mangajack

Good to see you back at the water's edge again. Thanks for the report.

I am leaning towards too many flushes or floods in the 13 years since 2011 has altered the habitat and or bait locations and cycles. We get dusky flathead all along the east coast and deep into the Gulf....so I am not sure it is a temperature change that has them shut down. I used to catch lots in Mackay and the Capricorn Coast when I was there. 2011 saw every worm bed in the Pine River scoured to rock and repeated in 2013....the worm beds returned after 5 or 6 years and things started to normalise...since 2019 we have had reasonable to large flushes recurring randomly in relatively quick succession....some in season, others not. I think this weather pattern needs a break....we actually need a drought to stabilise the rivers and creeks. Getting heavy flushes 4 times a year is not good year after year.

I will go high and say 11 years

One thing of note Raef and I have noticed lately....flathead have become a pretty scarce for us capture in the last 18 months....areas we normally can't avoid them are now pretty much flathead free zones. One section in the pine we fished today has always been a flathead area as far back as I can remember (50 odd years of fishing this stretch) and yet today and the last 4 visits there have not produced a single flathead.....the norm was 6 to 10 flathead there. I have noticed the same thing in the Bris River, Cabo River and Ningi Creek....hot spots gone dead. Anyone else noticed this since the 2011 and 2013 floods?

Dohles was ok...Deckie dropped me off at the pontoon, I reversed down without waiting and deckie drove on and we were off the ramp in under a minute. There were 4 boats being tied down and about 6 boats arrived at the ramp just after I pulled out....it would have been busier then. Dohles ramp is pretty good being 3 lanes.....trailer parking is limited to about 30 trailers i guess...sorry 25 trailer parks....i just checked on google earth pro. Best thing about it is there is a cafe that does great coffee at the ramp that opens at 5.30am every day.

I came into the Shorncliffe foreshore to try for a squid or two on the way back from Reddy....PEOPLE!!! geez....there was at least 500ppl on the jetty, probably closer to 800 than 500. Absolutely crazy at about 9.30am.

Redcliffe was loaded with boats....like a regatta....hundreds of boats everywhere.....pine was the heaviest i have ever seen it too. 2 small snaps, 1 decent flounder, more than 6 tailor up to 60cm.....went into the pine for a look...found a pile of fish near the slabs with two big jew under them.....i pinned 1 jew on 8lb line.....that finished as soon as it found out it was hooked. Raef got done by something decent on the rock shelf.....boated several brassy trevally and small jew.....got about 2 litres of prawns for lunch. All fish released....

Decent sized kings and jew it will be fine for...salmon flathead and bream it is way oversized....2-4 or 3-6kg rod for the last 3 fish. You can catch some of the smaller fish on bigger rods but will likely miss most of them. Opt for two setups. Nothing wrong with the rod or reel....sized for larger fish though. The thready below is a 1 metre thready caught on a 2-4kg rod with a 1000 stradic and 8lb braid - 14lb leader....caught 2 that afternoon on that setup, lost none. Pine River 3 years ago. Even small gear can comfortably land large fish if you don't get excited.

what would your likely target species be? It is a lot or rod and reel.

this time of the year the bait is 1/2 grown whitebait about 35 to 40mm long....lots of 18cm gar about....hoards of hardiheads.

My rod was the first prototype GatorTail graphite weave/fibreglass weave blend rod Snyder made...remarkably good rods for their time....long way surpassed now. The advantage is the rod had the all out toughness of glass, the sensitivity of glass and 1/2 the weight of glass....with about double the bottom end power in the rod. I used it for decades busting GT's and macks off the rocks, making tuna submit in the bay, a lot of snapper were tamed and a few barra were mastered with the rod.....originally built overhead...ten years ago it started sporting stradics as fishing techniques changed. I am pretty sure that Snyders GT's were dropped from production when Wilsons Live Fibre hit the market.....always thought there was a connection there. Snyder continued either full glass or full carbon after that. I still have maybe 8 snyders in the shed.

Thanks Mate, I have bought a few rods from Chris over the years. My current snapper plastics rod blank he brought in for me from the states....I might get another blank the same for when i break this one... helluva nice plastics rod even though it is entirely unconventional here to use this type of rod.

It is with a heavy heart that I tell the tale of a long lasting friendship that ended on Friday. It was about 1982 I was introduced to GT270 and we became inseparable for nearly 43 years. I dressed it up with all the nicest of accompaniments over those years and it served me well with many fine encounters of being triumphant. Sadly on Friday it threw a tanty with the grinners around Mud...what a terrible way to go....topped itself about shoulder height is a most unexpected way...what a disgraceful way to go after being such a champion for so many decades. Now standing in the corner with all the other dis-used, abused and broken, like a naughty child told to stand in the corner facing the wall....not a whimper at all. Thank you Mr SnyderGlas for creating my prototype friend, he was an outstanding comrade for so very long. My initial thoughts were disbelief and a hollow sense that grows within....thoughts of finding a suitable replacement to fill the void and then the realisation that nothing else could fulfill the spot in the rack. To be honest, i don't think I could develop that amount of trust into something I could buy today...pure graphite just does not have the personality or the toughness of glass and graphite blends. Anyway, enough of the dwelling on loss and time to regale the stories from Friday....6am launch....live baits by 6.15am....Mud at 6.25am.....Bloody bastard grinners within seconds ad they didn't stop. So After several spot changes I found ourselves well east of Mud on a rubble patch i had not previously encountered in 12m of water. 1st cast was a small squire, then a few grinners....retie the leader and cast out again only to feel another grinner on the bait....ripped the bait away from it harshly and BANG...huge hit and peeled 30 odd metres from the reel then all became slack...reeled it in to find a lot of grinner teeth marks on the last 40mm of leader...dirty little shytes. Oh well....came back to the rock wall and the water was filthy so went to the tripods for a quick look..not much there but in crossing the channel i spotted a school of jew so spent the next 30 minutes trying to coax some interest out of them....I left them sleeping and quietly motored away, defeated once more. Into the river!!!! I don't know why i got excited then, the high light was the biggest flounder I have caught in 30 years, and a couple of jumbo bream in the kilo class....snapper flathead and jew we encountered were all wearing nappies.... I ended the day with a leisurely drive from Pinkenba to Petrie that took 1.45 hours in the Friday afternoon Gateway traffic....so relaxing indeed.

Launch at the Port of Brisbane ramp and fish in the river, head upstream just past the tug boats....Clara Rocks....snaggy but good fish there on bait....bream, flathead, tailor, snapper and jew are the residents there. Be hard pressed not to catch a feed there.

any small chrome lure about the size of the bait they are feeding on....my go to is a 50mm long Abu Pirken I made a mold of 30 years ago...cast lead slug with fresh chrome paint. Last two tuna i caught last year were on a 65mm soft plastic prawn wound in quickly...good fun on 12lb braid and 10lb leader...both ere about the 85cm mark from memory. I was too lazy and half hearted to change the lure...first cast each time hooked up.

St Lucia is the furthermost upstream in the Brisbane River for me.... Investigating some spots around Bribie next.

My preference in rods is outdated now....fibreglass...specifically a Snyderglass JS1029W extended about 14 inches, paired with a Abu 10,000ca reel with 30lb mono. Can deadlift 50lbs with the rod so swinging big snapper and average jew up onto the ledge is doable. The spin setup was a Sabre Grafast blank about 9 feet and rated to 12kg....ran 10kg on a TSS4 to spin up the macks and tuna from the stones. The rods might be super heavy compared to todays graphite rods, but they take the abuse and knocks very well and ask for more. These days I would upgrade the reels but still use the same rods.....probably opt for braid backing, 5m of hollow braid and 20m of mono leader finger trapped in the hollow. There is a tradeoff in the reels too.....high gearing is good for getting the speedsters on the line, but less so when you need to winch them in at times....overhead I would probably not exceed 6:1, spin 7:1.

Go hard Max, you are scoring well.

Thanks for the report Hamish, I was down there late Sunday arvo for a few snapps and a flathead plus the damn tailor that are everywhere lately. Time to give the Bris River a spell and sus out some other grounds I used to fish in the 70's and 80's.....one spot threw up a 88cm snapp last Friday night I heard....land based as well.

For spinning off the rocks I would opt for 8-15kg in 8'6" to 9' and I would run 15kg 8 or 9 strand braid for the thin slick casting capabilities. Longtails are not difficult to land off the stones if you can keep them from going around a rock.. Mackeral are straight forward and seldom a problem if you don't get bitten off in the first few seconds. Jew are not difficult to land, more difficult to find and hook well. Yellowtail kingfish can be quite difficult over about 80cm because they will run to rock. No chance of landing one over 1.2m in my experience......they used to be common that size in the early 80's before bloody NSW allowed fish traps for YTK....that screwed them within a decade. Often times you will find bustups 10m outside your best casting distance....not much you can do about that outside of getting a bigger berley trail happening to bring the bait closer. Avoid getting a setup with line too strong to break off, it is dangerous and not necessary...my heaviest was 24kg line and to break that I had to wrap the line around the gaff to break it...too damn strong.

Nice job Pete, christen it soon aye.

From my experience and what I've seen the UV light boxes are the go....torches don't do a great job. a lot of cheap ones out there for sale.

I used to spend lots of time in the area on reefs and chasing tuna and macs....usually end up with a decent bag for the day. Currents can be painful....SW to NW breezes work best for me in the area.

7/8ths of land based fishing is watching and taking notice....notice where currents converge, notice where food might be taken to by the current......notice the slow spots in the currents....notice the dis-colour of the water. Fish are not dumb, they know where their food will be brought to them and they will wait for it a lot of the time. So rather than concentrating on getting a bite, concentrate on trying to see where a fish will wait for food or why this place is better than the next. Select the place slowly, there is no rush....make the decision of where you believe the fish will be then specifically try to catch that one fish. Doing this will teach you lots more than pulling up to the bank and chucking a bait in the water. You will be fishing for a fish that is waiting for your bait....present your bait as a drift bait like it is expecting....don't anchor the bait near him. If you get a chance to be up high over shallow water, just watch, you will see a fathead move, then watch him some more.....every move me makes is to another spot that positions him better for a feed....take note of where he moves to and why that spot is better. When fishing watch your line, not the rod, look for changes in the tension or tics travelling up the line. Always fish with a bit of a belly in the line to the water, don't pull the line tight to the sinker. Try fishing sand banks with unweighted baits....yabbies and worms are king.....use the wind to help your cast and the current to deliver the bait....you already know where the fish will be.

Does the Jimny still run the 1.3l barina engine? I did 750,000 m in my '85 drover/sierra couldn't stop the little truck.