mangajack

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....

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.

47 minutes ago, AUS-BNE-FISHO said:

No worries manga, sounds like your session was still pretty successful, have you ever tried upstream of the city in the river?

St Lucia is the furthermost upstream in the Brisbane River for me....

Investigating some spots around Bribie next.

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.

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.