deegee12g

I'm surprised that you have not had more replies to your post, so I will chip in with my two cents worth even though it doesn't relate exactly to your query.

Some (many) years ago I had a 4.9 meter Canadian style canoe that I used to fish Hinze Dam when fossil fuel boats were banned. I fitted it with a small 28lb thrust electric motor to extend my travel range and time on the water.

It was great for traveling further and faster than I could paddle, and good for trolling too.  It got me back to the ramp quicker if the weather turned nasty while I was out on the water, and I really appreciated it a couple of times heading back into a stiff head wind.

I always thought of it as one of my better decisions, and that the price of the motor and battery was money well spent.

Cheers,   deegee12g

When I put a new floor in my boat, I bought a non-slip paint. It came with a container of VERY fine sand that had to be mixed into the paint. It was so fine that I didn't think it would work. So I put a coat of it and a piece of scrap plywood, and I was surprised at how much it roughened the surface, and how effective it was,  But it was not abrasive on bare  feet or tackle. I think that was because it was in the paint, not sprinkled on top of it.  It was inclined to settle to the bottom of the can and had to be stirred regularly to keep it in suspension.

Sorry, but I can't remember the brand, or where I got it , but it may have been from Bunnings.

If you use something like beach sand you could get a very coarse, rough surface, so you should test a small amount on some scrap wood before you mix any serious amounts. I'm not sure what makes paint so expensive, but is not cheap and you won't want to waste it.

Cheers,   Don.

The shipping channel beacons in the Eastern and northern bay often hold yellowtail kingfish (and Cobia at times). They are not always big ones, but a few of them are. The bigger ones can be very wary, and will seldom take dead or cut baits. The best chance of hooking one is with live bait, which can usually be jigged at the same beacons.

Hello Kat,  Whiptails only grow to about 30cm max. I have caught several them in Moreton Bay in the past but have never seen or caught one bigger than 20cm.

36 minutes ago, Kat said:

I was wondering about that.  But don't they breathe through their gills?

They inhale water though their mouths and exhale though the gills so that the water passes over the gill filaments which collect oxygen as it flows over them.

Earlier this year I had the annual service on my Honda 60 motor and gearbox done by Mobile Marine Medics. They also fitted a new water pump impeller and a new steering cable.

Did a good job of all these and at what I thought was a very fair price.

Will be getting them to do the next service when it's due.

18 minutes ago, Old Scaley said:

Sounds like a fun day, Robbie. Anyone else having trouble seeing the photos? They are just blank rectangles on my iPad? 

I can't see them on my PC either.  Tried three different browsers, but what I see is many lines of code - no pics or rectangles.   On one of Dropbear's previous posts I could see one of the pics but could not see the others.

I thought it might be because they were uploaded from an Android device, and not compatible with my windows PC.

I have fished the stretch from the Albert/Logan junction down to the mouth a few times recently and there is plenty of depth for much larger boats than my 4.9M tinny.

There are navigation markers for the last 4 or 5 Km to the mouth, which is where it can be a bit tricky.  Between the junction and these markers, there are a couple of sandbars which are shallow at low tide., but they are mostly on the inside of the bends and can be avoided by not cutting the corner as you round the bends.

I haven't been there recently, but in the past I did some crabbing along the Bethania and Edens Landing areas and was quite deep all through there. I have no experience with the section between the highway and the junction, but I have no reason to believe that it is any different to the the sections above & below it. 

After heavy rain there can be some flotsam in the river, and after any flooding it can be quite quite bad, but most of the time there is only the occasional piece floating rubbish to watch out for.

10 hours ago, benno573 said:

Another way is to make a set of gangs and leave the top hook free of the bait. So a gang of 3 - bait only goes on the bottom two. This is much more effective on mackerel who are very wary of wire. Still recommend running 1.5-2m of 40-60lb leader.

It has always puzzled me why ganged hooks are less likely to spook fish than a short length of wire, especially if it is nylon coated. Two or three extra hooks is a lot more metal.

But ganged hooks with no wire is so often recommended that I guess it must work better than wire, and there must be some reason behind it.

Anybody here know why, or got any theories ??