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After a slow day on sunday I was hoping for a better one yesterday. Well I was pleasantly surprised, well I was until the sun came up. First fish was a nice 45 bass with a tag in it, then I cast back into the same spot for a nice 60cm yella.I was on a roll and really enjoying myself and then the clouds parted and out came that ball of fire, which put a end to the edge bite. Not to be defeated I carried on trolling and finished up with a bit of bait fishing. 26 bass and 3 yellas on lures and 20 bass and 3 yellas on bait.Went home with a smile on the dial and sore legs from standing up to much casting.I will have to have a go in the yak soon where I cant stand up. Dino

It was a bit smoky and hot at NPD this morning. The quality of the fish was very good even though the quantity was down.My shoulder is a bit sore with 4 of the bass that I caught going over 1.4 kg, The redclaw are a good size and quantity ok if you know where to set our pots, We knocked off at 11 am when the clouds started to build up with a tally of 27 bass and one yella. Dont know what it takes to make Zac crack his face with a smile. Cheers Ray

Down scan is a waste of time when looking for fish IMO. I prefer the traditional view for all structure and fish sounding activities. This can take me over an hr when I go out. Like you say...no point fishing a deserted spot. If you find a strange return that may resemble a wreck or something then yes switch to downscan for a better picture but for general sounding I find the traditional is the go. Can't help with settings as I do not use that brand but I'll pass on what I would do. From a guess you have 2 frequencies. 200khz is a 20deg cone and 50khz/80khz is a 60deg cone.....or thereabouts. 200khz is for shallow water with more pings. 50khz is for deeper water with fewer pings. Want to hear the pings? Pour water onto a flat sheet of glass, dining table works well. Power up the unit and plug the transducer in. Sit the transducer in the water on the glass. It will tick away (this is how to test a transducer if you think it is not working). Now set it to 50khz. Pings should be noticeably less. I would try them both frequencies together, then try 200 on its own. The gain should have an Auto setting. If the screen is still cluttered when set on auto then dial it back manually. You only need to go back enough until the screen clutter disappears. It's a fine line but you should have a clear screen with good returns of fish and structure. LEAVE FISH ID OFF. Do not use this. This function will not decipher between junk in the water and fish. All you get is a screen full of little fish pictures. A piece of weed or plastic bag will throw a different return than a fish. So leave the fish ID off. Cheers.

Tilting the transducer up will make it lose bottom at low speeds. Set the transducer with the spirit level like you did and then push the rear of the transducer down 1 click. I would also set it as deep as it will go and then slowly lift it up until just before you start losing the image.

“Fishing” would be an exaggeration @benno573. First time was mostly playing with the new combo and looking at some of my regular underperforming spots through a new lense. I did mark a large school of big fish in a known thready location and went back to that spot on the second trip at the top of the tide armed with prawns, squid, pilchards and an array of plastics and vibes. The school of big fish wasn’t there but there was a huge school of something down there so I tossed everything at them for an hour before something heavy finally swallowed a green prawn. It had been a lean trip of small flatties and 30cm squire so I was hoping this one was dinner. Not a lot of fight but plenty of weight so I was hoping threadie when up popped a monster catfish. I moved on pretty quickly after that but could nail a keeper. I guess I needed your expert guidance. Had 4 pots soaking for 5 hours for a total of 2 female sandcrabs. So you didn’t miss anything. Let me know when your next day off coincides with reasonable weather and we will go smack them somewhere.

So, just to finish off this thread, I have taken the new combo (Garmin 95sv) out twice now. The first time I was just playing with settings and trying to get the transducer to hold bottom while travelling. I love this piece of kit - it is easy to use and the touch screen is very responsive and doesn’t seem to mind wet fingers. Holding bottom while travelling is still not as good as I would like it to be but maybe it is the boat hull that is making it hard. I know the general rule of thumb is to run a straight edge along the bottom of the hull and have that line dissect the transducer, then kick it up a notch. Using that system I lose bottom readings at 10 knots. Dropping it deeper is better and I still have a reasonable picture up to 18 knots which is probably ok, but I have seen better on other boats. You can set up favourite views. My favourite is the split screen of traditional sonar and down view. The screen is a generous 9” so the two views are easy read and you can make either view full screen just by tapping on that view. I am still trying to figure out side view, mainly because I have never used it before. I have drifted past structure like rock walls and beacons and have not seen the detail I was expecting. I think I just need to do more research and spend more time on the water playing with different settings to get the most out of it. The navigation side of things is easy to use. Dropping a waypoint is simple and so is editing waypoints and navigating to waypoints. You can also do your own mapping of places that aren’t mapped on the chart, but I haven’t put an sd card in it yet to enable that functionality. The inbuilt maps look a bit different to Navionics, but have at least as much detail and I didn’t need to buy a card. Updating charts is easy through wifi and a phone app. Pleased to see that all the green zones are marked. When I put an sd card into the device I will be able to capture screen shots and will put some up if I come across anything interesting. For now, I think I can say that I am very happy with this purchase. Here are a couple of screen shots that I took with the phone camera. They don’t do it justice but you get the idea. Cheers everyone. Edit. Sorry, adding photos is not working for me. Will try again later. Working now, but not worth the wait.

Started off with the resident turkey checking out what treats were in the boat. He would be better off checking when we come in so he could save me picking out the dead shrimp. We found the fish in the same area that they have been sitting in for the last couple of weeks, you could give it a try trolling deep divers along the 26 foot line out from the eagles nest and big stump behind the island. We ended up with 60 bass and 5 yellas there. Percy ended up with a yella that I released Normally the smaller yellas under 50 cm release ok especially from shallow water, This one seemed to go down ok but after a couple of minutes it resurfaced and was swimming in circles on the surface with percy in hot pursuit. Percy managed to grab it before I could get over to it to net and send down on a dropper. Bad part was had to get tilt trayed home as nissan had a hissy fit. Hope it can be fixed before Saturday or else it will be a no fishing weekend. Cheers Ray

Casting around the ribbon weed near the edges I pick up one or two each trip, this one was a nice color so I took a pic.

Good size spangly too, I woulda had that in my tally stats. haha

you went fishing TWICE without me???

Hey, welcome to the AFO forum. With that boat you are most likely to be limited to around the Bay islands, from Mud Island and south. Have a search in the Saltwater forum for Mud Island Green Island Peel Island and I'm sure you will pick up some of the many reports from these areas from over the years. You'll probably also be able to head out around Bribie Island for some tuna when they are on too. (Look for posts from @samsteele115 and @Luvit)

Welcome! I’m still pretty new to the bay myself. Im sure a few of the members will be able to give some of their thoughts.

This article can be also found on my website here if you would like to help and support my little proud Aussie hobby business https://bettertackle.com/blogs/fishing-tips-and-info/what-colours-do-fish-see What colours do fish see? November 11, 2019 Do you know what colours fish see when you want to increase your hookups? Are you getting the most out of your fishing rigs? This is one of the questions and discussions that come up very often when choosing your colour variants for flasher material and lures. When you look at the multitude of information around sometimes this can seem contradictory and confusing. Some of it is because of bro-science (or wives tales) and some of it is because fish at times can be very fickle. This video below shows different colours with longer and shorter light waves and how they change in the water the deeper you dive. from Kendall Robergs channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2O-1u_SliVgt7gagnspG8A Lighter colors lose their visibility first and then darker colours including ultra violet colours like fluorescents slowly lose their vibrancy while shorter spectrum colours like blue, black and purple becoming the most distinguishable the deeper you go. This is caused by the scatter effect meaning that water absorbing the light effect the sharpness of colours and dulls them so they can no longer be seen or distinguished from other colours or the become less vibrant the deeper they go. As seen in this diagram below light penetration between coastal waters and open ocean can also have an effect on the colour spectrum. NOAA Deep Light diagram Do fish see like we do? If you take into account that the human eye and fish eyes are similar but also very unlike on how we see colours and shapes in our natural environments. It is realized by many, what we see and what they see is different. Colours will lose their intensity and become invisible to the naked human eye the deeper they go, fish, on the other hand, have an added evolutionary advantage in deeper waters than we humans do. Eyeshine or scoptic vision gives fish and other predatory species of animals a distinct advantage over their prey in low light conditions. The reflector that is just behind their retinas, reflect visible light and increases the brightness of what they can see in low light conditions. This though effects their perception of objects and makes them blurry. Photo courtesy of Dave Condon Fishing Scientific research proves that fish do not see colours the way we do and that different species perceive different colours or are repelled or attracted to different spectrums. Many species of fish are Trichromats means they can see in all three primary colours but this only accounts for half of the fish species. Predators, on the other hand, are colour blind and have a keener sense of distance then than other non-predatory species. Then there are deep-sea fish and blind cave-dwelling fish but in general, the species we are targeting can see a hell of a lot better in low light conditions then we can. Fsh can see better in these environments then us humans can, we still have to be aware of the depth we are targeting for the species we are hunting. It is not just enough to have a singular colour for your flasher. Even though some species of fish can still see these light colours in deeper depths than us fishos we still want to maximize our efficiency in luring them to our bait and onto our boat as much as possible. This is why when you are making your own flasher hooks or lures or buying them you will want to pick colours and two tones contrasting colouring that will give you an added edge over their evolution. By using this very advantage fish have in seeing better than we can in low light environments that also blurs their vision, you can see why flasher rigs like our flasher hooks, that use distinct contrasting colours as well as beads that mimic eyeshine work so well in increasing your hookups. (Colorblind comparison to show the importance of two-tone coloring) Everyone is familiar of how well pink lures and flashers work well on many species. Even at depths that we humans would never be able to distinguish. Some fishos claim that lighter colours attract just as well in the deep, suggesting that is the flasher itself that increases the hookups or the contrasting colours used. This is why paired colours are so important when selecting your flasher hooks that you buy or make yourself. Your flasher hooks and lures will not be as effective or enticing to the target species you are angling for without paired colours. Then what colour should you choose when you are out fishing? Well, there are a few variances you have to consider: How deep is the structure you are targeting? How sunny is the day? How far are you to coastal waters? Water turbidity (how cloudy or hazy the water is) Some colour basics when choosing your flasher or lure. Sunny days- Colours like bronze or gold or metallic colours like chrome work best on sunny days. Close to the surface- Reds and pinks work best on shallow reefs Dark Background- Hyper colours like Chartreuse and white. Depth- Black, Blue, and Dark green work well and are very vibrant in deeper water. Rough Days- on rough and choppy days’ lighter coloring are not going to be as effective so select darker colors on rough days as this will increase the effectiveness of your flasher hooks. Matching the hatch a term that is thrown around a lot and that is because it is a tried and true effective approach to selecting your flasher hooks and lures. So in answer to the question what colors do fish see? Well, for fish that are not color blind, all of them including UV colouring that we cannot even see ourselves. What humans think is black or too dark to see in the darker depths of the ocean becomes more metallic and vibrant the lower they drop. These darker colours attract your target species just as well as the lighter, shinier colours as they are distinguishable when other spectrum variants have already lost their pigment. We have all caught fish at night so we know that there is enough light from the moon and stars for fish that are in shallower and murkier waters to find their prey. Vibrations, smell and shape having a large part to do with this as well as lumo beads. So do not be scared to mix it up with the colour chart that is written above. What works for you, in all honesty, is what works for you. This is probably because of where you are used to fishing you can rely on experience and first-hand knowledge. But do not be afraid to follow this guide as you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. Having a range of different colour flashers or lures is always your best option when heading out fishing. If your tried and tested coloring is not working mix it up. With Better Tackles Rapid Release Rigs this process will take you less than 2 minutes. We don’t just help increase your hookups but also give you a better experience each and every time when you are out on the water pursuing your next PB. CHECK OUT OUR ENTIRE SELECTION TODAY Wishing you all tight lines and thanks for visiting us. The Better Tackle Team I had promised this article awhile ago but have been a bit flat chat with the business lately. I hope this helps everyone out in selecting colors for their lures or flashers in the future

I think that most anglers have realized that it is important that more has to be done to restore habitat in both sweet and rust. Great things have been already achieved in the sweet with projects such as resnagging waterways and providing fish ladders or better still removing structures that prevent the natural migration of fish such as the Luscome weir that serves no purpose. In conjunction with DPI several stocking groups are now in the process of installing FADS into dams where there is little or no structure . In the salt there are still a lot of problems to be addressed such as loss of seagrass beds, responsible establishment of green zones and marine parks Cheers Ray

Some great fish there Dino, well done. Yep, solid spanglie there!

Most of those baits should have worked, I am assuming that you set the pots near or in the mangroves, if you did then maybe time to try a different location, most mangroves up that way should have them. I don't think that Mud crabs are fussy as to what they eat, I have even caught them using a tin of sardines with a couple of small holes in it as we had run out of bait. The oil and smell leaked out and attracted them to the pot and they really mangled the tin trying to get to the sardines in it.

Mate if you have a car a short drive to Colleges Crossing (20mins) is a good place to start soak servo prawns, garden worms or some soft plastics in worm or crawfish shape. Mt Crosby Weir is about 5 min drive from here also the Junction and Kookaburra park are all good spots catties everywhere!

Have a 'Google' for access along the river. You should be able to pick up some catties in the river given enough time soaking bait. Be careful of their spines (one at the start of the dorsal fin and one either side in the pectoral fins) as they are pretty painful of you get stuck. I've spotted a couple of areas, marked in blue below, that I'd try if I was in the area. Good luck. Hope you get a few. Let us know how you get on.

Hi all, new here! Grew up fishing the Noosa river with my younger brother, 15-20 years later we have just bought a bigger tinny than the 11ft x 6hp we used to strap around in. We keep the boat at his place in Noosa but I live in Brisbane and I'm keen to get into the bay to chase some pelagics or the river for some salmon or jewies, typically I always use lures but i'll never say no to a live bait session. Any tips or tricks you can share will be much appreciated, particularly how far into the bay we would have to venture to chase decent fish will be handy. 4.2m Stacer x 30hp Yamaha - Lures - Brisbane - Noosa

Cheers for the advice guys. Been doing as much research as I can fit in on lunch breaks and I’m really keen to get into some new waters. Looking to buy an electric motor in the next week or two which will give us that little bit more confidence for looking around new structure.

Yeah so have mine but mine cop a flogging ng and I must admit I could treat my gear a little better still I’ve had it a good 4 years and I’ve landed a few with it

56-65 pound.usualy does it.. however after a fish sometimes its curled.. or pigtails so replace then. Also I found a few lures or rigs have just popped. May be due to rigs sitting for extended period and some salt on haywire twist section. one just popped on a cast, the other on a reasonable fish but with no excessive weight on the rig, beats me? il just replace wire more often.

This fella used Google to find some spots. Maybe have a look at the link he provides in the thread - it may lead you to somewhere, hopefully. https://www.australianfishing.com.au/forum/topic/42782-sooty-searchin/?tab=comments#comment-973295 https://www.australianfishing.com.au/forum/topic/42305-cant-get-enough/?tab=comments#comment-970240 He mentions the Pioneer River in this thread - https://www.australianfishing.com.au/forum/topic/41883-fathers-day-flickn/?tab=comments#comment-967449 Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

Hello to all fellow fishers and I hope this will help with the question about Hardy heads as bait. Some years back my Dad and I dragged the bait net around Elliott heads near Bundy and caught buckets and I mean buckets of Hardy heads which we froze fresh and took off shore on our next trip from Burnett heads. The results were and no I am not kidding we caught over 250 lb of turrum or trevally and every time we baited up with these small fish we get to half way down and were hit with another double head of trevally. I guess to point was if you don't mind eating them then they are a fantastic bait , we caught the occasional hussar etc. but mostly Trevor's.

I've got the 5 to 8 kg 7' with a biomaster 5000 , I use it on snapper down here in Vic keep an eye on the guide frames even with washing after every trip mine went green ......

yep I agree. The biggest problem for sea grass is turbidity. The light cant get past about 2m in western Moreton Bay. The shellfish reefs will work to help some of this as they sequester a lot of suspended sediment. Not to mention micro plastics, carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen etc. Cracking things those oysters

or even over the border into NSW, apparently they are thick down there in the summer time

oh for those of us that fish the rusty water that is haha.

Yep we are chatting to them a lot. They are currently conduction a suitability study on areas where shellfish reef restoration will work the best. It is great that shellfish reef restoration is seen to be an emergency.

Seems to be working fine now.

Yes, I cleared all my cookies this morning and was able to get the usual "All Activity" page to load just once, before getting the same result as above on refreshing. So it seems like a cookie issue, however if it doesn't have choc chips, I'm not all that interested in dealing with them.

Spanish is one of my dream fish to catch. Will be heading to SEQ after Christmas with my new boat to try find myself one.

Great fishing around there i hear. I might try get down there over christmas.

When I joined the army years a go, they asked me what did I want to be the king of the shite or the shite of the king.(i wanted to be a plant operator) so I said king of the shite, so as I already was a pastrycook they put me in catering.Which was a good move as I was a corporal in 6 months.

I got sick of putting a baitjig over the side at 4$ a pop and then torn to shreds in seconds,,,so i thought there must be a better way. I try to get a northern species of yakka, But when the school macs are around or down south, the bonito.. your jigs dont last too long. So i made this. I use wire on mine due to school macs. The wire is then albrite knotted strait to mono 50 lb. I use 3 jigs on my but im sure you could go more. I use heavy gear i guess for bait because once one mac or trevally hit usualy more do. Anyway it may be of use to someone. You need : some nylon filament.. The stuff that goes on woghead lures for Spanish macs. (Good tackle shops should have this) Lumo sleeves 40lb single strand wire.. ( if your making yours no wire then you will need a thicker wire to put hole in nylon melt {see below}, then remove, then poke your mono thru) Hooks and mono of choice. a lighter too. and bit of braid. 1- pinch of filament, couple colours if desired.. then tie bit of braid around bunch and slide to within 1 cm of end of bunch.. the braid gathers it together to allow easier melting of mono filament strands. 2- Burn the end of the filament bunch to melt together.. Do a couple of times. and while still not hard poke a piece of wire thru the middle of the burnt glob of nylon. {make sure glob isnt to large that the lumo sleeve wont jam over,) 3- put hook on wire with haywire twist. I put twist around hook shank to shorten the distance. 4- trim a lumo sleeve to desired size and slide over melted glob, filament and hook end.. Draw eyes on with pernament texta if ur keen. 5 -trim filament to desired length 6 - make a rig with charter loop knots or alike. say 3 loops and 2 tag ends that one goes to swivel and other to sinker. 7 - Albrite wire to mono. and there u go.. If your not using wire just poke the wire thru the melted glob..put bit wd40 on wire so dosnt stick to melted nylon. then pull out wire once set, leaving a hole to poke ur mono thru and tie on hook. In these i put about 5 cm wire for toothys. and a mix of bluey purple filament and whit filament.. i trimmed both ends of the lumo sleeve to about 2-3cm total. Trim filament tail to size reqd.. i make long to begin with as it is easier to handle and burn. I reckon theyed make ok fly fishing thingys. Im not a fly fisho. I used this one night and instead of a lead i had a lucanus jig as the weight. Just with the boat bobbing a 8 kg cobia took the lucanus..Because the whole rig was sound and well made i got the cobia.. Later i caught 3 small barracuda on the jig that i kept alive and on dawn they were turned into spanish mackeral. Daylight has seen plenty of school macs have a go at it. anyway there easy enough to make. If you do make some post a pic to see what else people come up with for bait jig material..

I always use wire. And i still loose gear. Dunno how sometimes. All my line and leader and lures are smicko rigged. Not overdone i guess so still get bitten off. I use 5 - 8 cm of wire in front of my soft plastics. say 40lb. They go it no probs usualy. the wire is albrite knotted to flurocarbon. I also dont have dirty great big swivels anywhere. On my lures 15 cm of wire to a small/ tiny 2 way swivel that is tied to my leader.. no coastlock swivel. On my fishing gear that i live bait with or full pilly float i always use wire. But i also put 3 foot of mono after the wire to the coastlock swivel usually. If and when i do use coastlocks there a small size. Yes macs can be weary of wire..maybe more so down south compared to cairns. I dunno. They can be tough up here to at times. but keeping the dags and and thickness to a minimum, your rigs tidy your swivels small (as they make bubble trails especially when trolling) and your in the game. A mate swears by 150lb flurocarbon only for his livebait rigs. or lures. Reckons looses bugger all. Another mate uses 400lb piano wire on his wog heads trolling with gar on paravanes. no rod.. just chord on bungee. But thats cooktown. I reckon there not to cluey up that way. XRAPs at 27$ a pop.. id rather keep em attached with wire.

Well looks like everyones stumped. So I did alot of googling. The closest resemblance I could find was a Bigeye cigarfish aka Evermanns Nomeid Ariomma brevimanum . Apparently a type of drift fish that hangs around floating debris, jellyfish. Once mature hangs in the deep 600 - 1000ft. Then shallower of a night. Apperntly eats salps and plankton. (and squid as i found). They have been caught around Hawaii , cook islands, Phillipines.. I guess where ever the currents take them and the water seems warm. Well there you go. Doubt il ever see another.

Don't worry Steve, you'd be surprised how many good grinner spots there are in the Bay. I can PM you a few spots if you like ......