Alex2505

Well, barring unforseen circumstances it looks like I've just sold my 40HP... a guy just gave me a $1000 deposit on it and will be back with another $1500 in a week, so I made $500 on the deal which pays for the installation and the new external fuel tank I had to buy to show it running on the stand (which will now go into the boat as an emergency fuel source). Hoorah for free upgrades!
It's not quite free, turns out I need to replace a seal which is making the gear shift stiff in and out of gear but that's not urgent. 🙂

Have not had a chance to try this yet, but I just received a new atomic arrowz 3-10lb and new stradic 1000. 
will be used on trout and redfin 🤘

Update: Deposit recieved, pending final part payment.
I have for sale a used 1999 Mercury 40HP 2 stroke 3 cylinder engine, long (20") leg. It's done about 30 hours since it's last service, and it had new plugs, leads, impellor, and gearbox seals, both anodes, and has had the fuel pump rebuilt. Still has the oil injection intact. Comes with a brand new spare propeller, as well as forward controls and gauges (speedo, tacho, trim, hours). It's total hours are unknown as the boat didn't come with an hour meter. I'll also throw in the home made engine stand it's sitting on. Only selling as I upgraded to a larger engine, has been a strong performer for me once I had it properly serviced and so on. Has been flushed after every use for as long as I've had it, no overheating etc. Compression gauge meters out at 107, 107, 105 (though it's a cheapie meter and may not be 100% accurate, but at least you know there's no dead cylinders. Feel free to BYO gauge if you like).
I won't lie to you, it's a bit more than 20 years old and like anything that's been around salt water than long it's not perfect. The biggest issue with it is the steering is a little stiff, but still very usable. When I got it, it was very stiff but I've done a lot of work on it and gotten new grease out of both ends and it's no longer an issue, just not perfect. Another minor quirk is that the trim sender is not quite in the correct position due to a broken screw, so the gauge doesn't read quite right. Again it's usable, just not perfect... and if you have the skills and patience to remove the broken screw it'd be just fine. The sender itself is obsolete but I found a "new old stock" genuine mercury item in the US to put on.
Asking price is $2000, can demonstrate it working on the stand in Gailes (just west of Brisbane). Call or text me on 0403 821 965.

Following on from Max's landbased Spaniard last month, the kids had another crack at landbased pelagics at Amity Point and they were not disappointed. The highlight was a metre plus longtail tuna that Max caught on live bait. He lost a much bigger one. Max and Eva also got a few mac tuna on various chrome slugs and plenty of Watson's leaping bonito. 
 
 
 

Returned this week from a camping fishing trip to Cape York. I have done a few of these trips with the same guys so I knew we would have a good time, with lots of laughs, too many beers and a lot of hard yakka for us old fellas. 
None of my camping buddies are social media fans and we have a pact that we won’t post pictures that would identify each other or the locations we fished. None of these spots are secrets but the fear is that the more online exposure they get, the more people will come and take away some of the remote feel. It wouldn’t be a problem anyway since zero coverage meant the phones were usually left at the camp uncharged. 
The original plan was to head north in the boats from Mapoon on the western Cape to camp at one of the rivers between Cullen Point and Seisha. The fishing there is insane. Unfortunately the road was still closed at Archer River, and since we were towing a couple of tonnes of boat and gear we decided that it would be a tough trip before the first grade of the dry season. So the decision was made to head to a location near Princess Charlotte Bay which we knew would be accessible and where we had caught barra and jacks previously. 
It was a long camp (16 nights) but we were well set up with plenty of solar, a 200 litre water bladder that we could refill from a freshwater dam not too far from camp, lots of food, 16 cartons of beer, a couple of cartons of wine and several bottles of spirits. 
Last time I went there it was virtually empty. This time there was a surprising number of camps. The May long weekend and the road closure may have contributed. People came and went over the period of our stay. The place is extremely croccie so I was pleased we camped well back from the water. This big fella was floating around in front of the camp, up and down with the tide for most of the time we were there. We called him Mr Stinky and estimated he was at least 4.5 metres 

Not sure if he was shot by someone or died of natural causes  
The first 2 days was the run up to the new moon and Barra were boofing everywhere. Others were using livies and it took us most of  the first day to find them. We tried trolling but only managed blue salmon which were good size but not what we came for so they were used as strip bait and crab bait. That worked a treat and we started getting big threadies (or kingies as they call them up north).  I don’t know how many we caught but several each and none were under the magic metre mark.

The Barra were getting harder to find as tides started to get smaller, as were the livies. We switched back to lures and got a few. They were all 70cm+ so the quality was there even if the numbers were down  I got my PB of 85cm (previously 82cm) but am yet to crack the metre.

The last few days the barra and threadies slowed right down and we were catching more sharks and catfish. Blue salmon kept biting but we didn’t get a single jack, which is unusual there.  Mud crabs were pretty reliable and we only lost 2 pots to crocs or sharks. 
By the end of the camp we were all pretty tired and over the mosquitoes and snakes, so ready for the big pack up and 2 day trip back to Cairns. We had a few mechanical failures as is usual on those sorts of trips (2 blown trailer tyres, 1 blown tyre on the tow vehicle, trailer hydraulic brakes taken out by a flapping blown tyre, and one of the batteries for the Minn Kota stopped charging on the last day) so overall not a bad result. We are planning to make this an annual trip now that most of us are retired. Fish while you can! Sorry there are not more photos but you can get the idea. Tight lines everyone  
 
 

The 60 metered out to exactly the same figures as the 40 which is encouraging. The gearbox oil was green, not white, and it started and ran better than the 40 does. The steering's really light and free too, unlike the 40 which I've struggled to free to to a usable point. The vendor even gave me his home made engine stand which'll make it easier to sell the 40. Took boat and engine in today, should be ready tomorrow AM but I'm baby sitting a sick toddler tomorrow so first chance to put it in the river and give it a blast will be thuraday... will let you know. It's propped to suit a 5.1m fibreglass boat and is going on a 4.3m ally boat so chances are will have to change prop to get the best out of it.

Just had a great holiday up at Fraser Island to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary.
Day 1
Brisbane to Rainbow Beach for breakfast and refuel .
Rainbow Beach to Inskip point to air down tyres and for the barge trip to Hook point .
Drive up beach from Hook Point to Dilli Village to exit to Lakes Drive .
Dilli Village to Lake Boomanjin to Lake Benaroon to Lake Birrabeen to Central Station to Lake McKenzie to Eurong Resort 
Check in  Dinner at Resort.
Day 2 
Eurong to Poyungan Rocks to Yidney Rocks to Happy Valley to Maheno Wreck to The Whale Carcass to The Pinnacles to Red Canyon Indian Head for lunch  to Champagne Pools .
Return to Eurong for dinner.
Day3 
Eurong  to Indian Head to Waddy Point to Ngkala Rocks to Orchid Beach Pub to Waddy Point for Lunch.
Return to Eurong to for dinner .
Day 4 
Eurong to Elli Creek to Sand Blow to Woralie Creek  / Coongul Creek /Bowarrady Creek .
Spend day parked up just north of Woralie Creek relaxing on beach for lunch and afternoon tea. 
 
Return to Eurong
Day 5
Breakfast at Eurong Bakery 
Check out of resort  at 10am
Drive down beach to barge .
Car Wash at Rainbow Beach 
Lunch
Refuel 1/2 between Rainbow beach and Gympie
Drive back to Brisbane 

 








IMG_7863.mov

Just finished this spin rod for a mate. 7’5 graphite blank built for a 5k Stradic loaded with 30lb braid. All Fuji components. Loving how it turned out!
This will be used to chase snapper and trout on plastics up to 1oz, as well as tuna and mackerel on slugs up to 40g. Could even cast small stickbaits at reef edges too - proper Swiss Army knife!

Got away with the girls for the mothers day weekend.
Left Donnybrook boat ramp around 130pm on Saturday, boat packed to the gunnell , cruised over, set up camp.. 
Left the girls on the beach and dropped the pots in with some chicken frames, just on the edges of holes towards lime pocket. Pumped some yabbies to fish from mission pt campground. 
Got a few on the first soak, came back to camp to continue feeding the bream and Moses perch.
Second soak Got a couple more, had a flick and got a nice whiting and tested the trolling motor (it didn't fall off)
A mate that camped next to us caught a 53cm snapper and a 43cm whiting on yabbies while I was enjoying time with the fam. Some cracking fish for the passage.
The rest of the weekend was filled with camp oven lamb shoulder, toasted marshmallows and more crabs. Ended up with more than enough for myself, my mate, my mum and even the dog had a taste. 
Good trip. Keen to really give the trolling motor a workout soon.  

Went for a quick fish this morning . Struggled to find anything of substance .
Brought home 6 grassies , a nice tuskfish and a huge sole ,so won’t go hungry.
photographed these for the Southside.
Mauri Cods 335mm , 445mm and 350mm all released
Grassy Sweetlip 340mm ,350mm and 435mm
Spanish Mackerel 615mm , 620mm both released
 

Landed lunch this morning during a very wet and windy couple of hours at Hayes inlet. 43cm Flatty and 23cm whiting. I was happy to get anything in those conditions. 
 
Are squid out and about long the peninsula yet?

Just stumbled across a video I shot last year,   I wanted to see what was eating our reef fish , before we could get them half way up. So I chucked a couple of bait fish frames on the  surface .Hungry little suckers aren’t they!
IMG_0691.mov

This came up on my phone and thought I would share 
https://youtube.com/shorts/U6iAV2HJiTg?feature=shared

Hi guys and gals, 
I’ve just finished building a PE 6-8 stickbait rod for a mate chasing barrel yellowfin tuna and the odd mackerel using surface lures. I pulled on a few blanks before settling on the Samurai SB8 which is 8’ and 2 piece (butt join). It’s got a softer tip (=faster action) than an equivalent popper rod as it doesn’t need the resistance to generate the popping/splashing out of the lures, and this translates better for the angler fighting tuna who tend to fight dirty under the boat vs gts which you can muscle on the surface (or so I am told!). I went for all Fuji components (rubber gimbal, duralon grips, locking reel seat, pipe extension, stainless steel Fuji SiC guides and bind-on tip) and kept the colour theme classic black with a little bit of bling in YFT colours. I’m pretty happy with the result. My mate will put a Saragosa 25k on it spooled with 60lb exact depth braid and cast 100-200g stickbaits at anything he comes across. I hope I get to see this rod in action!

The 5th, Sandstone point & Pumistone passage

Me, my dad @dhessand my sister woke up at 4:30am, we left our home in Brisbane at 5am and started the roughly 1 hour drive to sandstone point, we arrived around the same time as the sun started to rise. The sky was overcast and the wind was fairly calm, just shy of being glassed out. This trip we all used lures,  we started off with my dad using a Zman StreakZ curly tail on a 1/6 ounce, myself starting off with a 65mm slippery dog, and my sister using a gulp worm on a 1/8 jighead. 
My goal was to try and catch a whiting on a lure. after 30 or so minutes of casting I had no follows or hits on the slippery dog, so I swapped over to a gulp worm. And sure enough after a thew casts I started getting some bites and quickly hooked into a legal whiting, however out of my own stupidity I lifted it straight out of the water at the bank and it fell off.

We leave sandstone point to fish the yabby bank we planned to fish on the outgoing tide, I was using a 130mm bent minnow on my second rod, got 2 hits but missed both of the hookups. around 7:40 am my dad landed the first flatty of the day around 42cm a nice keeper.
At 8:00 my friend tom and his dad arrived, both throwing plastics. 
The bite has really started to fire up now, we where hooking fish every minute, every one caught one apart from me of course. The died after about 15 minutes, fishing was fairly slow after that, in that period we caught 4 flathead and missed 3.
10 am: My dad landed a decent flathead low-mid 50 a bit down the bank.
11 am: Chris, toms dad got a pike.

All flathead caught on the 5th: 

The 6th, Port of Brisbane
We arrived at 1:20pmish with my friend @James Reeves prepared to fish the slack tide at 2:30. We brought mullet gut and a whiting. for bait. Today was super busy with around 15 people under the bridge when usually there are 3 or so. People around us where getting plenty of legal bream, but the current was still roaring.
Just before slack my sister landed a legal bream. My dad got bricked by bream multiple times. James hooked a good bream or a snapper but it came off. My dad got bricked again by what he thought would've been a cod. While the current was slack I tied on an unweighted 50mm bream prawn, I got a thew bites but didn't hook any unfortunately. Some guys next to us landed a legal snapper.
The tide turned and current has started to pickup, plenty of bites but no hookups until about 3:30, my sister hooked a good fish, it was pulling plenty of drag which was fairly tight, but she got bricked unfortunately.
We packed up and left at 4:30 pm

Fellow fishers
A fish that's certainly had my attention for a long time has been the humble barred javelin. Having only recently acquired a tinny less than 2 years ago i'd never caught a legal one. This changed earlier in the year flicking lures around mud island. I hooked a nice one off the bottom (pics attached) and am pretty stoked about catching one locally over 60cm.
I've not since been able to catch another even though trying whenever the weather allows. As always the case in fishing it leads to many questions, but moreso makes me hungrier to find them. I'm interested to see what others experience has been with these awesome fish, particularly in Moreton Bay (MB). Feel free to add whatever comes to mind when you think of them, biggest one youve caught, if you think theyre always around in MB in some form, if theres seasons. Not sure if it's just me but they seem to be popping up regularly (more regularly locally? or am i just noticing them) in my social media feeds, ppl asking for fish ids, some youtube clips even more recently. 
Totally understand if some dont want to share, either, but hope you like the pics....they are cool as.
 

Been a while between "drinks" ...
 
Life has swamped me of late, losing hair faster than I'm losing money but still kicking so can't complain..
Ended up picking up a second hand ACDC tig and some Consumables off the wifes facebook marketplace for $500... has dual pulse inbuilt which is nice I suppose... 350A unit so plenty of heat when it's needed.. compliments my dedicated DC pipe welder nicely. Perfect to stay in the shed for little jobs...
Picked up the 4mm plate and SHS from the local metal supplier on a Saturday which was nice... $130 
Anyway, made up the trolling motor mount today, enjoyed welding the fresh ally, enjoyed everything but welding upside down tying the mount into the dirty aluminium. Got it on, it's solid... 
Have booked a site at mission point next weekend with the family to celebrate mothers day (and also run the pots and flick some lures about)
.... good to have some progress on the boat, definitely made me think about the mods I'm gonna do in the future and how I can make the welding as easy as possible. 

Mid-Upper kedron brook fishing
This is a small guide i've put together about a local waterway I have fished alot with @James ReevesAnd his brother tom, the kedron brook has a bikepath going along almost the whole duration of it so access to most spots is easy. Most of the best spots are downstream of Grange.
(Be careful, there's plenty of karens around)

Fish species
Nile and spotted tilapia
Sea Mullet
Eel tail catfish
Longfin eel
Silver perch
Australian Bass
Bullrout
(Small aquarium fish such as swordtails can also be found)
(Freshwater Prawns)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Guide:
Weather conditions:
Rain is absolutely horrible, the fish will usually completley shut down if there is even just a shower, best times to fish would be sunrise, 11am-2pm, 5-pm to 8pm. Overcast is good unless targeting mullet

Tilapia
Gear: light spinning rod, 6-12lb leader
Lures: Gulp worms (Cast at trees and let it sink unweighted or on a lightweight jighead), 2.5 inch paddle tails (Slowly hop along bottom)
Bait: Prawns (Sinker), Bread (squish into a ball of dough rig unweighted or under a float, or do not squish bread and let it float), worms (Sinker, unweighted or float)
Distribution: All along the freshwater parts of the brook
Notes: Tilapia are invasive, so make sure to kill them and dispose of them properly


Catfish 
Gear: spinning rod, 6-16lb leader, they have teeth but they wont really fray your line
Lures: Those metal spinners used for trout work weirdly well for some reason (Sightcast at catfish, slow roll on bottom, be persistent)
Bait: White grubs found in garden (Sinker, unweighted, Work super well, by far the most effective bait I have used), prawns (Sinker, unweighted) Bread (Sinker, unweighted)
Distribution: All along the freshwater parts of the brook
Notes: Be careful there are venomous spines at the end of their dorsal and pectoral fins


Mullet:
Gear: light spinning rod, 2-10lb leader
Bait: Bread (Squish into small ball of dough, float, only strike when the mullet has pulled the float fully under and started running)
Distribution: All along the brook



Bass: 
Gear: Light spinning rod, 4-14lb leader
Distribution: Windsor and downstream
I haven't caught one myself but my friend@James Reevesand his brother Tom have caught them on small poppers, if you're curious on how to catch them you'll have to ask @James Reeves



Silver perch: 
gear: Light spinning rod, 2-10lb leader
Bait: Bread (Squish into small ball of dough, float)
Very rare to catch in the brook
Distribution: I have only caught them around alderly

Bullrout: 
Notes: It's fun to get spiked by them, as @crazywalrus would know


I've also spotted some sort of carp, probably a Koi or a big goldfish: 

Couple more whiting for team south
390mm and another 350mm

Went for a flathead fish this morning ,but my Lowrance side scan  told me to forget the flathead and fish for something else. 
Ended up getting a nice feed of threadies off the sand in 1.2 m of water. Jess those things go on light gear. Hopefully the photos come up ok as they were beautifully conditioned clean fish.

team south 
Flathead 510mm
Threadfin 1030mm  ,930mm and 965mm
Gave all the fish barring 1 Thready away ,  which I’ll be having with some nice fresh salad tonite.
regards
Neil

My son spent some time fishing over at Amity Point without me. 
He wanted to target pelagics landbased and he certainly produced the goods. He was targeting bonito on small metals next to the boat ramp. He was  doing okay when a ripper of a Spanish mackerel grabbed the small lure. He wasn't fishing with wire and managed to hook it squarely in the mouth. He also didn't have a gaff. There was a big crowd of onlookers watching him land the fish and several boats returning back to the ramp with donuts. It could be a long time before he gets a bigger one landbased. 
 
 

Pearl Cichlids. 
I had these when I had an aquarium. Great looking fish but extremely ferocious. 
 
If anyone catches one. Don't let it go. Destroy it. 
 
 
This recent vid came across my feed yesterday. 
 
 

I’ve been  wanting to make a custom spin  rod for  Tailor  fishing up at Fraser Island for a while now . About a week ago I got on Facebook and  purchased  an old  trashy looking 13 ft butterworth surf rod, (the number on the blank appears to be ss 51569 )for the princely sum of  $50 -hoping I  could do something with the blank.
First up , I stripped it all back and shorted the blank down  till it felt real good at 11 foot 8 inches. I wanted the rod to be powerful ,but as light as possible , so got on line and ordered a set of Alps  aluminium oxide High Rise  Guides , a Fuji reel seat , some shrink wrap grips,  and a butt cap from a local supplier . I had a bit of thread and epoxy in the garage which I used for the project . It took me two nights to bind it all up and epoxy it . My wife even made me up a little decal sticker  for it.
This morning the epoxy had all gone off rock solid  , so I put a Shimano  6000 Saragosa  with 20 lb braid on it and loaded it up to give it a test.Jezzz …  It feels like a weapon and cannt wait to fire out some 65 and 85 g Raiders later this year. I’ve used a lot of high modulus rods but I recon those old school surf rods are hard to beat when surf fishing , they cop a flogging out there on the beach and a lot still being used 20 to 30 years later . Super glad I gave this old girl of a rod a second lease of life.
Neil

We got quite a few really good  70 cm plus tailor up at Fraser last September ,  the best year for big fish I’ve ever had up there , best fish was a 76  cracker ,  looking forward to using that stick later this year to crack an 80 . 

Towards the end of February I headed out in the bay in search of some Jew, I found them and had an absolute shocker!, I lost 4 fish (& plastics) to line break as I was going extremely hard on these fish to try and avoid being sharked, I also got snagged once, got snipped by a mackerel, and when I finally managed to get one close to the boat it got sharked about 3 metres away, I was devastated but not willing to give up, having lost 7 plastics & jigheads I headed off to BCF that afternoon to restock & get some new line.
The plan was to head out there the next day and see if they were still around, well, what a difference a day makes, I dropped the first fish, but managed 2 in 2 casts after that, the 1st went 95-96?, there was a little bit of chop out there and they weren't behaving themselves on the brag mat

I'll admit I took a pretty ordinary pic of him, but you get the idea. After I gave him the treatment and got organised again, this little guy paid me a visit

With 2 onboard in quick succession, the decision was made to leave them be, as its just too risky sport fishing for them with the sharks never too far away, so I decided to move on in search of some more fun.

That fun came via a little 30cm small mouth, which was a first for me in the bay, a Trevally not much bigger came after him, then I headed back in. It was a pleasant few hours all up.
Fast forward a month or so, with very little fishing taking place because of some average weather, when I saw the conditions for Tuesday just gone, it was an easy decision to head back out in the bay.
Jew were on the menu once again, so I deployed the same plastic from the previous outing and after working him for about 15 minutes I hooked a big grinner, now I "technically" didn't land him, no leader was touched, I swear!, I just let him chill next to the boat while I grabbed the pliers, when I came back to the rod he was gone, result!, the scoreboard remains unchanged.
Not long after that incident I hooked up to what I initially thought was a small shark, it hit the plastic just off the bottom and started to scream off, then it started coming up, rather erratic mind you, thinking it was a shark I wasn't interested in playing it out, with a heavy drag set to try and beat the sharks, I wound it in with little respect, that was until I saw it was a nice Spotted Mackerel, perfectly pinned in the centre of the top jaw there was no way he could've escaped, I swung him over the side and swifly gave him the treatment.


A surprise, and very welcomed addition to the esky, Jew were still on my mind so I kept plugging away, I missed a good hit, then the next flick resulted in a nice little Jew, success!.

Another dodgy pic, he got a little bent out shape in the esky. So far that 1 plastic has nailed 3 Jew & a spotty, he's almost earned his retirement I'd say??.
After that Jew I headed off in search of some Tuskies, having arrived at the spot and deploying the bait, I had a few enquiries early up which saw nervous anticipation almost reach fever pitch, you just never know how big it is until you set the hooks, this one sadly was no beast, and I made very short work of him. Still a very tasty fish though.

Thinking the bite might be on, I hung around for a few hours but couldn't manage anything else, which in all honesty wasn't such a bad thing as the esky already looked pretty good, and I'm well stocked for the next few weeks.
I pulled the jewels out of the Jew this afternoon, they are something I don't usually keep but I might start doing so in the future as they do look kinda cool.