mangajack

Bony Bream if in the rivers.

I whack 4 or 5 of them onto a #4 truturn hook.

The small black juvenile soldier crabs are gun baits for whiting in the shallows. The big blue ones make great berley to bring the whiting close together.

I would go for Bionic Braid for the baitcaster....you do not want a really thin braid when you are onto a beastly critter trying to bury the thin braid into the spool. How fast does the new bantam cross weave on the spool? I have several bantams still in hard service from the 80's....new carbon fibre drags and they just keep on going. Nitlon or tasline on spin, bionic or fins on baitcasters.

Almost any creeks out there will hold perch....ask at the servo or the gun shop where the locals are going lately. It changes lots with water levels and flows.

I didn't go to the do. Having said that I get better catches from a drawstring cast net than any top pocket net....top pockets only snare what actually make it into the top pocket, A drawstring net snares everything. Far fewer casts for the same amount of catch. I have 4 nets, 1 x 9' drawstring, 1 x 12' top pocket, 1 x 10' top and bottom net, and 1 x 8' bottom pocket. The drawstring is easier to cast and catched far more than the rest of the nets even though it is smaller than two of the nets.....it is sometimes more than double any of the other nets. Plus fish don't tangle near as much in the drawstring nets.

Gut feeling says this job is going to be far more costly to do correctly than you think. If the floor has any give in it you will need to strip that out and likely most of the timber underneath and replace it all. 56 years is a long time to let the rot set in.

Good results there for searching for them.

I was wondering what I was snagging on in no man's land a few months ago.....now I know. The wise thing to do would be to incorporate these with other artificial reefs. If the goverment was serious they would give the green light to a continuous narrow artificial reef along the edges of all trawler boundaries. This will essentially create highways for fish migration and habitat that would not be isolated and flogged to death. The further apart we can spread the rec sector fishing spots, the less pressure there will be on the fishery. We have thousands of tons of concrete being either smashed up or being used in landfill these days. concrete is a proven good substrate for reefs to build upon. Imagine a continuous reef 2m wide from Skirmish Point to down past Cleveland....how much benefit will that aid the fishery?

Deepwater Bend can fish decently almost all year round IF you fish it effectively. Put a berley mix bomb in the water about 4 metres up current from you and out about 1m from the edge. About 20 minutes later start fishing up current from you about 1 to 1.5m from the bank with unweighted flesh baits about the size of a 10c coin, removing the slack line as the current brings your bait towards you. The moment the current starts pulling on your line you will need to recast....the fish will not smack a cube that is not drifting normally...the pickers start then. Bream will be ranging from small to quite big, well over the kilo mark. I have caught a few large jacks there over the years fishing this way as well... September if I fish there i will swap out cubes for whole whitebait that have just finished the run in the river. Casts more than 3m from the bank will leave you frustrated with untouched bait or stingrays. It fishes fairly well for luderick along the bank there too....you do need to berley them to concentrate them though. Shorncliffe pier fishes quite well for whiting on the flats before the house in the middle, otherwise completely unweighted baits dropped beside the pilons is the go.

Contact Suntag to become an active member. Governments use their data. https://suntag.org.au/

I'm sad for my wife's grandkids....they will never know the freedom of growing up in an environment where the sun goes down and you come home from where ever you spent the day almost with whoever you wanted to and are at the table for dinner....or camping without chaperones down the river.....or even walking without a parent to school. They will likely not be able to break into the housing market without some large assistance from parents or inheritance. They will likely live in houses that almost or do share walls....no back yard and no room to park your car. That's not life, that is prison without bars.

It is frightening looking at the population growth...currently so far this year the growth rate is over twice the death rate. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ Also the corona virus tab on that same page is interesting.

Covid didn't scratch the surface in the population explosion. How would the world react to mass reduction? I made a decision never to have kids before I became a teenager....nearly 50 years on and I still think being a parent was the right thing for me to avoid. China's enforced population control is really starting to cause havoc there with the ageing population and less workers to do the work.....another 20 years and the world will see how that can cripple a country. We complain about the skills shortage here currently....it is far worse in China.

I did a few days on a river beam trawler when i was about 13/14 back in the 70's. It was the height of the prawn season and Alf (the trawlerman) kept his 4 crates of prawns and a flathead, I got to take home two flat head per day. Bycatch on the beam trawler was not huge, maybe 5% by weight max of the catch and the runs each time were short...200m max. About 8 runs we did each day to reach his required amount. All the prawns he used to catch went to tweed bait, none of it went to the coop or the shops. Maybe a handful of the largest ones might go home each day for a feed. As far as I know all the river beam trawlers run on quotas and supply bait markets predominantly. What happens when trawlers are kicked out everywhere? Do we rely on imported prawns and fish from there on?

No doubt the water board will be out there baiting pigs in the next week or so when they notice this photo.

You would have to be wearing a smile now...well earned.

I still use a few Stradic FH models from the late 90's....still going strong and have had a very hard life. One 1000FH is on its 3rd set of carbon fibre washers after multiple threadfin salmon seasons. Another one has been ill treated with jacks and jew. Nothing like testing their worth at times....

Change the fish measuring rules for concave tail fish to fork length....snapper to be minimum 50cm fork length.....they grow to over a metre anyway.

Qld needs rec fishing licenses badly.... licenses to fund fisheries inspectors in large numbers.....moneys generated from fines to go into fishing related infrastructure / stocking. Currently we are barely policed, heavily reaped and raped. Get the fines happening in big numbers then watch the funds for infrastructure balloon. I would happily pay $100 per year to protect and develop the fishery. The other option is being allowed to cull the illegal ativities we all see / experience most days....can't see them authorising that though.

Gold Coast area pretty much has it all to choose from. Hard to think of a species that is not available here in SEQ that is not in decent numbers. Still the anglers probably close to outnumber the fish so look for less fished areas....don't do the seaway landbased like every other tourist does.

See if you can find a JS102 9 wrap snyderglass rod. up to 24kg off the rocks and will cast a bare pilly a long way.

Onya Bob, well earned.

Do not leave it until the last minute to run home if the weather is coming in....often times it may be better to sit out the squall safely and return after it has passed. Always keep an eye on the weather forecast, observations and radars before and during a boating trip. Do not try and punch back through a squall.

I start with two bags of ice and 9 litres of sea water....it melts out through the day but still cold. Best fillets are always from bled fish....the trend is to brain spike then bleed....i just gill them into a bucket with some water. Dont fillet your fish until back on land....fisheries likes to check your bags on the water and at the ramps....non compliance with filletted fish is quite high.