Reputation from Leeroy - Page 5 - Australian Fishing Online

Leeroy reacted to rayke1938 in back at last April 20, 2023

Finally got back on the water after a bit of a layoff. Had Rick and Joy to help me wind in the biguns. Shrimp were a bit scarce with small redclaw outnumbering the shrimp. We found a few fish on the point opposite the old fridge but we left looking for larger ones. There were plenty of schools on the sounder but they all turned out to be hungry forkies.Not a thing on the floats but we found a school of small bass on the tip of the island. We tried a few spots between the islands that were productive 3 weeks ago but not even a forky there. We ended up with 35 bass between 18 and 37cm and 15 forkies. Seq water were doing a burn off behind the sailing club.

Leeroy reacted to crazywalrus in Easter fishing mission with DHess and Kids April 17, 2023

Quick report DHess popped up for a week with the kids at Easte. We head down to Mission Beach and up off Port Douglas/Cape Tribulation combined. Some glorious weather, some excellent fishing, some fun snorkelling and many many sharks.

Leeroy reacted to kmcrosby78 in Ummm ..... we got a few ......... :) April 17, 2023

Alternate titles considered for this topic:
'Paravane trolling - no longer boring ......'
'One rod, 4 people, 2 and a half hours of mayhem' ........... 🤪
Took my boys and my dad out this arvo (left ramp about 1:30pm) with the hopes of coming across some tuna working the surface and hopefully some mackerel in with them. Went past Spero Kartanos who does great reports on the Fishing Monthly website and our local paper out here in Wynnum and he called us over for a chat - was glad we did as he's always helpful with advice and my boys hadn't met him yet. He let us know the mackerel were on the chew over near the Hope Banks, which was evident as there were quite a few boats in the area.
So, over we went, paravane deployed (one to begin with, before my dad asked why we aren't putting a second out ....). I stuck with one for a few minutes before deciding with four of us on the boat we should be able to manage it. Problem was, I was letting my boys do lots of the boat driving and they sometimes turn a bit too sharply (often as they're distracted looking at the tuna schools pop up ........) and, you guessed it, we got an almighty tangle. It was about 2:30pm when we sorted it and went back to one line in the water. As we went past a tuna school I threw my soft plastic set up in but it wasn't heavy enough (1/6th jighead - I need to stock up on some bigger/heavier ones). Then tried throwing it behind the boat and free spooling until we were past a school, then winding through them, to no avail. So plastics rod was put back in the holder and our/my focus turned to hopefully getting some action on the paravane/spoon set up. Then, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, a solid fish goes on a couple of good runs and before too long (5 minutes or so) a reasonable mack tuna is netted, with my boys going off as it's the first tuna they've seen landed (I would have preferred a longtail but beggars can't be choosers ......).
Not too long after several schools were popping up in close proximity to each other and the next 2 and a half hours was a blur of fish on, fish landed, lure/paravane back in, bleed fish, wipe hands and prepare for the next strike. Sometimes there wasn't time for this, I think three times the next fish struck before I could put the rod back in the corner rod holder. Good times!!
My boys had some more quality practice driving the boat, changing the speed, etc and did a great job overall. About halfway through the mayhem my boys wanted to have a go at winding them in and despite me being dubious about their ability to do so (biggish rod/reel, paravane creates decent drag and we keep driving forwards to help keep the fish hooked) they managed to do so (George needed some help from me to hold the rod up and towards the end of the fight I helped handling the line towards him). Glad they could though, made it even more special for them.
We left them biting about 5pm as the esky was getting full and wanted to get back to the ramp before dark but could have easily stayed for longer and caught more - our last fish was another nice spotty that George wound in so a nice way to finish.
Back at the ramp we chatted to two young boys on the pontoon that were waiting for their dad to reverse the trailer and they ended up on my boat checking the fish out. My boys decided they wanted to give them a school mackerel so we did 🙂.
By far the best session I've had with the boys in fact one of if not the best session I've ever had (including on charter boats) and very glad my dad was along for the ride. Irony is that my three brothers and I often recall our most memorable session as kids which was in dad's boat near Mackay where we nailed the spotties. History repeats 🙂.
Finally tally 16 schoolies (including the one we gave away), 7 spotties and the mac tuna. We had no undersized mackerel (one we caught was right on legal - 50cm - so we threw it back), didn't drop any when swinging them into the boat - only netted the tuna - and only dropped 3 or 4 fish in total, due to the boys inexperience maintaining either speed or correct direction when driving the boat once we were hooked up or because George struggled to keep momentum with the reel. Overall, gotta be happy with that ..... 🙂.
I was going to go again tomorrow but think I'll be busy enough filleting and we have plenty of fish that will last a while. My parents are taking some up to two of my brothers tomorrow plus my cousin and an uncle, both sets of grandparents will get some plus my sister in law and my neighbours so they won't go to waste 🙂.
I can't guarantee they'll be on tomorrow but you'd think they would be, there's plenty of bait (small whitebait I think) out there so if you are free, I know what I'd be doing 🙂. Thanks for reading.

Leeroy reacted to ellicat in Mud Island 14/4/23 April 14, 2023

Hit up Mud island today with an old banned member. We launched early at 5 and rustled up some livies, then headed on up. Pretty quiet start with only one legal grassie amongst a fair few pickers for the first hour or so. Eventually the rig for a bigger snapper went off, just as we were saying things were quiet. My mate hooked up to it, but 2 minutes in the hook pulled. Disappointed!
We persevered for some time with more unders and both dropped decent fish. After the tide turned, the fish came on the chew again and we managed to increase the tally to 4 grassies and 1 tuskie. Not a bad day, with conditions allowing a WOT for the ride home.
Cuttlefish doing most of the damage.