GregOug

No. They are heavy, around 130 grams plus and meant for snapper. Meant to look like an octopus I think.

Hi all, Not sure if it is just at the Virginia BCF or all of them but they are selling heaps of lures for $5 each until 28/2, including Berkeley Shimma Shads, Savage Heavy jigs and the ones that I don’t know what they are called. You know the ones though. They have a very heavy round head with tons of stuff streaming below and some small but heavy gauge deadly looking hooks imbedded in them. Heaps of other lures too. cheers Greg

I’d be happy with those. Nice tuskies. Pity about the bloo….dy sharks!

We always take tons of bait but even so, usually have very little left at the end. We take squid, whole cuttlefish and pillies but the squid seems to be the best by far.

I recently bought two new G.Loomis rods and was keen to try them out so when today's forecast for Moreton Bay was for around 0.2 metre seas until after midday, Damon and I decided to head to our recently found spot over at Moreton to try them out. The river was calm as we headed out around dawn and things looked very promising. The calm seas continued until we got past the main shipping channel beacons but deteriorated very quickly after that. We were soon punching into a very nasty swell with cross chop and the wind was considerably stronger than the less than ten knots forecast. We decided to persevere but by the time we got to our spot the seas were probably at least a half metre of chop on top of a metre and a half swell, and very confused. We anchored and sent some baits down with some fairly heavy lead as the run was nearly as bad as the last time we were there. The swell and chop was pretty bad and I missed a couple of decent bites but then managed to hook something that obviously had some size to it because I wasn’t gaining much line for a couple of minutes, and then it would fight for a few seconds and then just be a heavy weight in between fights. I started to suspect a cod at this stage, but when we finally got our first glimpse of it in the white-capping swells behind the boat my heart sank because I thought it looked like a huge sea toad. But Damon said he was sure it was a cod, and he proved to be correct when I got it to the back of the boat. It was a very nice cod. That nice, in fact, that we had considerable difficulty getting into a landing net that was way too small for it! Lol. But eventually Damon somehow manoeuvred it into the net with the tail sticking out, and brought it aboard. My very first fish on my new spinning rod, and what a great start to its fishing life! I caught one keeper grassie after that, but we’d only been there about half an hour when I started feeling decidedly queasy. I was just about to mention this to Damon when he turned to me and exclaimed that he was feeling rather ill. The swell, chop and generally very confused sea was just too much and we quickly up anchored and started to head for home. We only made it a couple of hundred metres however before we decided it was going to be a very uncomfortable slog back to the ramp. I suggested we instead head down Moreton close in, in search of some better seas. By the time we reached the Sandhills it was considerably calmer and we headed towards Mud. By the time we were approaching Mud the seas had almost totally abated and it was much more like the predicted 0.2 metre seas than the maelstrom we had encountered at the top end of the bay. We were both feeling much better by this stage and decided to try a couple of spots on the northern side of Mud. But as usual, at least for me, Mud was reluctant to give up any of its mythical fish to us. As it was still before lunch time we decided to head to another spot we had caught a few squire at in the past. Surprisingly, this was when the day’s fishing really started. As soon as we dropped our baits down we started getting nice bites and a few decent runs. We bought a couple of grassies on board, then Damon caught a Moses Perch. It became a bit of a blur after that as we hooked fish, lost fish, boated fish, got bitten off, broken off and generally had a ball! The squire gradually got bigger. Damon boated a 38cm, followed soon after by a 43cm. Now, to us, that’s a decent squire! We high-fived each other and felt like we’d finally got the monkey off our back. Not to be out done, I soon had a good run and after a solid fight I boated a 50cm one. We kept getting big runs, often hooking up but either getting broken off on the bottom or bitten off. Whatever they were, they were biting through around 60 lb double leader just above the hook. Eventually I hooked something that was monstrous and peeled 30lb line on very heavy drag like it didn’t even know it was hooked. I fought this thing for at least fifteen minutes without ever sighting it, or even really getting it close to the boat. At this stage I remembered the giant turtle we had seen surfacing in the area a few times in the past hour or so, and it finally clicked that it was probably him I had hooked. He ended up breaking me off on the bottom, and I can’t say I was totally sorry, as he had just about worn me out. The G.Loomis spinning rod had certainly got a decent workout on its first day of duty. I love it! It has a sensitive tip and heaps of grunt, with a range of 15 to 50lb! We decided to call it a day and headed off to the ramp, knowing we had a fair bit of work ahead, cleaning the boat and gear, and scaling and filleting fish. All in all, probably our best day in the bay so far.

I concur with your thoughts KM.

Thanks @Cobiaaddict. I’d love some advice on that because I set a float line every time I go out and nothing has touched them in many hours of trying. I set the float with about 2 metres of line below it with about a number 3 ball sinker a metre or so it, then a swivel and the bait on about a metre leader below that. I’ve tried whole squid, whole whiting, whiting heads, pillies, whole scad, artificial whole squid, large artificial prawns. You name it. Nothing has even touched them. Maybe I need to set the bait a bit deeper?

No doubt

I caught most of the fish the trip before and I don’t care who catches the fish as long as we catch some. When my sons come out with me you would think they’re still 5 years old. I usually sit back and bait the hooks, take the fish off, man the net or gaff, get more bait ready etc. Lol.

You have to wonder how they get it so wrong. It was pretty ordinary in the northern end of the bay.

Yes, it was certainly a bit of a battle out there today. At least it made having to come back in early a bit more palatable.

Damon tested negative on a RAT this afternoon so that’s hopeful. We all use snap swivels on my boat so that you can quickly change rigs when needed. Not sure of rated breaking strain but I’m sure it’s more than the breaking strain of the line used.

They were all floating today.

And another quick side note. Why is it we fishermen wear our oldest, daggy’est gear to go fishing, when it presents the few photo opportunities left to us in life?

Just a side note on today’s tides. The low was 0.28m and the high was 2.81m. That is a huge difference in height for Moreton Bay. Not wonder our baits were skiing.

Well! I went out this morning and had one of those days. Firstly, the 0.2 metre seas predicted were over a metre of swell with at least half metre of chop on top by the time we got near Moreton. It was like we were in a washing machine. Then we tried to find some live bait around a couple of the beacons and buoys over there but the current was running that strongly that we raced past them and I couldn’t position the boat in one spot so that Damon could drop a jig down. We eventually gave up on the idea of live bait and headed to our new spot X. We calculated the wind, the current, the waves, the sea spray etc etc and finally dropped anchor so that we would be able to fish precisely over our spot. We didn’t even come close! Ended up hanging exactly the opposite way to what we thought and quite a distance from our spot. We dropped baits over the side anyway as at least the current was heading in that direction and they proceeded to water ski behind us. The current was that fast. We kept on adding more and more lead until I was worried that we might capsize if only one of us threw out at a time. Damon eventually got somewhere near the bottom because he started getting some bites. He bought in a just over legal sweetlip, but missed some really nice bites. Shortly afterwards I was up the front trying to tie my line onto the anchor winch so I could get it to wind my 24kgs of lead in for me, when Damon hooked another fish which seemed to fight harder and harder the closer he got it to the boat. When it broke the surface we saw why. There was a 35cm parrot (tusk) fish on the bottom hook and a 67cm school mackerel on the top hook! They took some getting into the landing net, especially as we discovered that Damon had made his leader exactly six inches too long for me to reach them with the landing net. Lol. He eventually proceeded up the front of the boat so they were close enough for me to net. A bit later, just as the current was slowing down to twenty or so knots and we were anticipating actually having our baits stay on the bottom for a second or two, Damon got a text from his girlfriend saying she had just tested positive for COVID! After discussing this for a minute we decided that it had put paid to any more fishing so we up anchored and headed for home in the forlorn hope that Damon wouldn’t have already infected me if he also had it, given that we had just spent the last three hours or so in the confined quarters of a 6m boat. It was like 8.30am when we got back to the ramp! I’m not sure what the neighbours thought as we handed each other rods, buckets, tackle boxes and all the other assorted paraphernalia you take each trip but never even think of, let alone use once you get on the water, and trying not to touch anything in the same spots the other had, all the while wearing face masks in the by then 35 degree heat! Oh well, these are the times we live in now.

Hi Davo. Just saw this thread. I ordered some of these online from the manufacturer in the USA a few months ago but they ended up refunding my money because they don’t ship to Australia. Do you remember how you got a hold of yours? cheers Greg

Well, you know what this means Greg? You can no longer say there are no fish in the Fitzroy. Well done! It’s a beauty.

Only just saw this thread. I use baitrunners exclusively, except for trolling and the one baitcaster, so you may want to steer clear of them Hamish.

And Hamish is our river expert, so check out those spots!

So now I need to work on my technique.

And welcome to the forum.

Sorry. I only use the Brisbane River to warm my motor up.

Looks like a thingamajiggy to me.

Not as good as yours but okay.