AUS-BNE-FISHO

41 cm flatty caught after way too long flicking plastics into the wind. There's a few around as I had several good runs, this is the only one that stuck. Its a skinny fish, but I'm hungry and the boys wanted to learn how to fillet a fish. So I'll be hungry still tonight 🤣

I used to spend lots of time in the area on reefs and chasing tuna and macs....usually end up with a decent bag for the day.
Currents can be painful....SW to NW breezes work best for me in the area.
 

I'd drive the length of the Bribie East coast, about a nautical mile or two out. You will likely come across tuna, so have a couple of rods rigged with slugs to throw at them. While you're moving north watch your sounder and you will likely come across sections of coffee rock and/or sharp depth changes with obvious reef on the floor. Try them for a bit of bottom bashing. You may be lucky enough to see some other anchored boats about, that will give you the clue to investigate the bottom nearby.
Eventually you will come to the Blinker at Caloundra. Again, there will likely be other boats testing their luck. There is plenty of ground here to suss out. Some days are better than others here. I've had great days with snapper, grassies, Venus tuskfish, cod, and other reefies. Other days it has been very quiet. Never a guarantee.
The whole trip will take at least an hour each way (@ 20 knots) plus time to chase tuna on your way.
If you take the view that it is an explore day, with a bit of fishing thrown in, it should make future trips better for you.
Late thought - take a Sabiki bait jig with you, as often there are livies hanging around the reef areas. If you find some, drop the jig down, catch some, and then fish there using livies. If you don't find livies, use cuttlefish heads for bait.

I hope they're destroying them. 
It's sad to see this country with so many introduced pests killing off our native species. 
 
I that video, I was surprised to see that bass even avoid them. 
Bass are one tough fish and very territorial, and I've seen them kill jacks twice their size in fish tanks. 

No measuring tape today, but it was at least 35cm. seemed to be a few about, I got 3 in an hour. That's an all time record for me!! Still in the mud @ellicatit still stinks. Bad 🤣

Sad to see that these have made their way into some waterways, I have seen photos of a couple people catching them.

Pearl Cichlids. 
I had these when I had an aquarium. Great looking fish but extremely ferocious. 
 
If anyone catches one. Don't let it go. Destroy it. 
 
 
This recent vid came across my feed yesterday. 
 
 

Dart (Trevally) - 41cm (wifey)
Whiting - 34.2cm (wifey - of course ..)
Whiting - 30cm (me)

Well considering just about everyone for years and years have been throwing them back in disgust as bycatch, it's about time some bigger bream showed up lol. 

That is the biggest bream I've seen posted on AFO in the 18 years I've been on here.

Absolute stonker of a grunter there, @benno573. How hard did it pull ? What did it take ?

Congrats on the bay snapper Brian !!
69 is a great number 🙂
Damn you, now i have to go find a 70 🤣

7/8ths of land based fishing is watching and taking notice....notice where currents converge, notice where food might be taken to by the current......notice the slow spots in the currents....notice the dis-colour of the water.
Fish are not dumb, they know where their food will be brought to them and they will wait for it a lot of the time.
So rather than concentrating on getting a bite, concentrate on trying to see where a fish will wait for food or why this place is better than the next. Select the place slowly, there is no rush....make the decision of where you believe the fish will be then specifically try to catch that one fish. Doing this will teach you lots more than pulling up to the bank and chucking a bait in the water.
You will be fishing for a fish that is waiting for your bait....present your bait as a drift bait like it is expecting....don't anchor the bait near him.
If you get a chance to be up high over shallow water, just watch, you will see a fathead move, then watch him some more.....every move me makes is to another spot that positions him better for a feed....take note of where he moves to and why that spot is better.
When fishing watch your line, not the rod, look for changes in the tension or tics travelling up the line. Always fish with a bit of a belly in the line to the water, don't pull the line tight to the sinker.
Try fishing sand banks with unweighted baits....yabbies and worms are king.....use the wind to help your cast and the current to deliver the bait....you already know where the fish will be.

I always found that live bait tends to sift out some smaller stuff. All the others that have made points have made valid points. The only other things that I could add is go fishing whenever you can and/or feel like it. Keep a record of things. @AUS-BNE-FISHO has been diligent with this with better tools than I had when I was his age.

66.5cm grunter team north

A few more for team south .
Spanish Mac 1100 and 945mm
Spotty Mac 800mm
Grassy Sweetlip 480 and 420mm
Spangled Emperor 440mm
Cattle dog cod 370 and 380mm
Wire netting cod 340mm

Whiting 29.9cm (wifey)
Whiting 29.8cm (me - she wins again 🤨)

Thanks Brian, sounds like a partly successful session in the bay. Melbourne was alright, I think the casino would’ve been more fun than all the shopping I had to do.
Thanks for the tips mangajack. My Dad and I were actually fishing there and the two fish we caught were with unweighted baits so it’s good to know some bigger fish can be caught.
Ill be up again in Winter but I think I’ll be limited to Double Heads unfortunately instead of Corio Bay because I Won’t have a car.
Shame about the dud squid session KM, and yep I’ve packed a rod but so far no luck. Mainly just relaxing this trip though due to the cold weather haha.
Fishing license or drivers license? I’ll have my L’s in May so I’m pretty excited about that Ray.

The fire issue (although generally statistically low) concerns me with lithium batteries. I don't think I would like to be sitting on top of one in an enclosed space if something went wrong. I would keep any batteries under bonnet or somehow external.
That said I drove a 95 model sierra for years when I was young. Bought it brand new and it never let me down. Wow, the places that you can get one of those things. Suzuki will have improved on that now because they don't do crap. I trust you will be impressed with the reliability and the places that you can get to in the jimny👍

Bob,
With lithium voltage is not a good indicator of capacity as they hold voltage much longer.  Only way of knowing capacity is using a shunt that measure state of charge (enerdrive and victron for example).
I just had a look at history off my Victron shunt in the boat….after a long day out in salt water using the leccy, my lithium bank for the electric was sitting at 13.31v and had consumed 39.8Ah which represents as 80% State of Charge at 100% state of charge it is 13.35v.  So important to consider low drop in voltage is not representative of the batteries state of charge with lithium unlike FLA batteries.
Out of interest, a Landcruiser forum I follow had a thread today on issues with the itechworld lithium rated for under bonnet use.  They cut out at 60* at the terminals and wont come back on until returning to a static lower temp.  These aren’t a hybrid like you are talking about but something to consider if they do have an overtemp condition. (That said I think a TD 200 series underbonnet is significantly higher than your Suzuki!!)
I do think you will find a 40l Waeco consumes only @ 2.5amps once cool and when its cool they cycle much less (at least my 40l Engel does).  So with it running off solar during day and the battery recharging (you can normally get @ 8-10amps out of a solar blanket) in sunshine) the 60amp lithium which can run down to 90% capacity ie 54amps should give you roughly 21hrs as a minimum without charging.  Throw in a slim 100amp lithium and its more like double that.  
 

69cm snapper for Team South