AUS-BNE-FISHO

Thanks Brian. Hopefully the fishing improves soon.

Hi all, Over the past few weeks I've been doing a bit of fishing in the river, unfortunately none has been too successful though. The first session was a couple weekends ago. I got to the spot early in the morning at a relatively low tide and started cast netting. Bait was scarce but I had plenty of deadbait, so after getting a few herring I started fishing. It remained quiet for the next couple of hours though, but I did manage to catch about thirty bait sized prawns and a couple more herring (caught some catfish and toadfish on lines). As the tide was getting closer to the high, one of my rods eventually went off. It didn't take long to realize I was on a big stingray though, and after about 15 minutes a 20KG specimen was next to the jetty, which I cut off to annoy someone else. I continued fishing all throughout the day, but didn't catch anything noteworthy, apart from a bream, and more catfish/pike eels/stingray. Stats: Tide: 4:50AM, .5M, Low, 10:40AM, 2.1M, High, 4:50PM, .5M, Low. Moon Phase: New Moon, 1% Bait Caught and Used: Live prawns, herring, deadbaits. Fish Caught: Lots of trash fish, one bream. Tackle Used: Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, Okuma Coronado CDX with Silstar Crystal Powertip, Kmart Rod and Shimano Baitrunner OC 8000. 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, 6/o circle hooks, size 4 star sinkers. Air Pressure: 1019 Humidity: 72% Overall Success Rate: 30%, pretty crap fishing I was up at Yeppoon for a week after that, but when I got back I went fishing on Monday at a spot a while away from my home. Upon arriving, I was disappointed to catch no bait whatsoever, so it was lucky I decided to bring some backup dead prawns along. While I was cast netting, one of my rods did go off, and I landed a fat catty, and upon getting back to netting a second rod went off. This time it was clearly a better fish, and I was pleased to see a legal size squire on the end of my line. I decided to keep this, and shortly after, having only caught one scat in the cast net, I relocated spots as I was out of bait. At the next spot, bait was also very minimal, but I did manage to catch a pike eel. No one else caught any bait or fish for the whole day. Stats: Tide: 6:00AM, 1.7M, High, 12:00PM, .6M, Low, 6:40PM, 2.5M, High. Moon Phase: 78% moon. Bait Caught and Used: Dead prawns, scat strip. Fish Caught: Snapper, catfish, pike eel. Tackle Used: Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, Okuma Coronado CDX with Silstar Crystal Powertip, Kmart Rod and Shimano Baitrunner OC 8000. 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, 6/o circle hooks, size 4 star sinkers. Air Pressure: 1018 Humidity: 64% Overall Success Rate: 20% - pretty crap session After that, upon hearing a decent report, I decided to try a spot that was a bit more local to me. After getting a lift there, I was there early, but unluckily for me there was not a lot of livebait around making fishing to start with a bit of a struggle. Apart from a small catty, it wasn't looking good. Eventually, another fisho rocked up and showed me a better spot to catch livies. He then proceeded to catch a couple of small soapy jewfish, which were good to see, on mullet and bony bream. My rod remained untouched, but I persisted throughout the day praying something would happen. Eventually around lunchtime I had to call it quits as my grandparents were arriving, so I got the bus home. Apparently someone lost a large thready a while after I left and a couple more soapies were caught. Stats: Tide: 7:30AM, 1.7M, High, 1:30PM, .3M, Low. Moon Phase: 87.5% Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, bony bream, dead prawns. Fish Caught: Catfish, others caught jewfish and nearly threadfin. Tackle Used: Kmart Rod and Shimano Baitrunner OC 8000. 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, 6/o circle hooks, size 4 star sinkers. Air Pressure: 1016 Humidity: 74% Overall Success Rate: 30% - crap day for me but good to see some solid fish caught. The next day, I was back at it at that same spot hopeful I'd be able to land a fish. I can't remember all of the details that well, but I know I had a couple more rods and was better equipped to go cast netting. This was one element of the day which was successful, as I managed a couple schools of mullet and bony bream early on. Unfortunately for me, the day proved to be quiet yet again, with no substantial catches for me. Oh well, that's fishing. Stats: Tide: 8:30AM, 1.8M, High, 2:40PM, .2M, Low. Moon Phase: 95% Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet and bonies. Fish Caught: Nothing good. Tackle Used: Shimano Stradic and Raider rod, Shimano Symetre and Sentire Rod, Kmart Rod and Shimano Baitrunner 8000OC, 15, 20, and 30 pound braid mainlines, 50 pound trace, size 3 snapper sinkers. Air Pressure: 1015 Humidity: 64% Overall Success Rate: 20%, bad fishing. I gave the fishing a miss that Thursday, but on Friday I was back at it at a slightly different spot with my mate. We both got there around 6, and were straight into cast netting. A mix of prawns, mullet, bony bream, and herring were landed, and I also had a bit of deadbait, but the fish didn't seem to be playing the game. This trend continued throughout the rising tide, with only a couple catfish being landed, and a few more small fish biting. Upon the rising tide, a rather large live herring I had sent out had a bit of a bite, but eventually the fish dropped it. I was thinking either pike eel or jewie, based on the way the fish played with the bait before running and dropping it. It seemed like nothing was going to change, and a bit before two I headed home for the day, leaving my mate with the livies (he only got catfish). Stats: Tide: 4:30AM, .1M, Low, 10:15AM, 2.1M, High, 4:30PM, .1M, Low. Moon Phase: 100%, Full Moon. Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, herring, bony bream, prawns. Fish Caught: Catfish Tackle Used: Shimano Stradic and Raider rod, Shimano Symetre and Sentire Rod, Kmart Rod and Shimano Baitrunner 8000OC, 15, 20, and 30 pound braid mainlines, 50 pound trace, size 3 snapper sinkers. Air Pressure: 1008 Humidity: 92% Overall Success Rate: 15%, quiet day. After that, I was back at the spot where the jewies had been landed the previous days. A few other fishos came to join me as well, but I was there first and had managed to catch a few nice livebaits. Things were looking promising, but after everyone had soaked a few livies for a while and nothing had happened hopes went down. After a time, I hooked up to something with a lot of weight. We were hoping it would wake up and prove to be a decent fish, but unfortunately a big rotten pike eel surfaced. This was probably one of the biggest eels I've ever seen, and after that was dealt with we got back to fishing. To sum up a long day, I caught a few catties, perch, and a lot more bait, but no prize fish showed themselves. Around 5 I called it quits, disappointed with the days fishing. Stats: Tide: 5:00AM, .1M, Low, 11:00AM, 2.2M, High, 5:15Pm, .1M, Low Moon Phase: Full Moon Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet and bony bream Fish Caught: Catfish, perch, eels. Tackle Used: Shimano Stradic and Raider rod, Shimano Symetre and Sentire Rod, Kmart Rod and Shimano Baitrunner 8000OC, 15, 20, and 30 pound braid mainlines, 50 pound trace, size 3 snapper sinkers. Air Pressure: 1008 Humidity: 92% Overall Success Rate: 10%, crap day. Seeing as though nothing was going my way in the salt, I decided to try for some bass up the river. It was a tight schedule, as my Dad had to be home to take my sister somewhere early in the morning, but a 4AM start saw us at the spot by around half past five. Upon getting into the car, I was greeted by a big old huntsman, which gave me a pretty good fright. Once we arrived at the spot without further issue I was pretty relieved... As we walked down to the river, I was hopeful of a first cast bass, and although this was not the case, it was only a couple of casts before I had a missed hit, same with my Dad. After three missed hits we repositioned slightly, where my Dad caught the first bass of the morning, a nice little model. We continued to wind our way along the bank, and after my Dad caught another fish, I wasn't feeling too hopeful... But then, boof! I was on, and although it was only little it was still fun. After I dehooked it, my Dad caught the best fish of the morning, a solid 35CM model. We continued fishing until about 7:30AM, but then called it quits as we really needed to get home. We ended up catching 7 bass from 10 bust ups, using surface for everything. Stats: Tide: 8:00AM, Low tide, 0.1M Moon Phase: Full Moon Lures Used: Jackall and Duo International Cicadas, I tried an RMG Scorpion 35 for the last part of the session. Fish Caught: 7 * bass Tackle Used: Shimano Stradic 3000 with Shimano Raider, Abu Garcia Veritas 2-4KG with 2500 Diawa Tierra. 15 and 8 pound braid, ten pound fluoro leader. Air Pressure: 1017 Humidity: 71% Overall Success Rate: 90% - not much size but good to do the plan for once. The next day was the last day of school holidays, and @Thorbjorn Hale and I decided to go for an arvo session at a new spot for both of us (Where Thorbjorn saw someone catch a big thready). We got there around midday, and it wasn't long before we got onto a couple of prawns and herring for livebait. This was pretty promising, because not many other spots in the river have had a lot of bait recently. A while later one of my rods was getting some interest. I started winding in, and the fish was swimming towards us. After the initial run, we decided it was a ray, and ten minutes later we were proved right, when a 20KG or so model surfaced. After breaking one dilly, we managed to get it up and release it, happy that we had gotten our first catch. We continued to catch more livebait and fish, but the bite was a bit quiet. The next couple of hours flew by, until we started catching a couple of fish again. I believe Thorbs caught a catfish and eel, and I caught a couple catties. As the sun started to go down, I caught some puttynose perch in the cast net. These were sent out, and Thorbs landed a big stingray on one, which we released. It is also worth noting while I was cast netting about 4 hours after we lost it, I pulled in Thorbs dilly that had broken off from the rope when we were trying to get the first big stingray in. I left at about 5:30PM, and I think Thorbjorn gave it a few more hours that night, but only managed some rays/catties. Anyways, it was still a fun session at what seems like a great spot, just a shame there weren't many fish around! Stats: Tide: 11:50AM, 2.5M, High, 6:15Pm, .5M, Low. Moon Phase: 93% Bait Caught and Used: Live herring, puttynose perch, mullet, prawns, chicken breast. Fish Caught: Catfish, eels, stingrays. Tackle Used: Abu Garcia Nexus on Shimano Sedona 6000, Okuma Coronado CDX with Silstar Crystal Powertip, Kmart Rod and Shimano Baitrunner OC 8000. 30 pound braid, 50 pound trace, 6/o circle hooks, size 4 star sinkers. Air Pressure: 1017 Humidity: 68% Overall Success Rate: 60% - productive arvo sussing out a new spot. Anyways, the most recent session was this morning, on the kayak. My Dad and I decided we would have a crack catching a thready/jew on a lure, so at about 12:45AM we launched into the river near a bridge. It wasn't long before we were drifting by some structure, me flicking a Zerek Pyra lure and my dad jigging a vibe. This spot proved to be no good, so a slight change saw us flicking in some light pools. Everything looked fishy, and after flicking my surface lure around the jetty, I saw some bait jumping on the surface. This was the first time this happened for the night, so I casted my lure right in, and a small tailor came and smashed it, dropping off at the side of the kayak. Cool, we thought, but there was no more surface action at this spot so we moved on to the next set of wharfs. This also proved unsuccessful, and after pulling up on a jetty to stretch the legs, we shot off to another ferry terminal. There wasn't much illumination at this one, so twenty minutes later we were at a third terminal, that looked much fishier. We casted here for about 30 minutes, but with no luck we made our way back to the first terminal we fished, casting our lure up onto a shallow mudbank with lots of mullet activity. A few final casts saw us with no fish, so we left, off the water by about 3:15AM and back in bed by four, feeling a bit disappointed with our dud session. Stats: Tide: 12:00AM, .7M, Low, 5:30AM, 1.3M, High. Moon Phase: 47%. Lures Used: Zerek Pyra and soft vibe. Fish Caught: One small tailor. Tackle Used: Shimano Stradic 3000 on Raider and Shimano Symetre 4000 on Sentire Rod, 15 and 20 pound braid mainlines with 30 pound leader. Air Pressure: 1018 Humidity: 66% Overall Success Rate: 50%- good to try something new. Thanks for reading this report. Hope you enjoyed. School is starting to get busy now but I'm hoping my luck will change soon after all those bad sessions. Sorry no photos. Cheers Hamish

Thanks Brian, hopefully. Thanks @mangajack. I've tried once in the city reaches of Rockhampton for no luck, I know it can fish pretty well, so thanks for the tips. Sorry for the late reply. Thanks Charlie.

Nice stuff guys, looks like a productive session.

Good work Neil.

Nice work guys. Glad you all got onto a few.

Did anyone see any crocs while you were up there?

Great report Brian. Sorry to hear it wasn’t a successful trip but hopefully next time you’ll get on the fish. Cheers Hamish

Hi Scally, The size of your combo is not an indicator of how big a fish you can target. For instance, I sometimes use the same gear I target bream with to target small bullsharks up to a meter. The cast weight of your rod is a guide to how heavy a bait/lure you should be throwing about, so if the rod has a cast weight between 12-35 grams then a 35 gram slug would be suitable to cast. There is no definitive max fish size you can target with that setup, but 8 kilo mainline is a nice all rounder for smaller fish and larger fish. You will probably find that you need separate lures, baits, and hooks to target different fish, i.e. you probably would not use the same lure to target a freshwater trout as you would a snapper. To find out what lure/bait to use, I would suggest watching some Youtube videos or doing some research into fishing species in your area and how to target them. If you are fishing mono all the way through, you probably don't need a leader, but if you're fishing with braid mainline then learning a knot like an FG knot to tie your braid to a mono or fluorocarbon leader would be recommended. Snap swivels can be helpful to change lures quickly. Cheers Hamish

Hi all, This report will be about my recent trip up to Yeppoon. After driving up, I was pretty exhausted, so slept in on the first Monday morning. It was pretty windy that day though, but with tides ideal to fish off Double Heads my dad and I went for a quick arvo fish there. Unfortunately, with some relatively dirty water, and conditions making it a little difficult to fish, we didn't manage any catches. The next morning, we were back at Double Heads to try our luck again. Lures of choice were 20, 25, and 30 gram red Flashas, but after heaps of casts we were completely unsuccessful in catching anything. Conditions were pretty bad once again, so after about 1.5hrs of fishing off the rocks we decided to relocate to Ross Creek, because the tide was still pretty low. Here, I caught a small flatty on plastics, but the bite was still pretty quiet all around. That arvo, I was at a bit of a loss as to where to go fishing, but my uncle was going over to our boat in the harbor so I had a quick cast there. Being the middle of the day, I struggled to catch bait, but it was still disappointing that I had a big fat donut to finish the day off. The next day was Wednesday, and luckily for us the weather was good. Unfortunately, after a couple weeks of bad weather prior to me arriving, the water was very dirty, meaning most larger fish and baitfish were nowhere to be found. My Dad and I still gave it a good crack though, but I think the only catch was a grinner by my Dad. I fished for about 3 hours that day off the rocks, and was feeling pretty disappointed by the end of it. I can't recall whether or not I went fishing that arvo, but if I did it was probably at the harbor where I caught nothing. On Thursday, we were back at Double Heads, and this time I gave it a longer crack. My Dad headed off a bit early after catching nothing, but I managed to land a wolf herring and a couple grinners for the few hours I was out baking on the rocks. Later that day, after a rest at home, my mate asked me if I wanted to go for a fish at the Causeway Lake, so we tried there for a couple of hours. Despite our best efforts and a pretty long walk though, we didn't manage any fish flicking our lures, but it was still a nice way to spend a couple of hours fishing. That arvo, I went fishing off my uncles boat in the harbour again, and being closer to low tide it was easier to net a few herring. With these, I managed to catch one fish off the back of the boat - a solid 45CM cod, which I kept for dinner. The next day, I'm pretty sure my Dad and I went for a quick flick off Double Heads, the last time for the trip. Like every other session, it was a dud though, but we did find out someone had caught a couple good spanos and other mackerel off there a few weeks prior (when the water was cleaner). We left feeling disappointed - hopefully next time the rocks are fishing a bit better. Later that day, myself and @Coconutdog went for a fish off of Farnborough beach. It was pretty quiet though, and neither of us caught anything using some dead prawns on light line. Hopefully some more fish next time! For my final session of the trip, I caught myself a few livies at the harbor, and went down for a fish off of my uncles boat again. Things were looking a bit better this arvo though, because shortly after getting there I caught a bream that would have been a solid 35CM, probably closer to 40CM though, on an unweighted bony bream. After that, while I was winding in an unweighted live bony to check it, it got smashed on the way up, and, having my drag set too tight, my ten pound leader snapped immediately. Bugger! Hoping for another opportunity, I sent another bony down, and sure enough, it got walloped by something that screamed off under the boat. The fight was only short lived though, because it broke me off after the first run. I am assuming it might have been a jack or fingermark, but we'll never know now . I called it quits after that bustoff, and we drove home on Friday. So far I haven't caught anything good in the river either this holidays so hopefully a big fish soon. Thanks for reading, and sorry no photos, not that there is much to show off anyways. Cheers Hamish

There’s a couple people on Facebook who seem to be cleaning up, good to hear about them!

Fingers crossed!

Glad to hear you got a few Ray.

Sounds like a decent day Ray.

It seems to be an issue for everyone at the moment, hopefully it is fixed soon.

Nice work Rebel, sounds like a productive session.

Good stuff @mangajack

Yep, I can't see them either

Sounds like a fun session, good stuff Rebel.

Agreed.

Likely.

Make sure you tie on a heavier leader like 30/50 pounds for the threadfin and jew, you might struggle releasing a big thready if you fight it for a long time on light line.

Nice work Neil.

Nice job Ray, good to see the cod breeding pipes as well.