Mission

Great to see, 20,000 Members.
Cheers.

So big it almost looks fake !

Headed out with @Old Scaley to Macleay at gentleman's hours yesterday, not able to resist the forecast.
Started off with a just legal that was too close to keep. Then Steve got onto a 39 model. Then it's a bit of a blur with some good fish coming aboard. Peak time was about 10.30 with the tide change period not quite over. Along with some unders, a grinner, a catfish and the obligatory shark (that would have been 7+ feet) doing a jump and spin out of the water to gain its freedom, we managed to put together a bag of 7. Would have been 8 but we released a 36.5 thinking we could do better.
Cuttlefish was the bait of choice. But the best fish of the day came on a diver whiting tail.
After a couple of very quiet sessions at The Pin and Broadwater/Nerang it was great to get onto a few at last.
Steve's first decent one at 50.

Steve's best at 52cm

Tease pic part way through that was sent to he who works.

This was the worst of conditions. Looking towards Peel. If you look close you may see a ripple.

The bag - 1.

 
Top day out Steve. They aren't always like that. Thanks for coming along. 🙂

Hi all
This week hasn't been the best for me for fishing, and I didn't go as much as I wanted, but at least I still got out for a fish. The first session was last Thursday arvo and the second session was at a new spot with @Thorbjorn Hale today. 
On Thursday arvo I got home after school and rode the 25 minutes or so to my spot. I arrived around half past four, and got straight to cast netting. It wasn't too successful, but I eventually got a mullet and bony bream to chuck out on my rod. It was low tide change, and I also gave a small soft vibe a bit of a flick around for nothing. There were plenty of small prawns flicking around, but annoyingly I could not manage anything on my livies. I fished until it got dark then I rode home, disappointed with my quick but unproductive arvo session (even more disappointed I had to go to school the next day, lol). It is worth mentioning though, that I did catch a small 25CM jew on a tiny prawn, though it didn't fight at all... hopefully some bigger ones this winter!
Stats of Trip:
Tide: 3:50PM, .3M, Low
Moon Phase: 2 days before full moon
Bait Caught and Used: Live mullet, bonies, ponyfish
Fish Caught: one 25cm jew
Tackle Used: Shimano Symetre 4000 on Shimano Sentire 5-9KG spinning rod, Shimano Baitrunner DC 8000 on Kmart rod, size 4 star sinkers, size 2 paternoster sinker, circle hooks, barrel swivels, 50 pound leader, Shimano Stradic 3000 on Raider with soft vibe. 
Air Pressure: 1009
Humidity: 42%
Overall Success Rate: 15% - beats homework
The next session was this Saturday with Thorbjorn at a new spot he suggested we try. We met at a nearby ferry terminal and had a castnet around the banks, where I caught a few silver biddies and Thorbjorn cleaned up on the winter whiting (enough for the session). This was good, although it was a shame we didn't manage any herring. We then made our way to the pier, which had no one else fishing at it. We deployed our lines, and it started off pretty quiet. We also tried cast netting off the pier, which brought a couple little herrings, and bait jigging, which didn't get us anywhere. 
The first fish of the day was a tiny tailor I caught, but a fair while later we heard the scream of Thorbjorn's baitrunner. He set the hook and it was a big fish - unluckily for us it managed to snap the knot shortly after. This was on the herring, and it seemed these would have been ideal baits for the days fishing if we could've caught a few more. We continued to fish with a bit more hope now, but the bite died again. As we tried to pass the time, I snagged my (very) new net quite badly on some rocks, ripping a couple holes in the net. I mentioned to Thorbjorn it felt like there was a fish in it as I was trying to get it free, and sure enough, as well as a couple of fat holes, a nice Brissy River Luderick emerged with my net. I think I know where I'll be trying for these next - 

First luderick, 40cm
After I stitched my net up, we continued fishing. I got some large mullet in the net, and seeing as though whiting and silver biddy wasn't getting much love I chucked a strip mullet bait out in hope of a fish. Thorbjorn live baited one, and after a while longer my rod was getting some toadfish like bites. Sure enough, I pulled in a rather large model, to our disgust. We continued persisting, and towards the end of our session I heard the screaming of my baitrunner. Annoyingly, the gang hooks didn't quiet stick, and I dropped what felt like a pretty good fish. Bugger. We headed home on the ferry and annoyingly I'm not allowed to go fishing tomorrow.  
Stats of Trip:
Tide: 4:30AM, .6M, Low, 10:00AM, 2.2M, High, 4:40PM, .4M, Low
Moon Phase: Full Moon, though there wasn't much run
Bait Caught and Used: Live winter whiting, silver biddies. Herring had most of the action. 
Fish Caught: Toadfish, tailor, luderick. 
Tackle Used: Mix of 3000-8000 spinning/baitrunner reels on relatively heavy spinning rods of varying length, 15-30 pound braid and 50 pound leader for me, size 4 star sinker, circle hooks. 
Air Pressure: 1013
Humidity: 82%
Overall Success Rate: 40% - good to suss out a new spot and tick off a new species from the river
Anyways, thanks for reading another pretty boring series of reports. Hopefully I can catch something decent soon before school gets too busy. Thanks for coming along for a fish too Thorbjorn, it was lots of fun. Hope you enjoyed reading,
Cheers Hamish

With Bream cook them whole, if you try and fillet them you leave / lose some of the best parts.
1) Gut, Scale and score the fish
2) Splash the fish with a mix of soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, salt. Pour into the scores / cavity
3) Scatter some thinly sliced ginger all over (optionally add freshly sliced chilli to your liking here (more the better for me)
4) Foil over and place in a steam oven (100c) or simple water filled suacepan/lid with fish on plate out of the water to steam in the pot
5) 20-30mins for the fish to cook
6) Serve with Spring onion garnish.
This recipe only really works with fresh fish, its simple but brings the freshness to the front.
 

Took my boys fishing in the bay on Tuesday with a lunchtime launch. Westerly wind a bit stronger than I had hoped but comfortable enough and flattened out around 3pm before kicking up again when we anchored at Green Island (so we’re protected a little). Came across plenty of tuna schools south and west of Hope Banks but couldn’t get them to eat a slug nor our ganged hook pillies whilst drifting Liam got one small school shark that was released). Finished fishing at Green til sunset for just grinners (several) and undersized bream and squire.
Went again the next arvo (boys had rugby camp in the morning) and conditions started off great before the wind picked up and then almost glassed out in the late arvo (forgot my phone so no on water photos 🤨). 
Plan was to troll from Hope Banks down to Peel hoping to find mackerel but on the way the tuna popped up again and we couldn’t resist trying again. No hits on the slug despite landing it amongst them and then my braid played up. So we decided to try trolling around the schools fora while - good decision with two nice spotty mackerel (73 & 75cm) landed and another dropped beside the boat.
 
Boys did a good job driving the boat, watching the trolling rod (only used one) and looking out for tuna popping up. In the past they have been a bit negative about us trolling with paravane but they might be converted now …. 🤪. 
Weather looks good for the weekend so may get out there both days while they are still around (these were my/our first bay spotties). Sounds like they’ve been in that general area for a couple of weeks so plenty of bait around obviously. Will solve my braid issue and find a suitable jig head and plastic and see if we can’t catch a tuna while we’re at it 😎. 
 
Get out there peoples 😁.
 

Alternate titles considered for this topic:
'Paravane trolling - no longer boring ......'
'One rod, 4 people, 2 and a half hours of mayhem' ........... 🤪
Took my boys and my dad out this arvo (left ramp about 1:30pm) with the hopes of coming across some tuna working the surface and hopefully some mackerel in with them. Went past Spero Kartanos who does great reports on the Fishing Monthly website and our local paper out here in Wynnum and he called us over for a chat - was glad we did as he's always helpful with advice and my boys hadn't met him yet. He let us know the mackerel were on the chew over near the Hope Banks, which was evident as there were quite a few boats in the area.
So, over we went, paravane deployed (one to begin with, before my dad asked why we aren't putting a second out ....). I stuck with one for a few minutes before deciding with four of us on the boat we should be able to manage it. Problem was, I was letting my boys do lots of the boat driving and they sometimes turn a bit too sharply (often as they're distracted looking at the tuna schools pop up ........) and, you guessed it, we got an almighty tangle. It was about 2:30pm when we sorted it and went back to one line in the water. As we went past a tuna school I threw my soft plastic set up in but it wasn't heavy enough (1/6th jighead - I need to stock up on some bigger/heavier ones). Then tried throwing it behind the boat and free spooling until we were past a school, then winding through them, to no avail. So plastics rod was put back in the holder and our/my focus turned to hopefully getting some action on the paravane/spoon set up. Then, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, a solid fish goes on a couple of good runs and before too long (5 minutes or so) a reasonable mack tuna is netted, with my boys going off as it's the first tuna they've seen landed (I would have preferred a longtail but beggars can't be choosers ......). 
Not too long after several schools were popping up in close proximity to each other and the next 2 and a half hours was a blur of fish on, fish landed, lure/paravane back in, bleed fish, wipe hands and prepare for the next strike. Sometimes there wasn't time for this, I think three times the next fish struck before I could put the rod back in the corner rod holder. Good times!!
My boys had some more quality practice driving the boat, changing the speed, etc and did a great job overall. About halfway through the mayhem my boys wanted to have a go at winding them in and despite me being dubious about their ability to do so (biggish rod/reel, paravane creates decent drag and we keep driving forwards to help keep the fish hooked) they managed to do so (George needed some help from me to hold the rod up and towards the end of the fight I helped handling the line towards him). Glad they could though, made it even more special for them. 
We left them biting about 5pm as the esky was getting full and wanted to get back to the ramp before dark but could have easily stayed for longer and caught more - our last fish was another nice spotty that George wound in so a nice way to finish. 
Back at the ramp we chatted to two young boys on the pontoon that were waiting for their dad to reverse the trailer and they ended up on my boat checking the fish out. My boys decided they wanted to give them a school mackerel so we did 🙂.
By far the best session I've had with the boys in fact one of if not the best session I've ever had (including on charter boats) and very glad my dad was along for the ride. Irony is that my three brothers and I often recall our most memorable session as kids which was in dad's boat near Mackay where we nailed the spotties. History repeats 🙂.
Finally tally 16 schoolies (including the one we gave away), 7 spotties and the mac tuna. We had no undersized mackerel (one we caught was right on legal - 50cm - so we threw it back), didn't drop any when swinging them into the boat - only netted the tuna - and only dropped 3 or 4 fish in total, due to the boys inexperience maintaining either speed or correct direction when driving the boat once we were hooked up or because George struggled to keep momentum with the reel. Overall, gotta be happy with that ..... 🙂.
I was going to go again tomorrow but think I'll be busy enough filleting and we have plenty of fish that will last a while. My parents are taking some up to two of my brothers tomorrow plus my cousin and an uncle, both sets of grandparents will get some plus my sister in law and my neighbours so they won't go to waste 🙂.
I can't guarantee they'll be on tomorrow but you'd think they would be, there's plenty of bait (small whitebait I think) out there so if you are free, I know what I'd be doing 🙂. Thanks for reading.

Hi all,
I'm on school holidays now, so I've finally be able to do a bit of fishing. This report will be about my sessions on Saturday and Sunday. I was going to go today as well but I need to pack for a trip to Yeppoon so decided ( it was decided for me 😕) that I would stay home today. 
The first session I woke up decently early and got the train and ferry to the spot. Annoyingly, as I got off the ferry, one of the wheels on my cart busted off, which meant I had to carry it about 800 metres to the spot. I then got to cast netting, but after no luck except one lone herring in my new net I met with Michael. He showed me a few more spots to throw the net, and here we got some mullet and other baitfish - enough to start fishing. It was very quiet at first, but after an hour or so of fishing Michael had a big run on his rod. He set the hook and was onto a decent fish with plenty of headshakes and a couple littles runs. We were pleased to see a solid GT come up, so I netted it and pulled it up. This spot has a lot of structure so it makes sense a trevally was hanging out there. It was about 45cm, and he decided to keep it for lunch. 

Michael's trev
After that, we were hopeful for some more bites, but apart from a few small nibbles it was really quiet. As the tide continued to run out, we threw our nets around for some more mullet and herring. Unfortunately, both of our aerators weren't working, so some of our livies became dead bait pretty quickly. It was pretty cloudy that day, so it wasn't too hot sitting and waiting for the bites. After another two hours or so of hardly getting a touch, we cooked some lunch up. The trevally was very nice, a bit like a tailor, so it was a good decision to keep that for a meal. Since my cart had also broken, we tried to melt the plastic around the wheel plus some cable ties to seal it back together. Annoyingly, this didn't really work, and after a test with the cast net inside it broke. We continued to fish around midday and into the arvo, but the fish weren't biting. We eventually had a few nibbles on whiting and herring with one small run on my rod, but no more fish were hooked for the day - we decided to go fishing the next day before leaving. 
Stats of Trip:
Tide: 7:00AM High, 1:50PM, .6M, Low
Moon Phase: About 80%, increasing, a fair bit of run
Bait Caught and Used: Live Mullet, herring, bony bream, silver biddies, winter whiting
Fish Caught: One trevally for Michael, none for me
Tackle and Gear Used: I used one rod, a Shimano Aero 6000 Baitrunner with 30 pound J-Braid on a Kmart rod. The rig was about a rods length of leader to a size 4 star sinker, swivel, about 70cm of trace, then a 6/o Owner circle hook. 
Air Pressure: 1006
Humidity: 67%
Overall Success Rate: 30% - cool to see a trevally
The next session wasn't any more productive, and was at a different spot the following morning. I met up with Charlie and we drove there, and got our lines in at about 6:30AM. I started cast netting, and bait was tough to come by - it took about 30 throws before I even got a couple of herring. I threw these out anyways, but apart from some pickers there were no decent fish around. Eventually, Michael got a big Christmas tree, which would last us the whole day fishing. Following this, Charlie had a few bites on his rod before hooking up to a fish. After a few decent headshakes, he had a bream on the jetty of about 29CM. He chucked this back, and got another herring out in hope of another fish. It wasn't long before Michael was on too, and he pulled out a slightly larger 31CM or so bream. He kept this, and we got back to fishing. There were definitely lots of bream about, and the pickers were quite bad. We ran out of our live herring pretty quick, so resorted to using the ones that had died as we were struggling to catch any more at all.
The bite stayed quiet, and it seemed there were no decent fish swimming about. I managed to get a couple more live herring which I chucked out, but they each lasted about 45 minutes before dying/getting pickered, which isn't really a good sign.  I had to head off at about 12:30PM to do something in the arvo, so after having some lunch, and getting no more good bites except a couple of lone runs or picks, we decided to call it a day and head home. I was using a small duffel bag on wheels as my cart and it worked well enough, but next time a normal one would be better.
Here's the stats of the trip. I wish I went fishing today but hopefully they're chewing in the river when I'm back from Yeppoon. 
Tide: 7:40AM, 2.3M, High, 2:20PM, .7M, Low
Moon Phase: 87%, increasing. Once again, a fair bit of run (not heaps though).
Bait Caught and Used: Herring, a few deadbaits from the prior session
Fish Caught: Two bream and a catfish for the others
Tackle and Gear Used: I used my Shimano Aero 6000 on a Kmart Rod with 30 pound jbraid and 30 pound leader, Charlie used my Abu Garcia Ambassadeur on an Ugly Stik with 20 pound braid and 30 pound leader. We both used size 4 star sinkers, swivels, and 6/o circle hooks. 
Humidity: 70%
Air Pressure: 1007
Overall Success Rate: 20% - two sessions and two donuts for me
Anyways, thanks for reading, hopefully I'll catch something next time or at Yeppoon!
Cheers Hamish

Arrived just after Sunrise. Hoping to beat the School Holiday rush.
Tailor first up. Released.
Ended up with one nice Snapper ( Puppy will be happy ) 
Went quite for a while. Changed to lures & landed two bonito.
About to leave & the reel went off the planet.
On the other end after a fight was a large blue groper, he wasn't happy. Released to fight another day.
Bait was fresh squid & lures.
Cheers.

I took my brother for a mackerel fish this morning , turned up at the ramp a little late due to road work delays on the Bruce Highway , basically all the way from the Pine River to the Caloundra turn off . Got to my first spot to see another boat get a Spanish , we trolled around for about 20minutes without seeing to many exciting things on the sounder , so decided to move on . We then came across a big school of long tails so I popped a stick bait into them twice and hooked up , took me a good 10minutes to get it up to the boat only to see it get swallowed whole next to the boat - very easy release and bye bye stick bait. Moved on again and found a big school of Spanish .  My brother took the first strike . It got sharked , we then had a double hook up , both got sharked . We then moved again . At this stage my brother decided to stop fishing and just drive the boat . I then managed to get a Spanish onto the deck . Lost 5 more to sharks , and a few more to broken wire,  broken hooks simply by going too hard on them. Then surprisingly got another one on the deck and mission was complete with a good feed.
We had two very dramatic shark attacks today , pity I didn’t get them on video . First one was a Spano completing a big cart wheeling  jump , followed seconds later by a  high spiral leap , only to hit the water and get absolutely destroyed on the surface. The second one went for a bit of a run turned around and charged the boat , it then jumped about 10 feet from the back of the boat and slammed into the stern next to the motor, very close to where I was perched , as soon as he hit the water next to the motor he got smashed , a couple more inches higher and he would have been on the deck . We then decided we’d had enough and went home defeated and tails between our legs . What a smashing day!

All good, mate.
Mission

All good, mate.
Mission

Sorry mate I didn’t finish my post. I have now corrected it. What I was getting at is maybe one is better than another as they are similar.

I’ve eaten a whole bunch of awful things in my time (including Mac tuna) and I wouldn’t eat one of them. You are superhuman @Kat !

Gee @Kat, that's setting the comparison bar really high...😂

Good work on that fish anyways, it would've been a fun fight. 

Thanks all you guys who replied.  Will have a try to eat it next time if I have a chance to catch one again.
Mission

Thanks all you guys who replied.  Will have a try to eat it next time if I have a chance to catch one again.
Mission

Hi All,
Is this a brown sweetlips? I can't find it in QLD DAF web site.
What's the legal size of it? Thanks for help.
Mission 

Thanks all you guys who replied.  Will have a try to eat it next time if I have a chance to catch one again.
Mission

Hi Rick
I do have a photo of it. Please see the first page of this topic.
Cheers, Mission

Thanks all you guys who replied.  Will have a try to eat it next time if I have a chance to catch one again.
Mission

Hey Mission if you do get one take a photo of it so we can ID which one it is and you can comment on how it tastes.