benno573

You should. A very worthy investment and not going to be available for much longer. Shame it’s nearly a year until your birthday!

Well worth the effort. Beautiful flavored white and flaky. Side by side with snapper certainly wasn’t any lesser quality.

Butterfly bream Not regulated. This one was about 32cm so about max size for them. Nice little fillet. i can attest to them making great bait on the reefs but this will be the first one I’ve bothered to eat and it’s purely off mr grants comments above. Will report back shortly on taste.

Hey @STKE, i used to fish the area out from the cape regularly in my 5.3m half cabby. The forecast from last Saturday would have given me no cause for concern at all, however, Sunday would have been a different issue. Looking at the chart from Saturday, there was no real discernible change throughout the day meaning the weather would remain stable. Sunday showed stable conditions early but a SE change hitting in the late arvo/evening. i would certainly have given it a crack on Saturday, however, would have been unlikely to roll the dice past lunch time on Sunday. Often a change can push through earlier, you usually get warning signs about an hour ahead with cloud formations and the like that usually preceed a change. Best in summer to be planning to head in earlier as the NE sea breeze can kick up real quick anything after about 11am on a hot day and makes for a wet and uncomfortable ride home. In winter I would usually launch at 9am or so once the ssw has calmed down and would often come back about 7-8pm, meaning you get the best of the weather and the peak dusk bite time. If there were storms forecast (even a slight chance) again that would indicate a not overly stable weather pattern and I would not be venturing far from home in case you had to leg it out of there. I got caught in quite a few when doing yacht races - recorded a gust at 74kn in one and the boat was laying flat to the water with no sails up - certainly less than ideal - I even almost spilt my drink. I got caught out in a mates boat off Fraser one day - a predicted 15-20kn SE change that was supposed to hit after lunch hit about 4:30am. We were only 110km from the ramp... thankfully the boat and skipper knew what to do and we cruised home at about 18kn with the wipers on flat out. Tip is don't just look at today, look a little bit ahead too and if the pattern is stable and the chart isn’t changing a lot you can feel reasonably confident about the forecast. as far as fuel goes, I used to launch at port of bris and would have 80L under floor and at least two 20L gerrys on board as well. 5.3m glass boat, 90hp 2-stroke on the back. Only had to use second jerry once but always took it regardless. Cheap insurance if you ask me!

The one near Inglewood? Coolunga or something?

No worries at all mate, happy to help out where possible. I found a lot of other groups/forums were all about a “look what I caught” peacocking session, but while the traffic on AFO may not be as high as others you’ll generally get a reasonable response to a reasonable question (like if you just ask for gps marks or something you are unlikely to get a reasonable response). i’ve been on this forum for about 12-13 years now and have met some top blokes through here who I catch up with regularly, not always for fishing purposes either - bbqs, camping trips etc. I have also unfortunately met @ellicat who makes me carry all his gear when we go rock fishing which is far from helpful. I used to have a 5.3m boat and spent a lot of time trying to crack fishing in the bay and the areas just out from the cape. Welcome to get in touch if you’d like an additional deckie one day, happy to show you some spots/techniques that I found worked for me.

Hey mate, as far as avoiding the pickers - there’s no set answer. Live baits help but not everything out there will eat a live bait, and same with lures. Plastics generally are most successful first up in the morning or at dusk - during the day I tend to be a bait fisho around Mud. I tend to move about until you find an area with decent structure in deeper (6m+) water and try a few different baits. Small snapper are inevitable but if you are also getting grassys or tuskies you aren’t in the wrong area and persistence will generally pay off. Try floating baits just off the bottom or using bigger baits to deter pickers - whole dead herring, small-medium mullet or chunks of gar all work pretty well and are generally avoided by pickers. Just remember a big chunk of a bait like squid or mullet can still be picked to bits. Octopus is another good option as most fish have a hard time picking it off. grinners aren’t much chop as cut bait, they are good shark bait and crab bait though. Also - If you start catching trumpeter - move. They school up and will destroy any and all baits that get near the bottom. They aren’t much good as a live or cut bait either. Another option would be to put up a “going fishing” notice and see if someone who knows the area you plan to fish is available to come along and show you a few bits n pieces.

Any relation to the GOAT Nathan Lyon?

Had a bad case of the lawn grubs mate. Wasn’t game to spray them with the dog around either.

Close enough I guess. About 500m back towards donnybrook from there. Over to you.

Ok... see how we go with this. hint - you can reach this area on a kayak

Dutton park?

Hi all, the forecast for for Saturday was just too good to ignore. Add to that it is May - the best month (in my experience) to fish the bay. Add to that it was just after a full moon. Add to that the change in ‘rona rules and I decided it was time to get the old band back together so @Old Scaley and I hit the water. we managed to beat the worst of the rush at manly boat ramp and headed for some of my old spots around mud. Conditions on the trip over were tough... we arrived at the spot and threw some placcies around for a while. Steve promptly went into negatives with a grinner, I got two undersized snapper and then a small school mackerel. Steve hooked onto something more substantial and despite my initial call of green sea toad I soon slid the net under a lovely cod at 49cm. Happy Steve. it was getting later in the day so we put the plastics away and deployed some baits. A steady stream of undersized snapper and grassys came over the side before my half of a bony bream bait got smashed. A good fight ensued on the lighter gear and a 47cm snapper was boated. Happy Benno. word must have gotten out because more and more boats kept appearing near us and the bite shut down. After landing the second “it’s time to move” fish (trumpeter) I made the call to head to an area I found ages ago that is quite a way from the island and usually attracts very few boats. Without a mark in the GPS and the change in markers around Mud in the last few years messing with my old reference points I closed my eyes and pointed and said I think it is about there and with more ar$e than class hit it pretty much bang on. it was close to slack water and the bite was slow at first. As the tide picked up the bite also came on. 2 x tuskfish, a tarwhine, a random butterfly bream and even an unlucky school mackerel found their way into the esky. Awesome little sesh, plenty of undersized of the right species, a few bust offs, bite offs and near misses. And.... no other boat within about 250m of us which on a day like Saturday is unheard of. GPS mark promptly added to new unit in Steve’s boat. We made the call to head in just as the NE sea breeze was starting to come on so couldn’t have timed it better if we tried. Ramp wasn’t too bad but I think if we’d arrived back an hour later it would have been a very different story! heres a photo of the catch (less the cod and less some unwanted bits) dragon getting his share - mackerel tail entree and just one more conditions shot because it was so horrible... thanks heaps to @Old Scaley for the day out, was an absolute corker and hope to do it again as soon as home life allows such things. Hope the cod went down as well as the tuskfish last night. Mackerel Thai red curry tonight - can’t wait! cheers for reading benno <‘><

Pontoon at the mouth of oxley creek? just so you know - pike eels count as negative points. Double negative if you have to touch them!

Cabbage tree point is fine on any tide - very open to wind and current though. vic pt is also fine but areas around there are shallow on a dead low. not sure on Weiman ck. Jacobs well is pretty good but has a drop off that can come into play on a dead low tide. Port of Brisbane is fine any tide. Any of the manly harbour ramps are good too.

Punsand bay?

Anyone would think you were there or something... over to you mate.

Both very much in the right area but not quite correct

Ok... should be an easy one I hope?

Most likely a bull shark - there’s always tonnes of bait around the jetty and I have seen them free jumping near there while walking the dog along the foreshore. for sharks, in my experience, a nylon coated wire trace doesn’t massively affect the bites. Run about 30cm of it and then a further 1.5-2m of heavier mono leader. In a prolonged fight the rough skin of a shark can wear through line above the wire quite easily. another way is to make a set of gangs and leave the top hook free of the bait. So a gang of 3 - bait only goes on the bottom two. This is much more effective on mackerel who are very wary of wire. Still recommend running 1.5-2m of 40-60lb leader.

Mt gravatt?

Correct. North point beach just out in front of campground. Off you go!

Not bribie and not coochin. i actually didn’t think this one would be as hard. Note how distant the glasshouse mountains are. Almost like I’m looking at them from somewhere on the other side of the bay...

All no... ok... clue time... yes the are the glasshouse mts. It is a sunset...

No and no