Malcolm

I have been very slack regarding writing reports lately, but promised Brian that I would write one today, so here goes.
Recent reports of quality whiting persuaded @ellicatand myself to take a trip to the Nerang to catch the evening high tide. We had a little scare on the way. Brian’s pre-ordered blood worms were not anywhere to be found, but luckily the nice young fella at the Gem scouted up the dregs of their currently limited stock, so we were in business again. Down the very congested M1 to drop the boat in the water at 4pm, for a 5.30pm high tide. 
At our first spot, I cast out a live worm on a size 4 short shank baitholder style hook, a size 4 ball sinker with a 6lb Fluoro  leader attached to 10lb mono on a soft fibreglass rod. I let the rod rest at a slight angle with a very loose drag. Then I started to rig up my second rod, which was a soft plastic outfit with light braid (4lb, I think?), 6lb leader, size 1 sinker and size 4 baitholder. I wanted to compare strike rates with the two systems. Before I could finish rigging the second rod, the drag took a run on my first rod, resulting in a nice 34cm whiting. Not long after that I lost a good fish on the second rod. Could have been a bream, because Brian caught one just after that. The bites went off after that and we decided to move and get ready for the tide change and darkness.
Once we were settled in at “Old Faithful”, Brian decided to put a bell on his rod. Neither of us had any of the lumo tubes left that you attach to your rod, so we picked up a couple of bells at the Gem to text out their effectiveness. I was far too lazy to bother, so would rely on Brian’s research. It was different - at times I thought I was fishing with Santa Claus because every time he touched the rod, the bell would rattle. I think it did help in picking up a bit of action that he might have missed when lighting his durrie or checking his phone, but I will leave it to him to verify.
Anyway, you wouldn’t say that the fish were chewing their heads off, but we did have what we call an “accumulator’s innings” and came home with a nice feed of 11 good whiting and 1 reasonable bream (kept early because we weren’t sure how the session would go).  We called it quits at 10.30pm and made our way home on a much quieter M1. As usual, I didn’t take any photos until I was getting ready to fillet the fish this morning. There were a couple of 34s in the mix, so nothing to compare with @Kats 42cm behemoth, but a good feed anyway.
Thanks for the day/evening @ellicat. We will get that elbow slapper this season for sure.

That's the challenge I have now with a trolling motor - Without that barrier or repositioning / anchoring the urge is to be impatient and move when holding position is still a good option and wait for the fish to come back around.

Hi Malcolm.  Cracks you up that you have asked me!  I am certainly no expert - just learning and had a bit of luck recently - but I would say give all answers you have received a try. 
I was going to say what Brian said - the really good whiting fishos advise to move every 20 min if the bite has gone off - I think that might be a go, particularly if you know an area really well and can move to a new previously productive spot. 
I generally stay in an area a bit longer than that and wouldn't have caught my P.B. if I hadn't.  I think it might be a good idea to focus also on what the tide is doing - i.e is the water moving up onto the shallow banks or retreating to deeper water.  
Main reason I stay longer is I can't be bothered pulling anchor etcetera every 20 min - can't catch fish if your line isn't in the water.  
Can't wait til I have an electric!

Hi all
My school holidays started yesterday, so I decided to start them the right way by going fishing. In the prior weeks, I had been busy with school, but managed one (pretty crappy) session at my local park. 
The session at the park started off on a Friday arvo. I brought some dead bait along and first deployed lines, and then @TheCharliefisho arrived. I got to cast netting to try and catch some livies, but I couldn't manage anything good. Early on I think I got one bite on my heavy rod but for the next while it was dead. I eventually threw my net on top of four or five tilapias, and then another large one fell out in the following casts. Although it brought some excitement, it definitely wasn't welcome because it still means they are swimming around in the river. I eventually caught a couple of anchovies and bony bream, so we sat back and waited for a line to go off. Despite many mozzies, staying into dark, and a couple snags, we didn't end up catching anything. "Oh well", I thought - at least I went fishing!

Tillies
Stats of Trip:
Tide: 2:40PM, 1.9M, High, 8:57PM, .6M, Low
Moon Phase: 50%, Decreasing
Bait Caught: Bonies, Anchovies, Glassies
Bait Used: Live and dead bonies, and anchovies
Fish Caught: -
Tackle Used: 8, 15, 30 pound braid mainlines. Abu Garcia Veritas 4.0 on Diawa Tierra 2500. Shimano Stradic 3000 on Shimano Raider. Shimano Sedona 6000 on Abu Garcia Nexus. Size 2 and 6 ball sinkers, 4/o circle/suicide hooks. 
Humidity: 84%
Air Pressure: 1011
Overall Success Rate: 20%
The next session was a lot more exciting, and happened yesterday. I started the day off collecting livies for about an hour and a half, which mainly consisted of mullet and small silver biddies. I tried fishing briefly as well but did not have any success. After that, we determined we had enough bait to get started. The first fish of the day was a legal sized squire caught by Andrew - things were looking good. Surprisingly, it was not on a livie but instead a pilchard. 
I started having some more luck in the cast net, and I got about 30 herring for bait in quick succession. Unfortunately for us, this is when we started pulling in toadfish after toadfish. They would all hit the bait/fight like an alright fish, but they were very disappointing to see. We did have the jetty all to ourselves though, which was good. It was a nice day, and, as it had not started to warm up, it was a good temperature. 
As the tide started to run a bit harder, the fishing went quiet and our baits were consistently pickered. The tide was very slow compared to what it usually is, and I decided to experiment with a paternoster rig. I was dropping one line (light rod) straight down with a 6 ball sinker, and the other, with a size 4 star sinker, was being casted out into the middle of the river. Eventually, after some more toadfish and picker attacks, Andrew was on to another squire - which went undersize. After that, it was quiet again for another 45 minutes or so before he caught another legal squire which was released. At this point, I had still caught nothing - my most significant catch might have been a cast net full of decent sized scat. 
The tide was half way through the rise when things went really quiet, and basically any livie was not getting a touch. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be catching fish at that point was pilchards, and even then they were only getting pickered to bits. It was at this point (a bit before 2) that we were all considering packing it in, as it looked like the bites had stopped. I did managed to land one sea toad in this period, and got mysteriously busted off by something which took my whole hook, dropper, and sinker as soon as it bit my herring. 
At about 2, I switched my pilchard back to a live herring on my dropper rig and fired it out into the middle of the river. I went back to sit down but it didn't take long before the end of my 8 foot rod was bouncing around and line was being yanked off my baitrunner. I set the hook and got the line tight, and immediately felt a lot of strong headshakes. I was almost adamant my luck had not changed and I was on a toadfish, but the fish was taking a couple of snappy runs so I was eager to see it anyways. Initial thoughts were a slightly larger squire, but we were pleased to see a nice and fat grunter on the end of my line! After a couple more dives and a struggle landing it, the fish was eventually gaffed and lifted onto the jetty. Woohoo!

60CM of Brisbane River Grunter
Following that, the fishing started to go crazy! Andrew had a fish on both of his lines at one point, and landed a legal squire after a nice tussle, and after I redeployed my bait with another live herring it didn't take long before I had a 39cm squire on the jetty as well. I was pretty happy with that, as it was my first from the Brisbane River. Michael then hooked up as well, but it was unfortunately just another toad. To finish the hot bite period off, Andrew pulled in a 35cm bream, which was a random but nice catch as well. It is worth saying this all happened in the space of twenty minutes, after hours of no action. 

Squire
Anyways, after the fish stopped biting so much (high tide change), Andrew headed off. We all managed to catch ourselves some keepers, but unfortunately for one other fella fishing on the jetty there seemed to be no more biting. Michael finished the day with a stingray, which seemed like it could be a thready at first due to the runs it was taking. I was happy with my PB grunter as I left the jetty, and I had some tonight - it's a delicious fish! 
Thanks for reading, here are the trip stats:
Stats of Trip:
Bait Caught: Mullet, herring, silver biddies, glassies, ponyfish
Tide: 8:00AM, .7M, Low, 2:45PM, 2.1M, High, 9:30PM, 1.0M, Low
Moon Phase: About 40%/Third Quarter, so not much run
Bait Used: Herring, silver biddies, glassies, mullet, pilchards
Fish Caught: Multiple toadfish, 5 * squire between us all, 1 grunter
Tackle Used: 8 pound braid mainline, 20 pound fluoro leader, Abu Garcia Veritas 4.o, Diawa Tierra 2500, Shimano Aero Baitrunner, 8 foot Jarvis Walker cheapy, J-braid 30 pound and 30 pound fluoro leader. Size 4/o suicide and 6/o circle hooks, six ball and 4 star sinker. Large barrel swivels. 
Air Pressure: 1006 dropping to 1002
Humidity: 89% in the morning, dropped to 47% in the arvo
Air Temperature: 21 degrees in the morning, increasing to high 20's/30 degrees
Overall Success Rate: 80% - good session
Hope you enjoyed the report,
Cheers Hamish

@ellicat only doesn't move around coz that involves pulling up the anchor...
i would certainly move if there hadn't been any bites after about 1/2hr or so.  whiting do move about so sometimes they do come back to an area but even a move of 100m or so can change it up.

I don't Mal, but I know Youngy says to give it 20 minutes then move on.

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Couple of photo s from my camping trip to Fraser .Hopefully the star photos show up ok

TAGCERT_RAY_KENNEDY20220917113247.pdfGot a couple of recapture certificates today for a couple of bass that have had a long swim. Hope that they were able to spawn in their travels.
Cheers Ray

TAGCERT_RAY_KENNEDY20220917113247.pdf

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Is this the long lost Mal West??

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

Went down to the Pimpama River last night anchored up about 5pm and within 30Mins had one 33 and one 35cm Whiting and thought is going to great night and that was that only bream after that.
 
 
 

6.0Mtr long 2.4Mtr Beam Draft 300mm 60hp Merc 4 stroke does about 25 knots flat out but cruises really nice around 15knots

6.0Mtr long 2.4Mtr Beam Draft 300mm 60hp Merc 4 stroke does about 25 knots flat out but cruises really nice around 15knots

has been a long time between posts I have not long finished my second boat build which took 12 monthsI will

6.0Mtr long 2.4Mtr Beam Draft 300mm 60hp Merc 4 stroke does about 25 knots flat out but cruises really nice around 15knots

has been a long time between posts I have not long finished my second boat build which took 12 monthsI will

6.0Mtr long 2.4Mtr Beam Draft 300mm 60hp Merc 4 stroke does about 25 knots flat out but cruises really nice around 15knots

has been a long time between posts I have not long finished my second boat build which took 12 monthsI will