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Brissie River Cod

SchultzyT

By SchultzyT
in Saltwater

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SchultzyT Newbie

SchultzyT

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Thinking about PBs from canoes and kayaks recently brought back a trip Dad and I did in the Brissie River a few years ago. We were targeting estuary cod from the canoe and caught heaps of average sized fish between about 40 and 55cm. Of course Dad had to go and hook the fish of the trip, pictured below. All of our fish in the river were lure caught and all on Aussie made lures too.

The photo quality is not good. It is a scan of an old 35mm shot. Even the original is not good, too much bright sand in the background meant Dad and the fish were very badly under exposed. I've lightened it up after scanning but it is still of ordinary quality.

Still serves the purpose of illustrating what sort of fish are swimming in the Brissie. [img size=500]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/Est_cod_canoe.jpg

post-1800-144598468092_thumb.jpg

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SchultzyT Newbie

SchultzyT

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pinkey wrote:

WOH. Thats a snodger, how big do you remember or have a rough idea? What sized lure? and gear. Dream fish..

Dad might remember the exact stats. It was big, might have gone a metre but I'm not sure.

I do remember that it was caught on a Fysshe Lure, a big red timber thing about 120mm long that now hangs on the wall full of teeth marks.

I was in the canoe when it was caught and we had no gaff and a tiny landing net about the size of a saucepan. Dad put on a gardening glove and grabbed the cod by the jaw and hung on till it stopped kicking them hauled it on board. I clearly remember that he was bleeding fairly well by the time the fish was landed but he said he was just going to grit his teeth and hang on. That's just what he did too!

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Terry H Newbie

Terry H

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nice effort Terry

Pretty well set up canoe there schultzy..

Whats with you and cod?? lol

Edit: I keep having to take a look at this photo..

That's truly a mammoth catch in our fair river in terms of cod. I need to start trolling viper sized lures around a bit mroe.

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Angus Rookie

Angus

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Awesome fish. I bet there are a few to be found if you are willing to do the hard yards.

Remember it was not that long ago Malcolm got an 80cm+ one all the way up at fig tree pocket. Imagine how many holes, overhags our massive river would have for a nice size coddy to hide in!

Angus

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Schultzy Newbie

Schultzy

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pinkey wrote:

WOH. Thats a snodger, how big do you remember or have a rough idea? What sized lure? and gear. Dream fish..

Pinkey,

The cod went 101cm. It was one of three big ones caught during one month, all in the same area while fishing from the canoe. All were tagged and released.

This fish was caught on a custom made lure by Fysshe Lures in Ipswich. I had the lure made specifically for big cod and it worked fine.

The outfit was a CA1156 Ugly Stick, an old Shakespeare overhead reel and 8kg Platypus Pretest. I used a 27kg mono leader of about 2m in length to cope with the numerous contacts with stones when chasing estuary cod.

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Schultzy Newbie

Schultzy

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kreel wrote:

Note to self: Put gardening glove in creel. :blink:

Kreel,

At the time we were tagging the majority of our fish for Qld Fisheries. For quick handling times we didn't often use nets and Goblocs weren't around. Most of our fish were thumb gripped. Obviously estuary cod aren't the most practical species to thumb grip bare handed. Some trial and error saw us carrying el-cheapo gardening gloves. One glove was donned during the fight and dipped into the water to wet it before grabbing a fish. The really big cod still managed to put teeth through the glove and make a mess of one's thumb.

After that first big Brissy cod I started carrying a gaff and jaw gaffed the big ones through the thin membrane in the lower jaw. Being such a tough animal they cope well with the very minor injury this inflicts.

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Schultzy Newbie

Schultzy

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TerryH wrote:

nice effort Terry

Pretty well set up canoe there schultzy..

Terry,

I had a glass Canadian in '83 that was fitted with a marine ply console, adjustable rod holders, net/gaff holder and one of the first LCD sounders that came into Australia. The top of the console has a nose board on the left hand side and a dress maker's tape secured under the varnish for an accurate measuring device. On the front was a knife holster, a home made plastic pliers holster and another for my tag gun. The top lid hinged up to give instant access to a lure tray, spools of trace line, a canister of snaps, hook sharpener, etc. The large lower compartment held sounder batteries, marker buoys, lure retriever, sun cream, spare hat, wet weather gear, etc.

The same console went into my Scanoe (pictured) after the Canadian was replaced (picked up during a thunder storm and wrapped around a gum tree).

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Schultzy Newbie

Schultzy

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pinkey wrote:

Schultzy,

Do you think Eastury cod in the brissy river get any bigger than that? In 16m of water under wharfs in pure structure with loads of bait id guess therd be quite a few beasts that no one can land.

I'd be very surprised if there weren't bigger ones in there.

Have seen them in the Calliope River (Gladstone) at about 1.8m, swimming under the boat with squadrons of stingrays around them.

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Schultzy Newbie

Schultzy

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mangler wrote:

Nice cod, very nice!

I must admit I got a bit excited when I seen the title of this thread & thought that someone had discovered the last remaining breeding pair of freshwater Brisbane River Cod...

Cheers,

Matt

Only about 50 years too late for that Matt.

Before we started stocking Mary River cod fingerlings into the Brisbane Catchment we had to prove one way or the other, the status of the local cod species.

After many months (a couple of years actually) of exploration, DPI netting surveys, line fishing, door knocks of property owners and backpack electrofishing in some absolutely marvelous streams, it was determined that sadly, no freshwater cod remained in the Brisbane Valley.

Hence the stocking of the nearest surviving relative, the Mary River cod was given the go ahead.

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Schultzy Newbie

Schultzy

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Malcolm wrote:

Jeez you fella's got plenty was it in a short time frame or where you targeting them for a while?

Mal,

Fished them hard for a couple of months then went elsewhere to catch something different.

I can't recall the actual number we tagged but over a four week period we would have tagged about 50 cod.

Two of the biggies pictured were recaptured. One was caught in Wynnum creek about 12 months after being tagged, the other had moved offshore and was caught by a pro line fishing crew about 5 years later.

Quite a few of the smaller fish have been recaptured, all still living in the river or nearby islands.

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