 1.6M, High

Moon Phase: 22.3%

Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, silver biddies, whiting

Fish Caught: Jewfish x 1

Air Pressure: 1009

Humidity: 87%

Tackle Used:  I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook

Overall Success Rate: 100% - target species acquired

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far. I hope you enjoyed the report. I won't be fishing over the next couple of days as I'm getting ready for a trip to Yeppoon, where I'll hopefully be able to get some landbased flatties, trevs, and mackerel. A couple things I've noticed about the jew fishing are (as I realize I've encountered a few in these sessions, but been busted off) that they seem to bite best on lively live baits with a long trace around high tide change. Hopefully this will be the first of many jewies I catch in the river, not the first and last...

Cheers Hamish  

You’ve Been catching a lot of good fish as of late and that jewfish is no exception absolute beauty of a fish good job on catching and landing him.  
 

those tailor would be good fun to been getting onto a few myself recently. Your reports now are definitely better than the reports from last year you get that with experience and trying new spots I guess. Great work Hamish.

[Old Scaley]

Even if you don’t catch another fish over the holidays, Hamish, you have had a fantastic break! Great Jew! I have noticed the prawn trawlers working around the city reaches lately so the must be fish throughout the system at the moment.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

21 hours ago, Doughnuts said:

Great work Hamish, congrats.!!

Thanks Doughnuts.

17 hours ago, ubnt said:

Great report and guess you are happy about the jew fish caught. 

Just have a question about your sedona 6000. Do you think it is an overkill for jew and thread in rivers? 

Thinking about getting a 6000 or 8000 from bcf as they are on sale at the moment. 

 

Thanks! 

 

Thanks ubnt. I think the Sedona 6000 is the perfect size reel for Jew and threadfin fishing landbased in the river. It fits plenty of 30 pound braid nicely and casts well too.

15 hours ago, Brodie_S said:

You’ve Been catching a lot of good fish as of late and that jewfish is no exception absolute beauty of a fish good job on catching and landing him.  
 

those tailor would be good fun to been getting onto a few myself recently. Your reports now are definitely better than the reports from last year you get that with experience and trying new spots I guess. Great work Hamish.

Thanks Brodie, hopefully they continue to get better as well.  

44 minutes ago, Old Scaley said:

Even if you don’t catch another fish over the holidays, Hamish, you have had a fantastic break! Great Jew! I have noticed the prawn trawlers working around the city reaches lately so the must be fish throughout the system at the moment.

Cheers Steve, I guess the fish are following the prawns. Hopefully there’s still some prawns left when the trawlers are done.

[GregOug]

2 hours ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

Thanks Doughnuts.

Thanks ubnt. I think the Sedona 6000 is the perfect size reel for Jew and threadfin fishing landbased in the river. It fits plenty of 30 pound braid nicely and casts well too.

Thanks Brodie, hopefully they continue to get better as well.  

Cheers Steve, I guess the fish are following the prawns. Hopefully there’s still some prawns left when the trawlers are done.

Surely it’s time to ban trawling in the river.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

3 minutes ago, GregOug said:

Surely it’s time to ban trawling in the river.

They seemed to be taking a tonne of prawns, and from what I could see there was also a fair bit of fish coming up in the net too. I don’t really know all the facts behind it but I’m sure banning trawling in the river could only be a good thing. But then, the issue is, where are all the ‘Moreton Bay’ prawns going to come from

[Bretto77]

1 hour ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

But then, the issue is, where are all the ‘Moreton Bay’ prawns going to come from

Either your cast net or an Asian avenue????

[Bretto77]

You might get very good at throwing a big net Hamish

[Cavvy]

Great for all of us at home to see this one caught and Hamish finally staying home for a day or two!  Well done Hamish - a huge effort of early starts and long days!

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

2 minutes ago, Cavvy said:

Great for all of us at home to see this one caught and Hamish finally staying home for a day or two!  Well done Hamish - a huge effort of early starts and long days!

Thanks @Cavvy, don’t worry, I’ll be out of the house again soon at Yeppoon  

[Old Scaley]

15 hours ago, GregOug said:

Surely it’s time to ban trawling in the river.

We have had the trawler ban discussion before on AFO. So we don’t detract from Hamish’s Stirling efforts, let’s comment on that issue here: