Hweebe

hahahah this is why I'm looking at other fishing grounds that are less weather dependent. Rivers or close inshore grounds. GC rivers as @ellicat suggests seems to be the go. Almost decided to head down on Saturday morning but thought there was more rain around

What kind of rig setup on the bait rod? single hook or snelled? Unlucky that the hooks pulled given the run?

You could try Raby Bay canals and Raby bay foreshores to explore some new ground? Maybe even try Cleveland point. I'd try the canals on the tide turn periods early or late in the day. Whilst the foreshores best at high tide.

Thanks Everyone, Storage and having a spot for everything seems to be a bit of the theme. Always seems to happen when you need the pliers / rag / ruler / knife / scissors you can't find one so I'm trying to get into the habit of setting things in a specific place/spot. Must be because the Deckie (me) is doing a bad job of randomly placing things. My anchor chain sock is getting a bit ratty (sometimes it doesn't lay right and rubs against the winch drum fraying the sock) so I'll have to replace soon. Yes to rod holders - never seem to have enough. I need a couple rod holders to angle some rods out the side for when i get greedy and try to run 4 lines out the back.

How do you intend to fish for the barra / fish? Trolling or Casting? I wouldn't normally look at using a Calcutta 200B for casting and would get a lower profile baitcaster for that application. Just asking before you pull the trigger on a rod and reel combo that wouldn't be suited for how you want to use it.

Hey @Old Scaley what is Ozfish generally about? I had a quick google, looks like something to help give back to the community?

@aussie123 just checked out your reeltackle site, will definitely be scoping out what gear i need from there. Site says 12th June and 21st June you will be away. Fishing Trip?

Hopefully the rain stays away but Hervey Bay should be good fun. Will you be boating across the bay to the camp site or is it accessible by 4wd and trailer?

Titans narrowly avoided the prestigious title of being winless for 1 year

That is probably because you are spending all your time catching fish. A pristine boat (like mine) just means I spend too much time cleaning and not enough time catching

What about making a small tweak and only velcroing one bottom edge of the esky, should be enough to stop sliding but if you need to move it you only need to angle the velcro edge up and you will still be able to slide the esky around?

I like the idea of getting some solid shark fillet/steaks with no bones that relatively quickly instead of filleting 30 odd whiting fillets

Post your favourite boat mods or hacks that make your time on the water easier. Could be anything from a $2 hack to expensive aftermarket additions. Looking for ideas and tweaks In the boat for those windy rainy days and boat maintenance haha haha.

Hey Hamish, I basically go everywhere with a telescopic rod in my car, always prepared for a random flick into a body of water Never know where you might see fish boiling up or if u have a few hrs to burn

Good sesh, how are bite times for fresh water? Better at dawn and dusk just like other fishing?

Bit of trial and error and you will know where. But at night Any well lit pylon or structure and you will find bait fish holding tight. A strong headlamp at night is a must because the silver flicker through the water will be obvious. Cast net then confirms if this is the case if necessary. Structure is king for finding baitfish. They are not as easy to find in open water. In a yak I don’t see the point burleying as you can move to the fish. I kind of reserve burleying for when I’m going to be at a spot for a while. The lures typically used to target flathead can sometime also jag a Trev on the troll. On your yak if you scope an area around low tide to look for some flathead lyes, these ambush points are good areas to try as flaties lye here waiting for the unsuspecting bait fish to come by

What about cockle banks just off Bribie island? That would be in yak distance chance of winter or summer whiting. Other spots outside Nudgee, compass adjustment point?

Mate the fact you fish mid week gives you more than half a chance. I’m changing tact so to speak, trying to find new ground by exploring fishy areas. Most of the fishable areas in the bay are well known it’s just about finding a spot away from the boat car parks. I have found though that the whiting fishos all very considerate and give each other plenty of space since we are all on the drift.

Thanks for the tip, will definitely make sure To remove the liver if we hook onto another shark that we intend to try.

Yes the plan is to divide and conquer with the misso, just getting her used to handling the boat and reversing the trailer. Plan is to get her comfortable handling boat while supervised and get the license sorted. She can reverse the trailer in a bind but on busy days like yesterday she isn’t real keen. Must be a bit of a spectacle because there were camp chairs and spectators out yesterday . We laughed It off in the end, just expect the unexpected to happen at the ramp and keep calm.

Good pick up Hamish..cross the cast net off in NSW

Rous Session Sun 8 June 2020 - Trip plan was to get back into the groove (after not much success last couple of outings) targeting winteries. Launched from Manly boat ramp just on first light. Already quite a few trailers in the car park, about 1/3 full from boats I assume were overnighting given conditions in the bay were very calm starting Saturday night and it was a full moon out. Made the run to Rous passing by Harries and it looked like a fair few had overnighted at harries. Tide and wind was going in the same direction so very nice cruise out. Small Ships channel We started our first few drifts in the small ships channel targeting the higher ground as water was running in. Dropper rigs with combination of either Squid/Prawn/Berkely worm critters Made 3-4 long drifts for nothing but we persevered until we found a very tight patch in about 3.5 to 4m of water where we were getting nibbles but no hookups. They felt like whiting but for whatever reason we were not hooking up. Change in technique Our typical setup for whiting is three rods out in the rod holders on the drift and whiting pretty much will hook themselves. We quickly found out that in this spot, to hook up today rod's needed to be in hand and to be striking on the bigger hit. Once we changed this up we started bringing the fish in. Not in in huge or prolific numbers but all of good quality sizes. All were coming up fat and plump (well fed). I guess they had grown larger by being a bit more shy to the bait. Biggest one went 29cm in the photo. This spot produced 29 whiting all up in the next hour in about 4 drifts. Next spot - Amity banks / Maroon hole The fishing slowed and while we were still catching whiting on the last drift we decided with a feed in hand to try and explore some new ground. Decided to drift over some fishy areas next to Amity green zone and through to maroon hole. We used the same rigs but mostly ended up with baby squire or the dreaded toad fish. Shark! on With fishing getting slower i decided to get a livey out the back with one of the smaller sized whiting (not expecting much to happen) Was thinking maybe i would jag a makerel, but then rod tip bent with a solid first run but on the 4000 bio master my partner was making good progress. Couple of shorter runs, it didn't quite feel like a makerel but as it got closer we could tell it was a small reef shark of some sort about 60-70cm. We got it to the boat but 40lb leader used for the snelled hook rig broke off. It was getting a bit cold and overcast with not much sun so that got the adrenaline pumping. Bigger Shark Wanting some more action i sent out a pike bycatch from the last whiting spot, 3 gang hooked. It wasn't long before rod again lent over with another wild first run. Same feeling as the last one just more power in the first run. This Shark was fun because we were again on 40lb so were unsure we would get it to the boat. The gangs held up we got the shark which would have been around 1m next to the boat but it still had plenty of juice. It was a clean hook up and i didn't want to risk missing toes so we got the shark on the duckboard unhooked the gangs and left the shark to live another day. Flake? Does anyone keep shark for Flake? With the whiting already in the bag we already had plenty of fish to eat but what do people do with their shark bycatches. The last one at 1m would have produced perfect sized fillets. I just wasn't sure on the table qualities. PB Grinner - Third times a charm? Couple of more drifts but we couldn't find any more whiting. I tried the similar setup of pike out the back and landed this monster. Who knew they got that big!! This was our omen to start heading back for the day. We anchored up on our run home near green island boat watching while we relaxed for lunch. Boat ramp mayhem. We were glad we got back early as it was already queuing up at the ramp (around 1pm). Car park must have been chockers as every traffic island, run-off area had trailers parked over gutters and bushes. Boat retrieval etiquette? When we got to the ramp there were about 6 boats queued up all quite orderly fashion waiting their turn. We did have a group after us that drove up to the pontoon to drop off the driver. I didn't think much of it. I eventually got the pontoon, leaving the partner with the boat and making space for another boat to dock up behind us. What happened was that because old mate from 7 boats back was quicker with the trailer he reversed down the ramp to where my boat was docked. With the boat docked behind us and our boat it was near impossible to get old mates boat in. So he asked my partner to move our boat......which my partner respectfully said no (there is no where to go). I was at the car this is where I'm a bit angry, he ignored my partner proceeded to undock my boat to try push it back for more room. My partner isn't the biggest person pushing under 50kg, this made her quite anxious. If it was me I would have told him to bugger off but want to confirm what the etiquette is in this scenario? I was literally the next car to reverse down the ramp except old mate was in the way. I didn't find out until my partner told me but old mate made contact with our boat trying to squeeze onto his trailer. Luckily no signs of damage. Until next time - Tight Lines Hweebe

Thanks for the report Hamish. Who doesn't love getting perfect circles instead of the banana throw Took me a long while to get a technique I liked and one that kept me semi-dry. With the weight of the 10ft for you, the trick is the pre-throw routine when you start the swing of the leads, use the momentum of the leads in the back swing to help start the throw, rather then trying to "muscle" the net to spread. Like any sport swing (golf, cricket etc) a smooth flowing backlift is your friend. Took my mate showing many times how he could effortlessly throw and get a good spread with limited effort whilst i would puff out after a few.

Have caught Trev's Noosa river, night time land based. Look for the baitfish and they will be around. On nights when it was quite enough we could here the splashing when they broke the surface and we would cast poppers out with some success. Many times they were out of reach but in a kayak i think this would open up things for you.

@Breaming with bro When rock wall fishing for bream we found bread was only useful for the smaller bream / undersize catches. Bigger bait presentations, whilst getting less hits tended to get us onto the bigger legal sized breams. Have you thought about cast netting for bait local to the area? We also found fresh live or dead bait local to the spot as the most effective.