Old Scaley

Anyone ever looked at costs for boat and trailer storage on the Goldy? Contemplating a sea change and we want to be right on the water which means a unit (couldn’t afford a house) and even if we could get one with 2 car spaces I doubt The neighbours would appreciate me cranking up the 2 banger in the underground car park 5 days a week. I can’t imagine retirement without a boat so looking for options that I can afford and will work for everyone.

Yeah, I know that @benno573. Saved the frames for next trip. I did try using one for live bait where I caught the whiting because they are deadly for big flathead as well but no joy.

So many beautiful places in northern NSW. If only that pesky Great Barrier Reef would hurry up and die we could have those surf beaches, headlands and beautiful estuaries all the way up the Queensland coast as well. Oh wait, that might mean no more red fishes so maybe cancel that idea. Love the camping spot photo @tugger. Hard to beat a spot where you can fish from your awning.

The best part about not working any more is being able to pick the best days of the week to go fishing. Yesterday was certainly a cracker to be out on the water. Had a little solo trip to the front of the rock wall, leaving the port ramp about 8am. Pretty quiet with just a few very pretty wrasse, some bream around the 25cm mark and a sole to keep me entertained early. Not a single snapper, which is what I was looking for. Decided to move to a spot close by where I often find flatties. Threw a prawn on a bream rig while I tossed plastics around looking for the flathead. The prawn was taken by a winter whiting so I changed hooks and started feeding them half a peeled prawn. Gathered 19 in no time, and thought that would be enough filleting for one day, so moved into the river to see if I could bag a snap on the outgoing tide. Very quiet to begin with, but came on the chew 30 minutes before I needed to get off the water. Caught 4 or 5 that were around the 34cm mark and then bagged a decent 45cm model for the esky on my last cast. Overall a beautiful day on the water. Interesting too - I saw the Japanese warships and a sunken tinnie tied off to a channel marker. Never a dull moment down there. Here is a bad picture of a couple of dead fish. Thanks for reading.

Hard to work out whether that means 120 consecutive days or 120 days in total? Maybe the idea is to crack down on people living on boats with no mooring and possibly no proper toilet facilities? I can’t imagine how anyone could keep track of the number of days a boat spends on the water. I would love to spend 120 days on the water every year, but reckon it would be closer to 50 if I was lucky.

Oops! Darn predictive text. And now I can’t edit it to bommies or your joke won’t make sense

You need to keep an eye on the green zones around the island and if you are travelling around the northern side, watch your depth. The reef extends out a fair way and some of the homies are not far under the water on the lower tides. The artificial reef balls on the western side are not very big so can take a bit of looking. Avoid the areas of high boat traffic for best results. Good luck.

Welcome to the forum @Luis. What sort of fishing to you do in Argentina? I love seeing overseas reports and looking at the different sorts of fish that live around the world.

Great photos @Little Grey Men.

We knew it was coming because this what the Blues have done for decades. How can you expect to get the team focus and culture when you chop and change like that. All those players are playing for their spot every game and not thinking about their team mates. Mitchell should feel hard done by, but what about Morris. He was such a weapon in game one in attack and defence and he gets replaced? Ferguson could be the best player on the field for Qld, or he could be a game breaker, but why take a chance like that when you are one nil down? Looks like the Blues are trying for a bit of physical intimidation but they have tried that before and come unstuck. Go the Mighty Maroons! What do you guys think about the game being on a Sunday, and in Perth?

See if you can get a back issue of Queensland Fishing Monthly from August last year. They do reports at all different locations from Yamba to FNQ and have some great info about what to target, where to try and what techniques to use. Good luck.

@Luvit, did you put this up just to drive the rest of us insane with jealousy? First, the boat envy, then the location envy followed by the drone envy. Then, to really tip us over the edge, you slip in a reference to an upcoming trip to the Kimberley! You are a cruel, cruel man Wayne.

We always stop in at that coffee shop too @Luvit on the way to or from visiting the outlaws in Hervey Bay. Works out to be expensive coffee because Mrs Scaley always finds some retro piece of junk to buy while she is waiting for the coffees. The butcher across the road is worth a look as well, but judging by that bucket of fillets I guess you weren’t looking for extra protein. Great report as usual. Congrats on the PBs.

I can’t remember what time of the year it was, but last year they were schooled up in front of the tug station at Port of Brisbane. There was a little group of boats pulling them in hand over fist. I did mention it in a post but I can’t find that now.

Looks great @leigh123. Congrats on the boat, the fish and the squid! I love the photo of the squid. Is that motor a Johnson?

Definitely @Drop Bear. See you at your joint at 8am unless you give me another time.

I was watching it on a live streaming service in Malaysia and there was a few hiccups and occasional buffering that detracted a bit from the enjoyment of the game, but what a game it was! Got home today and have it recorded so will watch it again as soon as I catch up on some sleep. Did all my tips before I went away, but just noticed before that I forgot to enter my tip for the SOO. GRRRR.....

Congrats Wayne. I am sure you will get a lot of business from people on this site. Good luck with it.

Nice report @kmcrosby78, sounds like something for everyone in the family. I know your boys want to take that grinner mantle away from you, but I think @benno573 is the new holder of that title. He and I had a good session over at Mud on Saturday morning and he landed some stonker grinner, most of which ended up in the crab pots. No time to do a report today (and no photos) but we (more specifically Benno) ended up with a good cod, one good pan sized snapper, a 50cm flathead, a couple of legal tuskies and 3 sandies out of 8 pots.

Did you get out there @straddiebrad?

How good were the Broncos and how bad were the Panthers.

@ellicat, I am surprised you didn’t tip your beloved Tigers last night. I thought they were the better team for 95% of the game. We should have a rule that you have to tip your nominated favourite team.. I always tip the 3 Queensland teams which means that most weeks I am starting from -3 but at least I can watch the games and not be hoping they lose. Tipping Broncos over Chooks tonight but expect to be disappointed again. Fair chance Cowboys and Titans could win so this could be a good week for me.

Haha. You back from NZ yet?

I have been using up the last of my long service leave on the way to retirement and to any fishos out there who are close to the end of their working lives, I can thoroughly recommend tossing it in as soon as you can afford. No more sitting in boring meetings on those days when you know the Bay will be glassed out, just wishing you could be anywhere on the water. Last Thursday was one of those perfect Brisbane weather days so I knew I had to take advantage of it. Contacted a few potential deckies but no one available so I was all set up for a solo effort. I do like the solo trip but also appreciate the company on other occasions. Anyway, at 5am @ellicat sent me a message to say he was recovering from his man flu and was keen to join me so I arranged to pick him up on the way through to the ramp at the port. The plan was to get to Mud around the turn of the tide and hope that a couple of bigger snapper may have been patrolling the area before too many boats moved in. The ramp was relatively quiet (ah, the joys of the work day fish) and we put in just as the sun was coming up. By the way if you are looking for a good bait shop around the Bayside try Mr Bait in Violet Street at Hemmant. Good stuff at good prices. I lost my marks for Mud a while ago when I did a factory reset of the sounder so we sounded around until we found a nice drop off. Baits we’re deployed and I had a a plastic working as well. The baits were being attacked regularly but only pickers. @ellicat was on a mission to show @jon how to wrangle a big tusky and it wasn’t long before he was battling his own pb. I have no idea why I can’t insert photos where I want them anymore but there is a pic below of the man himself with his monster from the deep. Over the next couple of hours we landed babies of a heap of species including snapper, grassies, tuskies, lancer, bream, stripies and more, but nothing near a keeper. We decided to move to the front rock wall at the port where I had some success a couple of weeks ago. Stopped at a favourite flathead spot on the way but no touches on bait or plastics. The wall was a bit more productive with a few bigger but still not legal snaps. We did get busted off a couple of times and lost connection with a few better fish. I managed a 41cm snap for a baked dinner but that was it for the day. No crabs either. Al in all, a very enjoyable day in perfect conditions despite the lack of keepers. Not the most exciting reportbut then reports have been scarce the last few days.

Nice little bag @Nog. Were there many boats around Harries? Now that @ellicat has mentioned our trip I guess I will have to do a quick report but will start a new topic.