Alex2505

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.

 
 
 
 
 

@Old Scaley 39cm Grass Emperor.

Did a solo trip down the Pin this morning in search of some Threadfin . 
Spotted some threadies  and  baby bullies  feeding  together in 1.5 m of water right where I expected them at 11.30am .
 I managed to pull a feed  before they wised up . 
team south  - 
Threadfin  885 and 1100mm
Bull Sharks 800, 740 and 765mm 
Grunter 350mm
Regards
Neil

Hi all, 
I drove up to Yeppoon last Thursday for a quick visit. After arriving late Thursday arvo, my Dad and I decided to go for a fish at the Causeway later that night as there was a run through tide. It was still pretty crowded just before 10, but there weren't any fish getting caught. My Dad and I alternated the lures we were using for the next hour and a half but after no bites we decided to call it quits. 
The next morning I didn't go fishing, but in the afternoon I went out to Double Heads. Unfortunately, the wind was very strong and the water was a bit brown, so I didn't bother fishing. My Dad and I then went to Ross Creek, where we also caught nothing except a large stingray which my Dad hooked that put up a good fight. 
The next morning we decided to give the harbor a crack. We caught some livies and tried a couple of spots, and ended up on the rockwall at the mouth of the harbour. We didn't have much success here, but my Dad did hook up to a decent fish (probably a cod) which broke him off in some of the rocks. We were a bit more hopeful about this spot now so decided to try there the next day, because it was still very windy. 
The next morning we repeated the same thing, where this time my Dad caught an undersize cod. Things were still very quiet and windy though. We also flicked plenty of lures around but no hookups. The next morning we came back to this spot and I caught one bream, so it was also very quiet. A bit unsure what to do to try and get a bite, my Dad and I decided to have a flick with some lures around the harbour later that night, which resulted in nothing except a very long sleep in the next morning. We tried in the harbour again that arvo with some smaller plastics and soft vibes but no bites once again. 
Overall, although it was a quiet trip, it was still good to try some fishing up in Yeppoon. I'm going to Victoria today so won't be able to fish in the river that much this holidays unfortunately. 
Cheers, Hamish. 

I took a drive down to the Tweed river and collected some driftwood for the garden earlier this month. I found a well weathered piece of sleeper that I thought I could make into something interesting. With all this crap weather I  found some time and got out the electric soldering iron and etched a  Kraken into it to add a bit of character. Next piece I  find ,  might make a  Rum tasting paddle with a similar design.
regards
neil

A very late notice and unexpected child free weekend revealed itself yesterday morning. While I was not happy about the circumstances, @Kat and I wasted little time in seeing the silver lining.  With a coastal wind warning current it would be tucking up a creek somewhere that didn't involve travelling great distances in the boat. Our regular haunt ticked the boxes. 
We organised some blood worms, packed the boat, some sandwiches etc and off we went to brave the wind.
There were plenty of spare parks at paradise point ramp as expected. We could have launched much closer but a better ramp with a pontoon and no cross current is worth a couple of minutes travelling in the boat, even in yesterday's wind. 
We found a spot that was sheltered from the wind and anchored up. It was less than about twenty seconds before my basically free spool drag screamed off. The catfish that appeared shortly after at the boat signalled the start of what would become a monotonously regular annoyance. 
My next bait was out a few minutes before it screamed off in a similar fashion and I think I actually called catfish again but was pleasantly surprised when a reasonable spotted grunter appeared at the boat. It had actually made a bit of a mess of my 10lb leader so I'm glad I opted for the net.
@Kat couldn't seem to get any interest on her side of the boat yet and started making noise about swapping sides. Very soon it didn't matter what side of the boat you were on it was catfish aplenty. This went on for a while before I landed a solid whiting that was frustratingly shy of the magic 40cm mark.
There were a lot of other undersized grunter, a few legal bream and tarwhine which were released, (and of course the mandatory pony fish).  Kat then landed a good legal whiting, but it was back to catfish and undersized spotted grunter straight after that.
Unfortunately it was looking like we were going to have to endure a lot of undesirables to get a feed of whiting.
We chose to move to try and escape the catfish etc but to no avail. It was the same everywhere, a couple of good fish and then we just couldn't get past the vermin. @Kat bettered me on the whiting tally again and contributed two very solid specimens that were almost identical to the first one I got. But neither of us managed to bust the 40cm mark yesterday.
Catfish OMG the catfish. Wow, to think that @kat wanted to rename her boat to "Katfish".

Last minute decision to go hit up the Jungle Perch in the local creek between the rain.  I had fished with Declan a few times and he had not been successful. The rain had brought out a bit of flow and silt in the creek and the fish where on. Declan got his first followed by 20 more and I got some as well. Not bad for a couple of hours. 

Got my new boat last year after 20 years owning my last tinnie. So I talked the wife into an upgrade and bought a 651 Mclay hardtop.
I got straight into getting some good mojo for the boat with a few trips offshore brisvegas and a trip out on the bunker group up north.
I very happy with it so far and here is a few pictures now we can load them up again on AFO.