benno573

so just to summarize... not WA, not Tas, Not NSW (or NSW ish). Not Sunny coast. Photo taken in Autumn (not sure if that helps but @ellicat seems to think it is important). here's a small hint... that's a sunset, not a sunrise.

Not NSW-ish

Not Iluka

shouldn't you be doing some school work mate? Not byron Bay

autumn

Nope

Nope

Nope

Dino Dino Dino... what were you thinking??? You’ll start to rust if you keep this up!

No sounder for me. It’s on my to-do list but not at the top. I often beach launch my kayak so not having salt water splashing over electronics is a factor. I figure I’ll hit the bottom when it’s too shallow. Wello is fairly easy to fish without a sounder - you can find the ledge/ drop off by just watching the bottom and when you can’t see it any more you’ve gone over the drop off. Then you sit out in the deeper water and cast back into the shallows and work the lure out over the ledge. There’s plenty of islands and other landmarks and even crab pot floats to help you stay in the right area.

Ok, see how we go with this one

I’m not Superman...

Yeah - this early start was voluntary! @kmcrosby78 If you dropped a bait jig you’d fill the freezer no worries. Plenty of schools of hardiheads around too. I didn’t want to go home with stinky hands so just stuck with the placcies and a few trolled hardbodies. @ellicat bust off and grassy happened in the same area so there was definitely more than one around. Hopefully I’ll get a few more next time! I have a second kayak and a tow rope if you’re interested...

Liam knows a good thing when he sees it - i’d go straight for the tusky as well and then debate about whether to go the flounder or grassy next. cracker day out on the water mate. Weather was off the scale good, quality time with the offspring and a few fish to boot. Living large!

Hi all, been a while since a did a report. between a change in commitments on the home front and the whole isolation BS... opportunities to get out and about in any way, shape or form have been limited at best. The forecast for Sunday looked toooooo good to ignore so I begged and pleaded and was allowed to disappear for a few hours for some socially isolated “exercise” on my hobie kayak. i arrived at wello pt boat ramp at bang on sunrise, quickly rigged the yak up and headed out into the bay. keen to get off the donut early, I trolled a small lure out of the channel and had 3 pike and a grinner before the end of the leads. Not an illustrious start sure but donut avoided! i headed for an area where other boats and kayaks were not, figuring even if the structure wasn’t amazing the lack of noise etc would hopefully lead to better success. I rigged up and then realized I had packed the wrong “medium” rod - 6-8kg, not 4-6kg. Not the right rod for working a plastic on a lighter jighead at all. So I benched it and pulled out the lighter 2-5kg 10lb rig and crossed my fingers nothing too big came along. first cast resulted in a small cod Next cast - absolutely smashed and promptly bricked and busted off. Bugger! re-rigged, next cast and smashed again, managed to keep this one off the bottom and shortly slid the net under a corker grassy - ended up going 44.5cm on the lie detector. shortly after, landed a Moses perch that was just legal but I let him go anyway then things went went a little quite for about 1/2 hr, wasn’t even bothered too much by pike! Then in consecutive casts I landed a couple of nice pinkies I fished for another hour or so but could only manage an undersized grassy and about 20 more pike. So I cruised back to the ramp and headed for home. to the victor go the spoils... cheers for reading. benno <‘><

Lake Macquarie?

Hamilton island?

North of Cape Bowing Green i.e. somwhere from Townsville up mate. There's nowhere in Byfield that looks that nice!

Elim Beach?

Cape bowling green?

Edit because I just re-read and you can’t drive to an island... cape hillsborough?

Few weeks?? This is goodbye to @ellicat for good...

Couple of quick ones from me... was fishing in 80m+ out off Fraser in the middle of the night. my mate got nailed by something big, line touched side of boat, fish and ~80m of braid gone. many swear words said. I then hook up and start having a significant argument with a big beastie. after about 1/4hr I had a high-finned AJ at the boat at about 12kg.... and some braid wrapped up around the 2nd dropper on paternoster. grabbed braid, realized it was from my rod my mate was using, started to pull it up - and with only a couple of cuts in my hands from the braid shortly landed a second high-finned AJ about the same size. my mate is still sore about it too. another story came from moreton island. it was blowing 30+ from the NNW, just about the worst possible wind for the island. had consumed just enough liquid courage to go for a walk up to the north point rocks with a rod just to see if it was worth having a flick. there was a corner that was a little less unsafe so i launched a 70g slug and let it sink down. 2 cranks of the handle and away we go. a seriously nuts fight in the conditions and with a lot more ar$e than class, I managed to land a 85cm mulloway, after which I promptly gave up and headed back to camp for a lot more liquid courage and far too much crumbed fresh mulloway. proabably my favourite memory though was when I was fishing off my kayak near wellington point right on first light. there was some big boofs and a few showers of bait around but I was after snapper / sweetlip so didn't have the right gear to throw a slug around for whatever they were. so on my 15lb 4-6kg rig, i hooked the 7:14 express from central station on a 1/4 oz jighead and a 4" gulp. this thing headed for the open bay, I was peddling flat stick after it to try and not get spooled. 2 old mates in their tinny asked if i was ok - i just said if i'm not back in a hour or two to come looking for me. so i chased this thing around on a thankfully glassy bay for ages, eventually ending up about 500m from harry atkinsons reef with a big slab of a longtail tuna on my lap. I bled the fish out and lashed it to the side of the kayak to keep it cool - it was a little big for my esky - and started heading back to where i thought wellington point was. At this point, the two old mates in their tinny appeared on the horizon like a pair of angels, took the fish and put it in their esky to chill it, threw me some water (i had run out) and then a tow rope and towed me all the way back - arriving back at wellington pt at 1030am. fish went just over 16kg, i gave the guys the two snapper i had caught earlier as a thanks and then headed home.

purple and black spinnerbaits with gold blades. best colour combo in murky water or in low light in my opinion.

Not a regular capture but they certainly still exist. Have caught several down around jacobs well / pin area over the years, as well as one near Mud Island and a few off the beaches at moreton. Even had to jump out of the boat one day while trolling in about 50cm of water for flathead and dig one out of the sand with a paddle. it had grabbed the lure and buried itself immediately about 20cm into the sand. managed to get both the fish and my lure back. best one came off the beach at moreton and weighed in at just over 2kg. Comments around edibility are completely correct. Beautiful delicate white flesh. Surprisingly meaty fillet given the size of the head.