mangajack

This makes me wonder....

Research shows Jungle Perch were common right down the Queensland coast to Moreton Bay prior to agriculture. Mooloola River was a heavily stocked river for JP's....

So considering that JP's have retracted north with the encroachment of agriculture I wonder if sooties have too?

Is there a known introduction of sooties in the Mary River?

Singles hold better when hooked and a bigger gape on the hook.

Hookup rate is very similar to trebles, but far less likely to snag the bottom.

The reason why Manly harbour is relatively highly toxic is it has no real tidal flow and a long history of works on boats there especially anti fouling removal and repainting. It accumulates and is not dispersed with tidal movements.

So in saying that most rivers and water frontages are safe to eat fish from because they either have decent tidal flow or they have minimal industrial contamination.

Dont eat fish caught in Manly harbour, Scarborough harbour or around any of the boat yards where they redo anti fouling especially.

Scarborough also had quite a high level of cholera bacteria in it back in the 80's and 90's....have not seen mention of it since though....i would not be surprised if it still does being stagnant water.

Redcliffe to Manly Harbour and all the rivers and creeks between are safe....just avoid the boat yards areas especially.

Around 1986 I got to read a fishing journal from a elderly fellow that had recently died then. He lived at Shorncliffe and noted the fish he caught after work several days a week to feed his family from the late 1800's to about 1960ish. He seldom got days off work where he could go fishing for a day.

Snapper bream and mackerel were commonly caught...flathead were mentioned every week or so but not as common as snapper and bream. Mackerel were seasonal and he would exclusively target them when around, ignoring the usual fish. Mackerel were mainly 2 to 3 feet long.

Kingfish were a prized fish, probably because it was land based and handlined being a tough fish to land. Jewfish were known as soapies, he did not mention a large one.

Numbers of fish caught were generally about 4 to 6 fish...enough for the evening meal i guess.

Seldom did this man spend more than about an hour fishing and always land based with cat gut lines.

Baits were generally off cuts from previous captures, although he did use ox heart and liver at times.

Weed beds were thick right to the foreshore.

From memory he encountered sharks only in the summer months.

He seldom mentioned crabs....and if he did it was large numbers....potato sacks full.

Eels were commonly complained about.

Weather from what i gathered and remember reading was not unlike our weather now....droughts and floods / flushes, prolonged winds and hot or cold temps.

He noted captures declining as well.

Good topic....leaves me with mixed feelings on todays fishing.

Most notable fish changes I have noticed are the following:

Bream....catching genuine 1kg bream used to be normal....fish in the high 30's were normal in the 70's and 80's....biggest one I caught was 47cm but skinny as anything post spawn. In the past two years I have caught two legit 1kg bream.

Yellowtail kingfish.....in the early 80's there were large schools of simply massive fish in Moreton Bay....1.2 to 1.5m fish. About mid 80's NSW had massive YTK fishtraps being used....almost wiped out the stocks migrating the coast....Have not seen one over 1.2m in decades.

Snapper....numbers have not changed much but average capture sizes are about 1/2 the size of the 70's is most areas I have fished. Interestingly snapper were either bait or trolled hard bodies back then and plastics didn't work well....plastics have taken over, but I have noticed a bit of decline in the past 6 years in two places that hold decent fish....bait is still catching the same amount.

Sharks....seasonal for me and I didn't target them too often but I don't see the numbers of sharks I used to in the 70's and 80's.....I remember seeing them in the hot water outlet of the power station in frightening numbers, dozens visible any time of the day or night.In the Bribie Passage we used to lose decent snapper and jew to sharks fairly regularly back in those days...I have lost fewer than 5 fish in the past decade to sharks. I know lots of guys have real problems with them these days, but I just don't have the issue enough to bother me.

Gold spot cod......they are bloody tiny these days on average. I could manage 80cm cod every run to the port in the 80's....a 50cm cod now is noteworthy.

The biggest changes though are fishermen and women.....numbers are simply massive now and lots of those are decked out with high tech sounders and GPS units....Sure most don't use them well but still quite a lot use them effectively and catch lots of fish.....and this brings forward the next point.

Fish education.....catch and release might be good for fish stocks but it does educate them about the lures or baits we use. The "in" lure to use today gets flogged in the faces of the fish so much they learn to not touch that lure. Now catch and release is essential for all undersized fish and I fish myself also selective of the size of fish I will harvest.....I will not take snapper under 50cm for example....so I am guilty of educating the fish with the lures I use too.

I recently dug out an old lure box from the 80's....I will be giving these lures a run heavily over this winter to see how they go.....will let you know.

Also of note here is the environment.....it has changed massively in a lot of places, some better and some worse. In the 80's Redcliffe tides ran south for the incoming and north for the outgoing all the way up to Scarborough reef and probably beyond....todays water movement is a slow constant southward current and no north movement at all....This occurred with building Fishermans Island at the Port. The reefs off Redcliffe are well silted these days as well.

Water quality of the Brisbane River is far better today than in the 80's up to Breakfast Creek....not much data outside of that though.   We had regular droughts back then as well....salinity levels were higher then than in the past 15 years with the constant flushes happening.....results show in the captures.

In the mid 80's there was a quite severe drought where we saw lots of fish that were normally offshore being caught inshore. Pearl Perch land based around the Tweed and on the sunshine coast headlands....spanish mackerel in Bramble Bay...cobia at Dohles Rocks....YTK at Shorncliffe pier.

For me I get up to about 10 of these fish a year in SEQ.

I am not sure if they are more numerous now or our techniques and lures have changed that is enticing more bites.

II regularly caught smaller models in the 80's in Bribie Passage....usually on small live baits.

These days I catch larger models on soft plastics off Redcliffe, at the Port and in the Pine River usually.....mostly around the 60cm mark.....I think the presentation is the key to not catching many or any small ones these days.