Kat

My son spent some time fishing over at Amity Point without me. 
He wanted to target pelagics landbased and he certainly produced the goods. He was targeting bonito on small metals next to the boat ramp. He was  doing okay when a ripper of a Spanish mackerel grabbed the small lure. He wasn't fishing with wire and managed to hook it squarely in the mouth. He also didn't have a gaff. There was a big crowd of onlookers watching him land the fish and several boats returning back to the ramp with donuts. It could be a long time before he gets a bigger one landbased. 
 
 

Ended up fishing lighter and got the attention and the result in the end 👍 I would be feeling chuffed to post that success. The feed of grassies on top... You will be popular on the home front. Great job. I did say to @Kat "I bet your glad you left that one for Brian" 😂😂😂. 

69cm snapper for Team South

@Old Scaley 39cm Grass Emperor.

Did a solo trip down the Pin this morning in search of some Threadfin . 
Spotted some threadies  and  baby bullies  feeding  together in 1.5 m of water right where I expected them at 11.30am .
 I managed to pull a feed  before they wised up . 
team south  - 
Threadfin  885 and 1100mm
Bull Sharks 800, 740 and 765mm 
Grunter 350mm
Regards
Neil

Can you believe it, the weather is mint offshore, it is the weekend, the almanac is good, and I have decided to give it a miss?  I could not justify going out and catching more fish when I already have a full freezer.  I must be sick or something. 

All good advise above.
We all have bad  days.
Make sure you use scent. I put scent on everything, including lures.

Just keep at it mate. You're not doing anything wrong so to speak, you just need to experiment. 
Your catching fish. That's a start. 
Start with presenting your baits in different arrangements. 
Remember, what works well today, may just get ignored tomorrow.
 
The tackle you're using plays a big part too. 
Fish as light as possible.
Start with about 8lb main line, braid or mono. 
10lb fluorocarbon leader maximum. 
 
I'd suggest a running sinker rig to start with. It's a very common rig to run. 
 

 
 
Find a sinker size that sinks to the bottom as slow as possible in the conditions you're fishing, if that makes sense. 
Don't drop an 8 ball in dead still water. 
If the water is dead still, try no sinker at all. 
 
Use fluorocarbon leader.
Instead of 1m to 2m of leader in that pic above, keep the leader length down under 1m. Around 500mm to 700mm should work well. 
 
Hook selection. 
Small hooks equates to small fish. 
A 2/O or 3/O size Mustad big red or similar for general fishing. 
Use long shank hooks for whiting. Again, larger hooks will not fit down the gob of smaller fish. Whiting inhale the bait, so you end up with a hook in the gut of undersized fish if you're using smaller hooks. 
 
If I'm predominantly catching small/undersized fish I tend to move on, or target a different area of the waterway. 

It sounds like you are on the start of the learning curve for your area.
Here are a couple of basics that work well here in SEQ.
Whiting like the early stages of a run in tide....they move onto a sand flat as the water covers it....20cm of water is plenty for them to be ravenously feeding there. Use the local bait for them....worms, yabbies, crabs or small live prawns.
Bream like structure with a bit of depth and plenty of current, again they are ravenous at the start of the run in usually. Bream will eat anything but offer them something they can easily swallow rather than something they have to bite chunks off. 5c to $1 size baits are good for them....pilly or mullet cubes, prawns and squid are all good options.
Flathead are ambush hunters primarily, they lay and wait for food to swim by them....that being said though they will follow a scent to a bait ok too. For me flathead are the easiest to catch in the bottom half of a run out tide. Live baits rule, lures and plastics second and dead baits 3rd. Look for drains of flats or creeks entering rivers, they will be within a five metres of those spots.
If you only catch smalls you are generally either fishing the wrong area or you are fishing the area at the wrong stage of the tide.
You can throw all of the above out the window if you are fishing a flood zone.....everything will be feasting on the last 90 minutes of the rising tide and vanish as soon as the tide turns. Flood zones up here are mangroves that only go under at about 3/4 tide...often behind the mangroves there is a clear area of sand or mud several metres wide....when that gets 25cm of water over it the place is full of big feeding fish and very easy to catch if you do not spook them. 65mm squidgy wrigglers in bloodworm colour unweighted are the gun plastic.....sit or crouch down and wait for the fish to approach you...they move quickly and absolutely smash anything resembling food. Very exciting fishing.
Good luck.

I dontcknow the river but my 1st thoughts are if your only land based then you could be fishing spots that get hammered by other land locked anglers.
But without knowing your rigs and your baits, times you fish and areas that you target it's had to be sure.
I've found if your catching lots of small fish then your usual fishing where the juvenile fish like to school up. The bigger fish usual stay away from the schools, on the edges or they hold better locations or cruise around chasing a feed.
Thats two possibilities.

Hey guys i fish quite frequently in the Camden River and surrounding rivers.
Im not sure if im doing something wrong but everytime i go fishing i catch aprox 20 small bream, whiting, flathead and flounder? Out of all those fish i might get 1 keeper if im lucky.
I dont have a boat and fish from the bank in different areas. And i dont know if I should change areas, baits or if this is just normal in my area.
If you guys could help me understand why my fish are always small thay would be great. 
Thankyou,

Towards the end of February I headed out in the bay in search of some Jew, I found them and had an absolute shocker!, I lost 4 fish (& plastics) to line break as I was going extremely hard on these fish to try and avoid being sharked, I also got snagged once, got snipped by a mackerel, and when I finally managed to get one close to the boat it got sharked about 3 metres away, I was devastated but not willing to give up, having lost 7 plastics & jigheads I headed off to BCF that afternoon to restock & get some new line.
The plan was to head out there the next day and see if they were still around, well, what a difference a day makes, I dropped the first fish, but managed 2 in 2 casts after that, the 1st went 95-96?, there was a little bit of chop out there and they weren't behaving themselves on the brag mat

I'll admit I took a pretty ordinary pic of him, but you get the idea. After I gave him the treatment and got organised again, this little guy paid me a visit

With 2 onboard in quick succession, the decision was made to leave them be, as its just too risky sport fishing for them with the sharks never too far away, so I decided to move on in search of some more fun.

That fun came via a little 30cm small mouth, which was a first for me in the bay, a Trevally not much bigger came after him, then I headed back in. It was a pleasant few hours all up.
Fast forward a month or so, with very little fishing taking place because of some average weather, when I saw the conditions for Tuesday just gone, it was an easy decision to head back out in the bay.
Jew were on the menu once again, so I deployed the same plastic from the previous outing and after working him for about 15 minutes I hooked a big grinner, now I "technically" didn't land him, no leader was touched, I swear!, I just let him chill next to the boat while I grabbed the pliers, when I came back to the rod he was gone, result!, the scoreboard remains unchanged.
Not long after that incident I hooked up to what I initially thought was a small shark, it hit the plastic just off the bottom and started to scream off, then it started coming up, rather erratic mind you, thinking it was a shark I wasn't interested in playing it out, with a heavy drag set to try and beat the sharks, I wound it in with little respect, that was until I saw it was a nice Spotted Mackerel, perfectly pinned in the centre of the top jaw there was no way he could've escaped, I swung him over the side and swifly gave him the treatment.


A surprise, and very welcomed addition to the esky, Jew were still on my mind so I kept plugging away, I missed a good hit, then the next flick resulted in a nice little Jew, success!.

Another dodgy pic, he got a little bent out shape in the esky. So far that 1 plastic has nailed 3 Jew & a spotty, he's almost earned his retirement I'd say??.
After that Jew I headed off in search of some Tuskies, having arrived at the spot and deploying the bait, I had a few enquiries early up which saw nervous anticipation almost reach fever pitch, you just never know how big it is until you set the hooks, this one sadly was no beast, and I made very short work of him. Still a very tasty fish though.

Thinking the bite might be on, I hung around for a few hours but couldn't manage anything else, which in all honesty wasn't such a bad thing as the esky already looked pretty good, and I'm well stocked for the next few weeks.
I pulled the jewels out of the Jew this afternoon, they are something I don't usually keep but I might start doing so in the future as they do look kinda cool.

 
 
 
 
 

Thanks Greg,
If it was the same fish it's shite outta luck this time because we kept this one as it was a bay pb for the person i took out with me who is terminally ill. We used to fish together a long time ago and it was great to see the smile on his face

I am camping at Amity Point Stradbroke Island from April 5 to April 12 this year, with my mad-for-fishing 12-year-old son. We haven’t fished north of Victoria before, and were wondering where are the best spots to fish at Amity point, what fish should we be targeting, and any suggestions on bait and gear would be much appreciated!

As Brett said - you may have some Southsliders landing some fish from your boat in March!  

Actually on a butterflied herring, meant to be less attractive to live mullet eating sharks!

Not a goal but rather a hope, that being less sharks at my local.
One definite goal, get a 70-80 barra to take home. They are all way over that at the moment, which go back. Sunday's effort between feeding sharks:

Do more fishing last year was a bit light on

Metery, my goal is to get my 1st meter Barra.
It's been elusive for so many years, definitely not from lack of trying, it's not like we're not catching them, just struggling to break that meter mark. 

Hmmm,
I haven't fished 50 times yet, but I am up to 14, so on target. Have got some macks that weren't too bad, but I'd like to get better. I'm waiting for winter to try to jag a big snapper on plastic.
But, with all that said, I am still behind you. Have you put your gear away until next year ? haha

I’ve already achieved my goal. How are the rest of you going?

Thanks Hamish. It had it's frustrations but that ultimately meant opportunity for learning. Keep gathering your data and use the tools available now to interpret it. I wish I had done that better👍

The "vermin" is consideration for a whole other discussion at some stage. I think a conversation about changes noticed in systems is warranted and worthwhile. 
It was good to get a feed for the effort. Always great to get pipped at the post by @Kat 😜

Yes Steve it's the protein for quite a few meals for us. You get the learning experience that you can't get if you buy that protein from a shop also. Was a good day overall.