Alex2505

Hi all
This morning I snuck out for a quick fish to one of my spots that I hadn't been to in quite a while. I convinced my Dad to give me a lift, but first stop of the morning was to catch bait. Unfortunately, my bait spot didn't really have anything at it, so after spending fifteen minutes there we headed to the main fishing spot. I was there a bit before six, and the tide was still rising. This was good, because it meant I could catch a couple silver biddies and a Chrissy tree of anchovies. 
I sent some baits out on sunrise, and kept throwing my net in hope of a few more livies. No success was had, and by 7:00AM when I had only received a few picks I was starting to feel the pressure. I had a few mates coming from school who weren't fishos so was hoping I'd be able to put them on some fish. Sure enough, at 8:00AM, I had some tailor bites which didn't hook up, then the next cast wound in a 48CM or so model that provided some solid aerobatics. 

Tailor
I sent a bait back out, but it went a bit quiet again (released the tailor). Luckily, Michael arrived to the jetty as well, so I had some company. My mates from school like to sleep in, so I wasn't expecting them anytime soon. I guess that's a shame for them, because I pulled in two more tailor over the next hour or so, the best being 53CM (new PB!). 

Nice
We kept both of these with a plan to cook one up on the jetty, and after a rather uneventful bite period Michael got some more tailor hits. Unluckily, it didn't hook up, but we were hopeful of a few more fish. There weren't anymore livies about either, but we persisted with a mix of dead and live bait. Tailor were caught on live biddy/fingered biddy/live herring. 
My mate Nicu eventually arrived, but it was mid way through a particularly fast run out tide so we weren't expecting many fish. Luckily, it was nearly lunchtime, so after some casting practice, we filleted and cooked up the fish. This coincided with my other two friends arriving, so once everyone was there we all had a feed of some fresh tailor (which was very tasty). 
The bite remained quiet throughout the day, and even with a mix of live and dead bait we failed to hook anything big. Eventually, around 1:00PM, the boys headed off on a shopping trip to pick up lunch. It had been very slow fishing in this time, with hardly any bites or bait turning up either. Luckily for me, sometime after they had left, I baitchecked one of my rods which had a piece of tailor belly as bait. As I started winding in, I thought to myself, 'This is on', and sure enough as I began to bring the weight up to the surface it took off a few times. Thinking it was a ray, I pulled it in quite roughly, and even though it was running a fair bit I kept winding. I was very pleased to see a rather large flatty surface, nice! After a good netting job from Michael, we had the fish on the jetty. A quick pic and I sent the 75CM model on it's way to get caught when it was even bigger. 

New PB Flatty
After that was sorted out, everyone was a bit more hopeful a bigger fish would cruise through. It was well into the rising tide now, and my mates eventually returned with some pizza for everyone - they should've stayed! We all dug into the feed, and with the last of the livebaits lobbed out were hopeful of a fish. Apart from another guy fishing, John, pulling in a sand crab, it remained quiet for the rest of the arvo, much to the disappointment of my mates. By 3:00PM, we'd all had enough, and after cleaning up the jetty of all litter from the previous night we were out of there. A ferry and train ride home saw the end to a pretty fun day for me - hopefully next weekend I'll be able to put my mates onto their first decent fish from the river if they come out again.
Stats of Trip:
Tide: 6:15AM, 1.8M, High, 12:30PM, .5M, Low, 7:30PM, 2.5M, High
Moon Phase: 84.5%, nearly full moon. Lots of run. 
Bait Caught and Used: Live anchovies, live herring, live silver biddy. 
Fish Caught: Tailor x 3, Flathead x 1
Tackle Used: Shimano Baitrunner DC 8000 on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX 55 on Silstar Crystal Powertip Rod, Shimano Sedona 6000 on Abu Garcia Nanotech Nexus. 30 pound braid mainlines and 50 pound Black Magic trace. Size 4 star sinker and 6/o circle hooks. 
Air Pressure: 82%
Humidity: 1024
Notes: No prawns or trawlers, potentially suggesting they have left the river/were not there. Not much bait either so would make sense why there were no threadies or jewies chasing the baits. Also a fair few small queenfish around. 
Overall Success Rates: 70% - fun day
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. 
Cheers Hamish 🙂 

...If only it wasn't snapper closure!
Hi all,
This report will be about my last two sessions this weekend fishing landbased on the Brisbane River. Both were relatively successful. The first session I hit up a spot I had not been to for a while - it takes a long time to get there so I was pleased to catch a bucket full of herring and biddies quickly at the bait spot. From what I've heard, bait has been quite slow in the river recently, so I was pleased to get a few. 
Once I arrived at the fishing spot and set up, I got some more biddies and herring. With plenty of bait to start fishing, I deployed my baits and began the waiting game. Apart from a rather large buck sandy that dropped off before I could land it, the bite was quiet, and it stayed that way until just before high tide. I had a dead prawn out (I bring a couple each session for deadbaits/starter bait while I catch livies) and it screamed off into the distance. I was pretty certain it was a ray based on the nibbles, and a fun fight around some structure with some fast runs and tight drag ensued. Sure enough, I got a look at it and it was a rather large shovelly. Then, the best outcome occurred. The fish took one more run and the hook pulled (the spot I was fishing is about five meters above the water and the shovel would've been too big for the dilly). 
Shortly after on a live herring, I hooked up to a fish. A few headshakes later and some unwanted bycatch surfaced, a decent snapper around 45CM. It was gut hooked so I cut the line and sent him on his way. 

Snap
About five minutes later, I had another hookup on live herring, which resulted in me dropping something alright just as I was about to see it. If I had to guess, I'd say flatty, but we'll never know for sure. There was a large concert going on nearby and my Dad was at his work, also nearby, so he offered to pick me up. I finished a little past one happy enough with the day. 
Stats of Trip: HN
Tide: 7:00AM, .7M, Low, 12:30PM, 1.9M, High (high tide was prime bite time)
Moon Phase: 17%, and there wasn't lots of tide
Humidity: 66%
Air Pressure: 1012
Tackle Used: Shimano Sedona 6000 on Abu Garcia Nexus, Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip. 30 pound braid mainlines, 50 pound trace, size 4 star sinker, barrel swivels, 6/o circle hook. 
Bait Used and Caught: Live herring, silver biddy, prawns
Fish Caught: Squire x 1, shovelnose x 1. Potential flatty hookup. 
Overall Success Rate: 40% - quiet day
The next session was this morning, and was at a brand new spot I'd never fished before. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to get bait there easily though, and I was right, so it was very lucky my Dad agreed to drive me to a spot that always produces livies (about five minutes away from the fishing spot). The first cast I did, I got a nice school of about 15 herrings, which all went in the bucket. I saw some mullet action in some shallower water a few metres away, and got about 15 mullet in that cast. In amongst them were some silver biddies and ponyfish as well. Nice, that's bait sorted. 
I was at the spot with lines in the water by 6:30AM. The tide was gushing out, and it was actually looking a little quiet. Luckily, I persisted and by 7:30AM one of my lines with a live herring bait was attacked. Line was peeling off my spool, so I set the hook and started the fight. It felt snappery, and a couple of fast runs and very solid headshakes later I had a 57CM beauty on the riverwalk. If only it wasn't close season!

New PB
Feeling pretty happy about myself, I sent some more livies out. My bait bucket was a bit overpopulated though, and a couple of herring were dying. After a while, I sent out a dead herring fingered up around the tail, so it swayed in the current. Michael and Andrew arrived, and shortly after this, that dead herring was belted by another fish. Straight away, it felt a lot like a snapper, and after a fun fight with some decent runs and an good dilly job by Andrew, we had a nice 54CM model up on the jetty... If only it wasn't close season!

Another
After that, we all sent out some baits, and were hopeful a jew or threadfin would move through. Mick and Steve also arrived, but it was a very quiet day, because for the duration of the rising tide no one got anything, except Steve, who caught a small pike eel. Based on that session, I'll be back for a couple more tries at the spot. Next weekend I may try another new spot or go fishing with some mates, but hopefully some fish other than snapper turn up. One negative was that both the snapper were gut hooked, I probably would've kept them normally as I don't like releasing fish with a large circle hook down it's mouth. 
Stats of Trip: BS
Tide: 7:30AM, .7M, Low, 1:15PM, 1.9M, High
Moon Phase: 25%, there was a decent amount of tide
Bait Caught and Used: Live herring, mullet, silver biddies. Dead prawn. 
Humidity: 69%
Air Pressure: 1013
Fish Caught: Snapper x 2
Tackle Used: Shimano Sedona 6000 on Abu Garcia Nexus, Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip. 30 pound braid mainlines, 50 pound trace, size 4 star sinker, barrel swivels, 6/o circle hook. 
Overall Success Rate: 80% - not too often you get 50CM plus river snapper 
Thanks for reading,
Cheers Hamish

Put the tinny in at the port of bris to fish the last couple hours of run out tide this arvo. Lucked into couple flatskulls in ambush mode hanging round a little drop off. Zerek fish trap did the damage 👍🏼. Bit of crumbed flatty tails for tea tomorrow night and my old neighbour will appreciate a couple bream fillets for his dinner tomorrow night. Cheers. 
 
 

Hi all
This report is a little late, but better late than never. Three Tuesday's ago, I hopped on a plane up to Rockhampton. I then got the bus to Yeppoon, near my Grandma's house. The plan was to fish Double Heads, a rocky headland near the Rosslyn Bay Harbour, as well as a couple sessions in the Causeway and the Harbour. Target species were going to be mackerel off the rocks and flatties in the Causeway. It wasn't the greatest trip in terms of fishing but was still nice to escape the city and stay up there for a while.
First Day:
I got the earliest bus I could to the Causeway, and aimed to fish in the lake for some flatties. There was no run through, so I wasn't sure how the fishing was going to be. I started off with a 3.2inch Baitjunkie minnow and after only one small hit after about an hour, I switched to a smaller grub. This too didn't bring me any luck, so I switched to a lipless crankbait that I was retrieving relatively quickly across the bottom. Sure enough, I hooked up to a flatty (legal, but not by much), that spat the hooks as I was about to get it on the bank. After that ordeal, there were no more bites, so I headed off to Double Heads. It was my first time ever going out there, and after following someone along the track so I knew the way I was good to go. This is what I arrived to – 

Good conditions
Annoyingly, after a few casts with Halco Twisties of varying sizes, the first fish I landed was a grinner. It must have been a bit of a quiet day because I didn't see anyone else catch anything for the next three hours or so that I was there, and even though I gave it a good shot I couldn't manage anything more myself. I called it quits knowing where the spot was now, hoping I'd be a bit luckier the next day. 

Grinner
That arvo, I decided to give it a crack at the harbor with some livies. I recently bought a new 9 foot drawstring castnet, mainly for Yeppoon, and I've got to say it worked quite well, catching me plenty of herring and also various other fish. After I got a couple herring however, I sent some down as cubes and some out as livies. It wasn't long before I caught a couple small cod and bream, and then the livie rod had a good bite. I set the hooks but sadly after a couple good headshakes lost whatever was on. I continued to fish until about 4:30PM - didn't catch anything worth mentioning. 
Second Day:
The next morning, I was back at the Causeway flicking more lures around. I started out with a soft plastic, but after a relatively uneventful series of casts, I switched lures again. A little while later and I was surprised by a small cod coming out of the water from under a rock and attacking my lure. It was only in about ten centimetres of water, but still was cool to watch. A couple more lure changes later saw me leaving with no fish - back to Double Heads. This time, things were looking a bit more promising. I had gotten the right type of lure (Flasha spoon lure from the servo) and was flicking that around on my light rod. Additionally, some other fishos had already caught a couple of legal school mackerel, one of which I saw get pulled in. I had my first cast in anticipation, but to my disappointment, I didn't catch anything except a couple grinners for the day, nor did anyone else. After this, I decided things must be better early in the morning, so a plan was hatched to come back to the spot for a sunrise session the next day. 
That arvo, I also gave it another crack in the harbour, but it was much the same as the day before. I got bait no worries (also a large turtle in my cast net, wish I got a photo of that before I let it go), but small cod and bream were all I caught. The livie rod had a couple of hits but it ended up just being small fish as my bait rarely got taken whole anyways. 

Unlucky
Third Day:
I woke up early and walked the couple of kilometres to the spot and arrived shortly after sunrise. A couple of other anglers had also made their way out, and we were all eager to try out luck on the fish. 
 
Sunrise
That is what greeted us, but for the actual sunrise period the bite was pretty quiet. It wasn't until the sun was up everyone was plagued with grinners, which would eagerly take a spoon on a fast retrieve. The fishing was still quiet though, so I figured I might be going for a fair while before I actually caught something. This was the case, except I didn't catch anything other than grinners for the whole day, and I called it quits at midday. One fella did catch an undersize mackie, so I guess they were around, just not for me. Bugger. I gave the harbour a miss that arvo.
Fourth Day:
The next day was much the same, and although I was there before the sun came up and was the first person to get a line in all I could catch were grinners. I tried all different sorts of retrieves, from quite a slow pace to a fast burn, as well as letting the lure sink or retrieving as soon as it hit the surface. It is worth noting one guy dropped a legal sized schooly as he was about to land it and another guy caught two legal ones, both on a slightly larger lure. He also hooked a tuna which spooled him. I did land my first ever wolf herring though, which was some redemption, as well as a small trevally on a jig. I gave the arvo session a miss again that day – but prepped for another morning session in envy of the others catches.

First wolf herring
Fifth Day:
Once again, an early start saw me at the spot by sunrise. The sky was pretty red, and being a Sunday I was expecting the ledge to get pretty crowded. I had it to myself at first, and things were looking promising.

Sunrise
Sure enough, after landing a couple of grinners, I hooked up to something that was pulling a bit more string. After a quick tussle, I was pleased to land my first mack off the rocks, an undersize schooly. It was promptly released after a photo, in hope a larger model would cruise by.

Mackerel
Shortly after that, I had another hit that didn’t feel like a grinner. I was happy to see a nice queeny on the end of my line, and although it was only small it was still a new species for me on the lure.

Queenfish
After that, I continued flicking my lure around until about lunchtime, but having no more luck except wolf herring and grinners made it tricky to stay any longer. I was glad to have caught my first mackerel, especially with the poor weather that was forecast to come the next day. I even cast netted a couple of herring and floated them out, but this didn't bring me any joy. 
Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Day
The next four days were all pretty uneventful, with some rough weather moving in for days six and seven making the rocks quite unpleasant to fish at/borderline unfishable. I was still out for sunrise both mornings, but with high winds and some rather large waves, I was struggling to keep sensitivity with my lines and ended up not catching anything at all.

Rough
On the sixth day, I went to the Causeway for an arvo session and did manage to land a couple of flatties and a small cod, one flatty would have been legal (soft plastics).

Pics
The seventh day I spent about 8 hours at the harbour after briefly going to Double Heads, having cast netted a truckload of herring I was optimistic a predator may come through, though apart from one bust off on the pylons and a fair few legal size bream and small fish on unweighted whole herring, it was a quiet day.
The eighth day I tried the harbour for the last time of the trip, but after catching nothing I went out to Double Heads to fish the arvo. The conditions were superb, and I was surprised to see only one other angler out there. He’d caught plenty of good fish off the rocks, and we had fun pulling in about 6 wolf herring each and losing plenty too. The highlight of that session would have been me hooking up to someone else’s line, which still had a big fish attached to the end. It was most likely one of the resident groupers, and it was a bit of fun until it broke me off.

Wolf herring
The ninth day was another quiet day, but I did try Double Heads in the morning. I think I only got one or two wolf herring but plenty of grinners, and unfortunately no big fish. There wasn’t really anyone else out on the rocks though, so it was nice to have the place to myself.

More wolf herring
Last Day:
Unfortunately, before I knew it, it was the last day of my trip. I decided to have a sleep in for the morning though, but give it a good crack in the arvo at Double Heads. I arrived shortly after 2:00PM with the goal of hooking up to a few wolf herring, and maybe a mackerel too. I had also topped up the braid on my Stradic 3000, so on my first cast my Flasha flew out into the strike zone.
It wasn’t until the second cast I got hit though, and it was a big hit. About half way through my retrieve, I felt the great feeling of my rod loading up, followed by the fish screaming away into the depths of the ocean. Very surprised to have hooked up to what I assume was a decent size longtail tuna, I crouched down and watched the line on my reel fly away. My drag was screaming, and after about 50 metres of line was taken I made the fatal mistake of tightening my drag. Sure enough, another ten metres of line peeled away from my spool before disaster struck, and the hooks pulled. I was pretty devastated to say the least, but after checking my line and leader I flung my lure out yet again. A couple of grinners later and the sound of line screaming off my reel could be heard again, although unluckily this one did not hook up as well and it came off the line after about five seconds. I assume that was because the take was on the drop and the fish was able to shake my hook out with the extra slack line.
It was only around 3:00PM now, so I had high hopes for the rest of the arvo. A few other people came and left, but all I could manage was one lone wolf herring as well as my second mackerel of the trip, even smaller than the first.

Mack
Eventually around four o clock, another angler using quiet heavily weighted dead bait hooked up and was spooled. I’m unsure whether that was a tuna or maybe shark/ray of some sort, but it was big whatever it was as he had heavy gear. Fortunately for him, fifteen minutes later he was on again on a smaller combo, to another good fighter. 20 minutes after the hookup, a 115cm whitespot shovelnose had been landed on the rocks, which he kept for dinner. I had a few more casts after this but eventually decided to have my last cast for the trip, which did not result in anything. Bugger.
So, as I left the rocks for the last time, and got the plane home the next day, I still think it was a pretty great trip overall. I’ve found a spot that works for big fish on live bait and lure, caught a couple and know what to do for next time, and also spent a lot of money at the servo on Flashas. In hindsight, I probably should’ve done every session at Double Heads, but oh well, there’s always next time.
Overall Success Rate: 70% - no big fish but still a fun trip
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.
Cheers Hamish

pb jew from a passage mission with dad. went 76
 

couple 50s goldens from a recent mission. feels good to finally crack one.
 

Dog and house sitting at Bribie for a while .
Here’s my Rainy day project from this morning.
Purchased a $3 graphite 7 iron  golf club and a $1 Set of stainless BBQ tongs from Vinnies yesterday and re purposed them into a  long handled de hooking tool this morning. 
If the rain keeps up I’ll make a short handle one as well. 

Hi All,
Even though the moon wasn't the best, thought I would try my luck at spot x to try and get a feed of snaps before the closure starts. Once again it was hard going, we were still managing to scratch up a feed of snaps, mainly between that 40cm to 50cm range. Eventually hooked something that was fighting a bit harder and didn't feel like a snapper. Was pleasantly surprised when a good grassy surfaced. Sorry about the poor picture, but it was right at prime time and I was more interested in getting the line back in the water.

Had a real good morning up at Baroon, then the cold winds sent me home via the warm pie shop. First pic is a school of bass, second pic is a school of spanglies and the third pic is when crossing the dam scary what, it goes to 148ft in some places when full.
Anyway the fishing was great, but I had to keep putting food in my mouth to stop my teeth from chattering. Managed 53 bass with the most on shrimp as the fish were that cold they couldnt inhale the lures.
Dino

Hi all, after the charter I have fallen in love with jigging, so off I went and bought a saltiga 10HL, I’m going to be pairing the reel with a shimano grappler 6’3” pe2 max 160 jig, that I will be picking up from work tomorrow. 

I went to the western arm this morning and only got 5 shrimp out of my shrimp traps. Converted them into 5 bass. Spent a few hours trolling a ole elle lure around for nothing.
 Cheers Ray

Went out with a couple of mates on Tuesday in my mate’s new boat. He wanted to get some hours up on the new motor. So the plan was to tour Moreton Bay and drop a line every now and again. 
Left Victoria Point at the gentleman o’clock (8.30am) to a moderate SW breeze and did a bit of running around the southern Bay Islands. Stopped at one of them for a fish around the last of the run out tide, with a few undersize squire coming over the gunnel and lots of pickers. Moved to Peel where there were more unders before finally boating a legal squire. Only 40cm but we were off the donut. 
Did a lap of Peel, then headed to Blakesleys for a lunch stop and stretch the legs. Then up past Dunwich for a cruise to check out the bar. No intention of crossing, just sightseeing. Saw some dolphins working in the shallows in the exact spot where I saw dolphins herding a school of snapper a few years ago. On the way up we saw a few boats circling around an area in the Rainbow Channel. We thought why should they have all the fun, so motored over and started trolling hard bodies. No luck. I had one paravane in the tacklebox so threw that out and had instant success. Caught 2 decent macs in quick succession, then handed the rod to my mate who dropped 3 in a row. Just unlucky, I guess.
Then as he was dropping the paravane back into the water it was hit before it went more than 10 metres. Fish on before a strange thing happened. The rod tip started bouncing in a weird way for a couple of seconds before the line went slack. The 40lb almost brand new braid had parted just back behind the boat. We can only assume, there was a fish on the spoon, but something else hit the braid accidentally and did the damage? In any case, my only paravane was gone and didn’t float to the top, so if you catch a mackerel in the Bay and there is a paravane attached, let me know. Shame because there was not shortage of hits to keep us entertained.
We headed for home after that. My mate was happy, s few hours up on the motor and some blood in the new boat. We each had a fish for dinner and it was a great day to tour the Bay.
Thanks for reading.
 

I thought they are finally coming, schooling up the Brisbane River in large numbers, scorching river bottom for prawns and herring. So I waited for them every time the tide changes at my local pontoon.  After about thirty offering of big prawns and herrings, I finally saw the glory - a golden baby thready of about 50cms. Not much fight at all on my boat rod coupled with a 4000 reel. But the beauty just catch your eyes immediately. Took the photos and send it back. 
They are really beautiful for eyes but unfortunately my phone can't catch it at night. 
Enjoy! 
 
 

Hi all
I'll try and keep this short - this report will be about fishing the last week in the river. Now that I'm into holidays I've been making best use of my time, and although I haven't really done anything else - 6 sessions in 6 days is decent going. 
The first session I'll talk about was with @Thorbjorn Hale at one of our spots. We got the earliest ferry we could and started off by gathering bait on a jetty. Although it wasn't plentiful, we eventually got a decent amount of biddies and herring - enough to start fishing. It is also worth noting I caught a 25CM or so school mackerel in the net, which was a cool catch for the river (upstream of the Gateway Bridge). 

Mackerel
We eventually arrived at our spot, and deployed some livies. It was pretty quiet at first, but I netted a bunch more biddies, and also hooked the first fish of the day - a decent river tailor somewhere in the forties. Hopeful a few more of these would be getting around, baits were redeployed to the middle of the river.

Tailor
Sure enough, I hooked another slightly more formidable model, which I believe provided some aerobatics for us. If I remember correctly, this one was the largest of the day at 52CM, and was also released as we had just started fishing.

Largest
I got a few more baits in the cast net but after catching a copious amount of ponyfish in the net (if you don't know, these are one of the worst pests - they are slimy, spiky, garbage bait, school up, and get stuck in your net) I gave it a rest. This didn't stop the tailor, and I got my third and final fish for the day. This one was another forties model, and seeing as though Thorbjorn had some tags we decided to tag it. I'll be excited to hear if anyone ever catches it again. 

Last One
The bite went quiet now, and even though things were looking promising we could not really manage anymore fish. I was even fishing with some of the prawns I cast netted the other night which were getting no love at all. Around midday, Thorbjorn hooked up to something on his heavy rod. We were pleased to see a quality breambo surface, which was a nice capture for this spot.  

Thorb's Bream
I ended up staying until about 6:00PM (yes, I was desperate for a fish), but only caught one catfish on a ponyfish. The bait was really dead, and even though there were lights there were no prawns on dark. Here are the stats of the trip:
Stats: NH
Tide: 4:30AM, .7M, Low, 9:45AM, 1.9M, High, 3:43PM, .5M, Low
Moon Phase: New Moon
Bait Caught and Used: Silver biddies, herrings, ponyfish, prawns
Air Pressure: 1013
Humidity: 84%
Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. Thorbjorn used similar weight rated Penn gear. 
Overall Success Rate: 60% - good to catch up with a mate and catch some fish
The next day was Monday, and my first real day of holidays. Charlie and I met up and decided to hit a spot we hadn't been to in a while. He did the report for this session, which is worth the read!  
Stats of Trip: BW
Tide: 10:30AM, 1.8M, High
Moon Phase: New Moon
Bait Caught and Used: Live herring
Fish Caught: 3 x Jewfish 
Air Pressure: 1011
Humidity: 61%
Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. 
Notes: Good day for the jewies. I also got busted off by one because I was using 30 pound. 
Overall Success Rate: 90% - great day for the jewies, good to see Charlie got his first. 
On Tuesday, it was just me, so I went back to the spot the jewies had been caught the day before. The tide was gushing in, and I was the only one on the jetty when I got there. It wasn't long before I had a fair few herring in my bucket and was fishing, watching my rods like an eagle, brimming with anticipation.
An older fella came down for about an hour who I had a good chat with, but disappointingly, the only thing I managed was a couple catties. By about 10AM, things were looking grim. It definitely cheered me up to see Thorbjorn and Steve coming down on the jetty, who proceeded to get some herring and their lines out. I also met another nice fella named Mick. 
We were all fishing, and it was pretty crowded at this point. Despite the lines out, it was not meant to be, and it took ages before the first decent fish of the day was landed. Luckily, it was just what we needed, as bait was running low, and Thorbjorn had the perfect idea to strip bait his tailor for us. This resulted in a bunch of fish including catties, pike eels, and a small flounder for me. I left a little past three, and no one caught any big ones for the day. 
Stats: BW
Tide: 11:00AM, 1.8M, High
Moon Phase: New Moon
Bait Caught and Used: Live herring, tailor strips
Fish Caught: Flounder, catfish, pike eel
Air Pressure: 1012
Humidity: 47%
Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. 
Overall Success Rate: 30% - still a fun day on the jetty
That Wednesday, Charlie and I hatched a plan to give a spot we hadn't tried for ages a crack. We were there before sunrise, and even though it was freezing, I got to cast netting. The first cast brought a rather large sea mullet, which we kept for bait, but after that I struggled to get livies to start fishing. By about 7:30AM, we were so cold (hands numb, feet numb, freezing cold) we were about to call it quits. Luckily, the sun came out and we started to feel better. 
When we did get our lines out, the bite was slow. The first set back of the day was when a Citycat hooked one of my lines, dumping my whole spool in a few seconds. Luckily I ran back from cast netting and cut it off before all my line was lost, and seeing as though I salvaged about 50 metres of line I locked my drag up and casted a bait back out there.
While netting, I caught a decent size flounder, which caught me by surprise. Small flatties have been a common catch recently and it seems these are getting thicker too - this one Charlie kept for a feed. Also, one of my rods had a big run while netting, but annoyingly it didn't hook up. 

Flounder
Eventually, I got a nice size school of poddy mullet and called it quits for the cast netting for the day. Charlie and I enjoyed ourselves while I made sure all the ferry drivers knew I had lines out, and sure enough about an hour later one of my lines was getting the tell tale jewie 'nibbles'. The first half of the fight was me just pulling in the dead weight, but before long, the vicious headshakes started. Then, it was onto the first run. The rod which hooked up was actually the rod which only had 50 metres of line left from the ferry, so the drag was locked up. This fish stripped line like it was nothing. Hopes were high - would we finally crack a monster from the river?
It wasn't meant to be. When we were mere seconds away from seeing the size of whatever fish was on the end of my line when it took one last bid for freedom right under the jetty, snipping my line off in seconds. Whatever it was, I hope my hook is out of it's mouth by now, and that I'll catch it again soon!
After that explosive bust off, the bite went quiet. We gave it until we ran out of livies but decided to call it quits by about 2:30PM. 
Stats: KP
Tide: 6:30AM, .6M, Low, 12:00PM, 1.6M, High, 5:40Pm, .4M, Low
Moon Phase: 8.5%, just off New Moon
Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, winter whiting, silver biddies
Fish Caught: Zilch
Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook. Charlie also used similar gear. 
Air Pressure: 1016
Humidity: 64%
Notes: Need to fish heavier and be quicker with getting fish in when around structure. Live mullet and whiting best bait at this spot. 
Overall Success Rate: 50% - at least we had a bite
The next day, I decided to go back to this spot with some mates from school. They aren't serious fisherman, so the aim of the game was to pull in at least one nice fish and teach them the basics. We got there by 10:00AM and after catching a few livebaits, we were set to start fishing.
The bite was slow, but to sum up a pretty relaxed day I ended up pulling in one squire. I noticed a large amount of slack line, and thinking a fish had taken the bait and swam up current I wound in and discretely struck. That's how I ended up getting in a 43CM squire without anyone noticing 😉. Also, I ended up keeping this guy for a feed for once.  

Squire
Stats: KP
Tide: 12:15PM, 1.6M, High
Moon Phase: 15%
Bait Caught and Used: Mullet, winter whiting, silver biddies
Fish Caught: Squire x 1
Tackle Used: I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook
Air Pressure: 1015
Humidity: 74%
Overall Success Rate: 80% - fun day with the boys
Anyways, the final session of this report was another solo one. It was back at the same spot as the previous two sessions, and I decided to sleep in a bit so ended up getting the 7:24AM train. I was there by about 8:45AM though, but to my disgust, some grubs had been there the last night and left so much mud all throughout the walkway you castnet off it would have been wrong not to spend half an hour cleaning it up. 
After I had done that, I got some bait of my own. It was slow going at first, but I eventually got some solid mullet - about half a dozen. It was looking like it was going to rain, but luckily the storm cell avoided me. The river was really busy though, and with some nearby bridge construction, regular ferry services, and prawn trawlers going back and forth, it was very hectic. It is worth noting the prawn trawlers were killing it, doing multiple runs and getting what looked like a great amount of prawns and minimal bycatch in their nets. If you're buying Moreton Bay prawns at the moment, I'd say there's a good chance they're coming from upstream of the Story Bridge. 
Personally, although it may make the quantity of bites go away, I think a lot of large boats stirring up the river also stirs up the bite for predators. It was quiet at first though, and after about an hour and a half of fishing and dodging boats, an absolutely massive barge came through. It was powered by a couple of tugboats (Pt. Mary and a couple others, I think), and just about took up the whole river. I am unsure what it was for, but I wound in my lines and casted out shortly after it passed.
Another hour or two ticked by, and having eaten my only food early on I was feeling hungry. Luckily, a fish finally was too, and I saw my rod getting tell tale bites. I let the fish eat for a minute, before putting the reel in gear and checking if I was on. Sure enough, the weight of a decent fish loaded up my line, and I started cranking it in. A few seconds into the fight, the headshakes started. Drag clicked off, and I made my best effort to keep tension.
Then, the fish woke up. The reel screamed into life, with line flying off like a rocket. I continued to fight the fish though, and as it got closer I realized it was pretty much identical to the fight of the big bust off a couple days ago. Anticipation was higher than ever, and with a big crowd watching me now the pressure was on. As the fish got closer to the pylons I held the spool to slow him down, and boy, was I stoked when I saw the silver scales of a 88CM Brissy River Jewfish surface. 

Happy days!
The dilly was lowered down into the river, and after a few gut wrenching moments he was on the jetty. High fives were had all round, and although I tried venting and swimming him for a while he wasn't interested in swimming off so unfortunately I had to keep it. I bled the fish on the jetty and bagged him up, ready to go straight home on the ferry and train. I made sure to clean the jetty down before heading home, where I filleted the fish. It wasn't the best filleting job ever but I got two nice fillets off, so I hope it tastes nice. I was going to put some crab pots in tonight/go prawning but was far too knackered so just chucked all my old fish frames away and packed/cleaned up my gear for the week.
Stats of Trip: KP
Tide: 7:40AM, .6M, Low, 1:15Pm, 1.6M, High
Moon Phase: 22.3%
Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, silver biddies, whiting
Fish Caught: Jewfish x 1
Air Pressure: 1009
Humidity: 87%
Tackle Used:  I used a Shimano Baitrunner DC on Kmart Rod, Okuma Coronado CDX on Silstar Crystal Powertip rod, Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, each with 30 pound braid, 30/50 pound trace, a size four star sinker and a 6/o circle hook
Overall Success Rate: 100% - target species acquired
Thanks for reading if you've made it this far. I hope you enjoyed the report. I won't be fishing over the next couple of days as I'm getting ready for a trip to Yeppoon, where I'll hopefully be able to get some landbased flatties, trevs, and mackerel. A couple things I've noticed about the jew fishing are (as I realize I've encountered a few in these sessions, but been busted off) that they seem to bite best on lively live baits with a long trace around high tide change. Hopefully this will be the first of many jewies I catch in the river, not the first and last...
Cheers Hamish 🙂 

Put the boat in this morning at 6am . Surprisingly was the only trailer in the car park.
Headed out into an ok sunrise. Tagged 13 small snapper and a lone grassy , and brought home 3 snapper for a feed . All caught on soft plastics. Back at the ramp at 10am. Weather permitting, I might go and have a flathead fish later in the week.
regards
Neil

Hi Hamish, I’ve caught Spanish mackerel on all sorts of things.They are one of my favourite fish to catch.I was very lucky that a very successfully pro mackerel fisherman at 1770 shared his knowledge with me when I was young like you.
Both Wolf Herring , school mackerel I find quite good.A lot of pro fishermen use live  slimies and yakkas because they can get them cheap and easily  , some use gar on wog heads . Pike and even WA pilchards  , plus various different lures to name a few things , I’ve used them all with success. But for fishing between the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast I wouldn’t even bother going out if I didn’t take at least a dozen Bonito. The Qld government will soon reduced the bag limit to 1 per person or 2 per boat if you have crew  on board ,so now I’ll  only need to take about 6 baits. I’ve found that by far , the best species of Bonito are the “pretty boys”  (Watsons Leaping Bonito) . 
The bigger and fresher the bait the faster it will get hit. Don’t be afraid of a bait over 60cm long , spanish mackerel will eat that first almost every time. There are many aspects other than bait rigging that you need to know to catch a Spanish mackerel  - location , water quality ,what they look like on a sounder , time of year, tide, troll speed and direction ,are all very important to learn at different places . Believe it or not , a lot of people simply don’t even see a strike and wind in a bait severed a third of the way down , missing every hook . Even when you think you’ve mastered the art , then there’s the sharks to beat. 
regards
Neil

As promis
Rigging a bonito for Spanish Mackerel.mp4    
ed a couple of months ago , here's a video of how I  rig my troll baits for spanish mackerel.

Fished the southern bay again  . Put the boat in at 2.30pm
Beautiful afternoon on the water, the bay was like a mirror.. Probably too good as the water was crystal clear. We need a bit of rain to put some colour back in it.
Fished with soft plastics , but had to sort through a lot of underside fish to get a feed ,but finally got there. 
Pulled the boat out at 5pm . Left the fish on ice , and will fillet them tomorrow,when they harden up a bit.
Regards
Neil
 

Rick and I went to NPD this morning total of Ricks 2 best bass went 63 cm and the total on my best 2 went 62cm. 12 bass each . Of my 12bass  4 were between 30 and 32cm. Rest between 22cm and 28cm. All tagged and released.
Cheers Ray.

Just had 2 days of arts and crafts with the wife.
Whilst I was busy outside making up a  new jig head mould ,pouring some molten lead and playing with some paint to produce some coral trout hybrid jigs , the wife was upstairs printing me out a cool polo shirt. See below photos of the finished goods.Just got to get motivated again and make another 20 or 30 more jigs and pour a few more sinkers. 

Decided to fish the southern bay this morning . Didn’t put the boat in till about 6.30am and knew with a low tide at about 7am it was going to be a struggle. On top of that conditions  were glassy as ,with very clear water ,which always makes fishing in the shallows  difficult.Anyway it was better than watching the grass grow.
Got about a dozen under sized  snapper first up and lost a very good fish that found a snag and broke me off . Ended up getting one snapper  that went 54cm , a couple of flathead,  a sole and a crab that when added up , put together a nice little feed.

Hi all,
Last weekend I headed out for two sessions. One on Saturday morning fish with livies for threadfin and jew, and the other out with @TheCharliefisho targeting some creek catties. Both were successful enough, so I’ll start on Saturday.
@Cavvy decided he wanted to give me a lift (no, I convinced him) and after a decently early start we were at the chosen spot by 6:30AM. The sun hadn’t peaked up yet though, and it was still prime time for collecting bait and fishing. Dad had a few throws with the net before he started catching some, but it wasn’t long before he had a few mullet, biddies, and glassies. Satisfied with his efforts, he decided to head home and get back to bed. I sent three lines out and got back to netting, and unfortunately for him that was the wrong decision because it wasn’t long before I had a low forties squire on the jetty. I got the hook out and after a quick pic lowered him down in a bucket and swum him until he kicked off.
 
First Squire
The bite was pretty hectic for the next 45 minutes, and only seconds after my next bait (a couple small glassies and biddies on the same hook I think) I was on yet again. This fish put up a decent account for itself, and I was pleased to see my second squire for the morning, a just legal 35CM model. Once again, this guy went back, and despite a little bit of barotrauma kicked back down fine after I swum him for a minute. I think this spot fishes best when the tide is pumping and on early morning, so I’ll have to give it another crack soon.
 
Another
Unluckily for me, bait wasn’t the most abundant, and between my sub average cast netting, I was spending more time trying to catch livies than watching my lines. Also, this spot is elevated about five meters above the water and the ferries like to come in close, so I was a bit apprehensive to leave my lines out far while I wasn’t there.
Fortunately, I got a few more bite sized biddies and mullet, and sent them out. The next fish was a rather fat catty, which was a waste of a good livie, but I continued to persist in hope of a better bite. Sure enough, my rod went off again, and after setting the hook, I had fun landing my largest squire of the day at 44.5cm. I think this took a couple glassies and a silver biddy on the hook – it seems they like small baits but a few of them on the hook. After I landed this guy, the bite slowed a bit on the squire, but there were a few decent pecks that may have been large bream.
 
Biggest
I capitalized on this opportunity and tried to catch a few more livies, but to my dismay, even after casting for 30 minutes or so, I had hardly managed a fish in the net. As the tide started to slow, I chucked out a mullet about as large as you would like for a jewie or thready, and when I was really running low on the baits casted out a couple fillets of strip mullet.
Annoyingly, all this brought was two catfish in quick succession, both of which were fat, ugly, and decent size. After I had dealt with them, I got back to cast netting and got a few herring and other small baitfish, including one large prawn (I really need to get out one night chasing them). I also caught a small muddy on the line and had a much larger one drop off before I saw it (almost sure that’s what it was), as they hit as the tide had slowed to a trickle. As the tide started to change I would love to have said the bait situation did too, but I still couldn’t get any in the net.
 Luckily, just as the run in began, I nailed my fourth squire of the day, somewhere in the low forties. I probably could have kept this one as it was towards the end of the session, but I ended up chucking him back. Lucky day for the fish.
 
New record for squire – bagout!
 At about 1:00PM I had just caught a couple more livies but got an angry call from my Dad asking where I was… Guess I had forgotten I was supposed to be home by then, lol. I casted all my lines out for one last time and packed up, but unluckily no jews or threads came swimming by. I had $1.02 on my card so used it to buy a softserve from Central station Maccas on the way home, and that would have been one of the highlights of the day seeing as though I hadn’t eaten anything. I got home pleased to have finally broke my fishing drought, hopefully I can get a 50 squire or some big fish soon.
Stats of Trip:
Tide: 5:00AM, 1.9M, High (small high), 11:50AM, .5M, Low, 6:00PM, 1.7M, High.
Moon Phase: 47.2% - there wasn’t a heap of tidal difference in height but this spot always has lots of run
Bait Caught: Everything – herring, mullet, biddies, winter whiting, prawn, glassies.
Fish Caught: Squire x 4, Catfish x 3, Muddy x 1
Air Pressure: 1009
Humidity: 60%
Gear/Tackle Used: Okuma Coronado CDX 5500 on Silstar Crystal Power Tip 6-8KG 8 foot, 30 pound x8 J-braid, Jarvis Walker 8 foot 5-10KG rod on Shimano Baitrunner DC 8000 with 30 pound x 8 Penn Slammer braid, Shimano Sedona 6000 on 7 foot Abu Garcia Nanotech rod, 30 pound x 4 braid. 50 pound FC rock trace, 6/o Masterpro circles. Size 4 star sinker. Fixed sinker rig.
Overall Success Rate: 70% - but can’t complain about a bagout on Brissy River squire landbased.
The next session was just a quick fish with Charlie at his creek spot on Sunday arvo. I got there at about four and caught my first catty (he had already caught three) within five minutes of casting out. Charlie proceeded to catch about three times the number of catties as me, I guess I’m a bit out of touch with the old trusty Alvey.  We probably ended up with fifteen fish combined, and highlights of the arvo include me pulling in a small muddy and a couple of big bream hits casting towards the bank (I dropped one before we got it out of the water).
Quick Stats:
Tide: Rising.
Moon Phase: 57%, there wasn’t heaps of run
Gear Used: Charlie used a light spinning setup and I used a Alvey kids combo, both about 10 pound line, small sinker and suicide hook. Servo prawns for bait.
Overall Success Rate: 85% - fun session catching a few fish
Thanks for reading this report, I hope you enjoyed. Sadly I won’t be able to get out for a fish over the next couple of weeks, maybe a couple of short local sessions, as I’m going to be too busy with school. Hopefully I can catch a couple good ones on the holidays.
Cheers Hamish

Hard work today as I have lost all my spotlocks on my sounder so spent lot of time searching. We picked up 18 bass fairly quickly on the drop off opposite the end of Koala straight but most were under 30cm so we went exploring and could only find more unders or just overs Best fish caught by Hai that was well over 40 at the tip of the island. Final tally was 35 bass and one tandanus. I caught a recently tagged bass that was not in the suntag database. I had to stop tagging when the rain set in and wet everything.

Well I may have been absent but I have been fishing and plan to trickle some varied reports in as I find time.
A big quest for me and my bother in law Joel over the last 18 months has been really sussing out shallow water snapper in the bay. We have done well and what is better is we rarely find them where the car parks of boats are. As challenging as it can be the most consistent fishing has come from really finesse set ups displaying small plastics with long pauses. Picture a small prawn or shrimp moving along the rubbly bottom to imagine what the plastic would look like. Anyway some pictures of the better fish with millions of smaller but still legal fish in between... The biggest one there for me was 76cm which I consider a good effort on 12lb leader in 3 meters of water.

 
Obviously a lot more than snapper in the bay and this technique brings in a lot of by catch... Note the queenie actually swallowed a 30cm squire which got lodged in its throat...

 
As for locations there is no consistency here geographically. We have been fishing a wide range (away from other boats if we can). Or we are looking for is either rubbly bottom (does not need to be much) or bait or in a perfect world both!
 
Angus
 
 

Hey there AFO.
It has been a while.
Due to a combination of a few things I have been AWOL for a while. But keen to get back reporting and sharing.
I will post a few reports of what I have been up to soon. Most notably I have been really enjoying the fact my little girl Aurelia has the bug I get out with her a bit now land based and in the kayak.
Anyway look forward to sifting through the copious unread reports and trying to get through 3-4 years worth of unanswered PMs 🤣
To the next gen of anglers!