Do$tylz

Yep - Ray even posts the GPS marks for where he fishes a lot of the time. 
From when I went with Ray a few weeks ago, there is a bay that was holding bass right up towards the fishing limits near the sailing club. Pretty sure Ray has dropped the marks on those in his posts somewhere. 

I headed out yesterday to confirm or deny the prawns status In The southern bay. As mentioned earlier thought I’d selflessly leave the weekend for those who worked this week the only problem was there was 50 to 60 other selfless fishos on a Friday morning😂. I’m guessing there will be close to 100 boats there on the weekend. Rumours were confirmed though!!

Took a well earned rest from “bassing “with Ray today .
Hooked up the big boat at 3.30am  ,collected my son at Bribie at 4.15am and proceeded north to the Sunshine Coast along with what seemed every other boat in SE Qld .
Target species were Spanish Mackerel and they didn’t disappoint . We found some bait with Spanish on it well away from the crowd just on sunrise  , quickly deployed 2 troll baits and picked up 2 Spanish  for the ice box ice in a couple of minutes.
This bit of action resulted in  quickly being inundated by other keen fishermen. We voted on a tactical move to let the hoards scare the crap out of that school  and we went looking elsewhere . After moving a km or so we found some more and put another 3 in the esky and headed home . 5 hits - 5 fish no shark issues. Very tidy day with some quality fish 12 to 18 kg each.
Qld Fisheries officer collecting  the carcasses for research at 7am Monday morning .
regards
BeastMaster
 
 

G'day @Jono4500,
Welcome to the site.
There's a few NPD fishermen on this site - search NPD and you will find hundreds of reports - mainly from @rayke1938 and @Dinodadog who both fish it regularly. Also check out the articles on the prfma site at http://prfma.com.au/articles/
Fire away with any questions.
@samsteele115 does kayaking overnight trips (not on Fraser though) so might be able to give you some tips there.
Would love to hear some reports of your adventures.
 

Rumours of extra large banana prawns showing up around the southern bay islands at Jackson’s so I’m gonna have crack tomorrow ( selflessly like @ellicat)

Hey Steve, I am a motor mechanic, an exTAFE automotive and fitting and turning teacher and a secondery school manual arts teacher. I taught at Northpoint/ Bracken Ridge TAFE when it first opened. I am currently collecting some out boards in order to put together an outboard/boat and trailer service course. I worked for a short time on outboards and inboards and I do have a semiretired outboard service mechanic friend. Perhaps we could get a few interested boaties together and do a trial run to see what would be a suitable course content. The only cost would be to pass the hat round to compensate my service man for his time. I don’t know how old your post is.

I might get a chance to get out and join the crowds on Sunday morning for a bit. Poor tinnie has been dry for almost 3 months now. Will have to check the engine turns over easily at home on Saturday arvo.

I might get a chance to get out and join the crowds on Sunday morning for a bit. Poor tinnie has been dry for almost 3 months now. Will have to check the engine turns over easily at home on Saturday arvo.

I might get a chance to get out and join the crowds on Sunday morning for a bit. Poor tinnie has been dry for almost 3 months now. Will have to check the engine turns over easily at home on Saturday arvo.

I might get a chance to get out and join the crowds on Sunday morning for a bit. Poor tinnie has been dry for almost 3 months now. Will have to check the engine turns over easily at home on Saturday arvo.

Back after recovering from my injuries, doing a header off the back of my sons big boat , saving the dog after it fell in and I tripped over and joined it, then got cut about on the legs by the barnicles trying to get the dog out. Anyway I was rewarded with 73 bass this morning, found a school in bass bay, caught a heap then came back later and they were still there. No whoppers. New sounder is just great.

Couldn't resist the forecast and Leo had a day off so we hit up Mud early before the sun came up to try to catch the tide change at 4.30.
First light

Managed a 33cm grassie early and thought we were in for a treat.

It wasn't to be, but we both got snipped by macks before I jagged one on a circle hook.
He went 62cm

We floated out a pillie but they were too smart for the gangs. No cigar.
Poor old @Leosonfire couldn't stay away from the snags and spent most of the morning/day rerigging. I didn't laugh once. 🤐

There was plenty of unders action and we ran out of bait (except for a small amount we wanted to keep for the river snapper). I went to the berley pot and retrieved a snapper frame and we cut up and scrounged for usable bits.
We headed back to the rockwall to give that a bash, but the fish there didn't like our offerings. Whilst pondering life and staring out to the bay something caught my attention. A tripod beacon. Soon after I had an epiphany ! We rigged up the sabiki jig line (gee I hate those things) and headed to the beacon. There was plenty of bait there and we soon had a couple of pike and about 20 herring in the livewell. What a good idea it was to fetch our own bait...
We then headed into the river and not a minute too soon as the wind had sprung up and there were white caps and curly waves everywhere.
We ran some drifts without any luck for a good hour or so. Then I got a good hit and up came Ellicatch's best snapper to date.
49cm.

I was happy with that but felt I really needed to get Leo onto a good fish before we went home, so I let the wife know we were going to be playing a bit longer. He couldn't take a trick and was still getting snagged up regularly. I still didn't laugh. 🤭  Well maybe a little. Finally he retired both rods after losing his rig and I said to use mine as I was done for the day.
In the end it worked out - he landed a snap, but it was a couple of centimeters short. Bugger ! Still better than a poke in the eye with a short stick. We made our way back to the ramp calling it a good day (for me).

2 shrimp on the same hook?

Reasonable day today with Rick and Stew. 65 bass with no trophy size but still a few respectable high 40s. Stew started the day off on the wrong foot dropping a good yella first off on one of the fads so we moved down to bass bay and found a few schools before the wind got up and destroyed one of the umbrellas. On the way back we found a school in front of the fig tree but as they were only around 20cm long we left them to grow up. The ramp has been reinforced and concreted and the parking area extended thanks to the hard working volunteers. Please obey the signage to ensure the maximum number of parking spaces.

Unless you're a Kiwi.😄

That is a monster GT! I would happily sit out the rest of the year and not fish until next year if I caught that in SEQ.

That is a monster GT! I would happily sit out the rest of the year and not fish until next year if I caught that in SEQ.

That is a monster GT! I would happily sit out the rest of the year and not fish until next year if I caught that in SEQ.

That is a monster GT! I would happily sit out the rest of the year and not fish until next year if I caught that in SEQ.

The Ugly Stiks are a composite of GRP and carbon however they are built to what's called the Howald Process, whereby there are groups of strands of Glass fibers wrapped in a spiral pattern going up the blank like a coiled spring, more  graphite fibers angled like a mesh over the core, then more layers of longitudinal fiberglass fibers over the lot. The coil gives it its bendy and almost unbreakable nature and the other fibers give it its  stiffness and keep it all together. The tip is solid glass so overall it is pretty robust. As far as I know they are the only rod that has this design and has been around for decades. Recently I think that they have started to make the more conventional pure graphite rods this year called the Ugly Stik Carbon.
Personally I find them good as about half my rods are Ugly's. When a fish lightly hits a lure on a pure graphite rod you can feel it as the rod itself will twitch, on an Ugly, the tip will twitch which you will see but not necessarily feel as it will be absorbed by the tip. I like them as they are quite resilient compared to pure graphite rods which can break just by casting them and you definitely can't high stick a pure graphite rod. The only fault with the Ugly's in my opinion are their guides but they are built to a price and still do the job adequately.
 

Hi,
 
I finally have decided to join after being a long time lurker.
I'm located on the North coast of Tasmania, though am hoping to regularly visit and learn about all the fishing available on the West Coast of Tasmania as, I have hears its amazing.
I look forward to learning from you all and contributing where I can.
 
Thanks,
Jonny

You will be able to push the weight of the lure you use up to 30g if you are careful with you cast. Have at least 60cm of line out for your cast and use a long, lobbing cast.
Don't put in a ton of power into your cast. Don't flick cast. You will break the tip of your rod.
Will you hook a kingfish? If they are there and you can get a cast in front of them, a plastic, hardbody, chrome, jig or topwater will work.
Will you land it? If there is any size to it, I'll say you're pushing your luck but it's possible.

You will be able to push the weight of the lure you use up to 30g if you are careful with you cast. Have at least 60cm of line out for your cast and use a long, lobbing cast.
Don't put in a ton of power into your cast. Don't flick cast. You will break the tip of your rod.
Will you hook a kingfish? If they are there and you can get a cast in front of them, a plastic, hardbody, chrome, jig or topwater will work.
Will you land it? If there is any size to it, I'll say you're pushing your luck but it's possible.

#firstworldproblem
cry me a river sef... 😂

Well it’s that time of year to dust off the top pockets and have a throw. Went for my first two sessions for the year over the past two weeks and did quite well. Both sessions saw me and a mate get two buckets of prawns per session in under two hours. All of the prawns were of a good size too aswell as a few casts with heavy pockets. This was to be expected due to the decent amount of rain we’ve had compared to the last two seasons. Any way looks like it’ll be a cracker season especially once they start to show up around The southern bay islands and nudgee. By the time they migrate to these locations I reckon they will be pretty solid. So if anyone is keen to get out now is the time as they are definitely on!!