Woodsy1

Hi All
I decided that 2021 would start with a fantastic day of fishing.  New Years eve I pumped yabbies for bait.  Hard to keep alive in this heat but changed the water at 11pm and out for a fish at about 7am.
It is mayhem on the Gold Coast waterways, foreshores, boat ramps, car parks etc! Even at 7am New years day.  Was expecting more people to be sleeping off hangovers.
Arrived at a spot I hadn't fished before about 7.30am. Line in the water shortly after that.  Was after Whiting (having recently cracked the code 🙂). Landed an undersized bream almost immediately.  Another few casts and had a legal 27cm Bream.  Another half an hour and I had landed five Bream.  No whiting but at least it wasn't going to be a donut.  
I moved up the beach a bit and things had gone off the bite.  Another half hour and I packed up my gear and walked a little further up the beach.  Found a promising Whiting spot and within 30 minutes had landed a couple of legal sized whiting and a couple of unders.  When I landed my second legal size I decided I had caught enough whiting recently and I Changed to heavier gear.  I didn't have any wire trace with me but decided, as it was the 1st January, I would try my luck with a live whiting for a Shark or something else bigger than whiting (given the size of the bait it would have to be much bigger!).  Dreams are free.
Anyway I tried to cast as close to the deep channel as possible.  Every 20 min or so I would check on the bait and when he was showing mo signs of live I decided to cut him into large fillets and thread o the hook.  Out went the bait into the channel again.  I sat bag and waited.  As I was taking a drink of water I saw the rod tip move a little.  I carefully picked up the rod and tighten the drag a little, but not too much, enough to set the hook if the fish took a run but not to tight that the line would snap.  I wasn't really set up for Sharks just being impulsive.
A few seconds later the drag screamed and I let it run.  The battle had begun.  The fish was powerful and I was worried the line would break.  I was being careful not to panic and was tightening the drag little by little as I fought the fish.  I was really excited and imagining a big fish other than shark - not sure what.  The fish wad getting closer to the beach and fighting even harder.  I was disappointed to see a stingray!  But the adrenaline was worth it.  With the stingray at my feet I couldn't get him up on the beach easily so sacrificed my hook.  By this time people were watching - it is always funny how everyone gets excited to see what you are battling.
A few more casts with a chunk of whiting and nothing but pickers.  
I started concentrating on the whiting again and to my surprise landed a flounder.
With enough sunshine, rain, sand, sand, salt and excitement had I headed home to rest and plan my next fishing adventure. 
Hope 2021 continues with success.
Cheers Kat!

After a couple of trips with no Mackerel, finally managed to be in the right place at the right time. Got a couple of reports of people bagging out on Wednesday morning so shot out to Palm Beach reef this morning. Started a little slow but the switch was flicked at 6 with a crazy bite for an hour with boats all round hooking up. We managed 7 Spotties in the boat to 90cm and lost even more. Most came from float lining and a couple from spinning. Nice way to finish a crazy year!

Marty

Right now Mackerel are firing. Try Palm Beach or Mermaid reef - you don't need GPS marks, just look for the boats! 
If you want to go to 18's or 24's start with the generic marks to get you in the right area, then spend some time slowly motoring around and watch your sounder. Mark any spots that show good bait and/or sort of structure or small humps.
This time of year it is also worth looking at the Seaway Pinnacles - Mackerel showed up there in numbers last season. Again, start with the generic marks and use your sounder. Plenty of structure in this area.
Not sure how much fishing knowledge you have but search the internet for what species are caught at different times of the year, and what rigs and techniques are best for each species. Mackerel are generally caught high in the water on unweighted bait rigs ( I like single hooks, small lengths of wire and cubed pillies), whereas Snapper are caught on the bottom using weighted rigs (I like 3 gang rigs with whole pillies).
Thanks

Some great tips there marty!
A belated welcome @Woodsy1
Cheers Hamish

Ditto from me @Woodsy1, a belated welcome, I must have been busy with work and missed you joining up. Nice boat!!  Hope you're getting out and enjoying your new area 🙂.

Thanks, Yeah it’s a great boat, very sturdy With plenary of room.
Im always keen for some local knowledge so if you want come out your more then welcome.
Woodsy

Hi All,
We have moved up to the Gold Coast from mainly fishing at Port Stephens [Broughton Island] and really only targeting snapper in the shallow waters 5 to 24m. I'm finding the GC fishing completely different have been going out through the seaway and this weekend am gunna try a day up Moreton Bay. Anyway hope we can meet few people along the way.
Woodsy

Went up to 1770 with my son Brock on Thursday afternoon and stayed the night before leaving the ramp at 1st light Friday morning. We headed for the bunker group with plans to stay out for 3 days on the outer reef after a average run up we were fishing our 1st marks by 8am.
I strugled with bait only landing the odd tuskie while my son tangled with coral trout for the 1st 2 hours i tried alot of different rigs and baits but Brock kept hooking up on plastics. I soon switched to plastics on the shads tuff prawn and we were both hitting trout along with a huge variety of fish.



 
We landed spangeled emperor, moarie cod, red throat emperor, coral trout, srtipies, honeycomb cod, hussar, tea leaf trevally, bludger trevally and long nose emperor. We found more ground as we went and the wind dropped right out to nothing through the middle of the day. The red emeperor were proving to be elusive so we didn't waste to much time hunting them Friday chosing to keep looking for trout.

It started to blow late in the arvo so we went shallow behind the reef and found plenty of red throat emeperor biting. These fish put up an amazing fight never giving up all the way to the boat and i would have to say pound for pound 1 of the strogest fighting fish on the reef. We got RTE up to 53cm and started to really get some colour to the box.

After sunset friday it was time anchor up and settle in for the night cook some dinner and get a good sleep. Saturday morning the wind was still atleast 12 knots but i was keen to target the reds early morning. The 1st mark was quiet but the next move we found fish on the sounder and new ground nearby on the drift.
It was this new ground where the reds were hanging and i got a little legal red emperor going 59cm on the ruler. Brock hooked up but lost a better red halfway up just spitting the hook then the bite shut down so after another 30 minutes we moved south looking for more trout etc.
We were finding new ground and pulling fish as we went and by 11 am the bite shut right down. We decided to go for a snorkle in the lagoon at fitzroy reef, we had the lagoon to ourselves and anchored up in front of the biggest coral bommie. 
It took us an hour to snorkel around it, so much colour in the reef here and the fish life was amazing even seeing coral trout lurking in the holes in the reef. After the snorkle we had a fresh water shower then some lunch before heading out again to the lee side of the reef to find more fish.
The fish were thick and in an hour we got another 7 fish to finish off our bag limit on the coral reef fin fish. The tuff prawns did outfish the bait by far and all the trout and most of the red throat fell for the prawn.

Then pointing the boat for home the throttle went down and 90 minutes later crossed the bar back in the creek at 1770 a day early. I stayed another night in town and drove home on Sunday morning , just in time as we had run out of fish at home so this should keep us in qaulity fish for a little while.

With the rubbish weather forecasts of late I saw a window of opportunity to have a session on the Nerang River Thursday night chasing a feed of delicious whiting. Teed it up with @Old Scaley who was also desperate for a fix of fishing.
After a quick stopover at Gem to get some blood worms we arrived about five and traveled the couple of hundred metres to the spot. Hardly any boat traffic in the area which was unusual but good at the same time.
The spot fishes best on the outgoing tide, but we were an hour or so early so we deployed the lines without much expectation. Steve was first on with a pesky bream that self released at the back of the boat. Something little then attacked his line and in came this thing -

It's a Yellow-fin Tripod Fish (Thanks to @benno573 for the ID).
 
Finally the tide turned. The fishing was slow but we managed to wrangle a feed - 7 whiting with only 1 over 30 (33), the rest 25 - 28.

 
The only other boat on our stretch of the river moved on so we decided to have a drift to see if we could find a school. Nothing on the first drift, so we motored back and did it again. This time my rod buckled over in the holder and I strained to get it out. It was a strong but weird fight. I thought it was a ray at one stage. I was only on 10lb gear with an 8 foot noodle rod and thought I would lose it for sure. Eventually it came close to the surface and I could tell it wasn't a ray by the oblong shape. Thank God for that. Anyway, Steve slid the net under a nice GT that went 58cm on the lie detector.

 
I was as spent as it was, so settled down to have a recovery coffee kindly supplied by today's decky with brewing by his good wife. It took the smallest piece of blood worm on a small size 4 baitholder hook (which was nicely bent out of shape). I think it was about to eat a whiting that was about to eat the worm, the whiting jumped out of the way and the trev came up with the worm...
After that I landed the largest ting of the night, before calling it a job well done.
Another good night mate. Thanks for the company and laughs.
Interestingly , we had five rods between us but only 1 rod caught all the keepers bar 1 or 2.

Maybe just a little.

Maybe just a little.

if you know where to look there are plenty of bottom fish between the 18's and 24's - but most don't share those GPS marks lightly for obvious reasons.

Thanks all for the advice, I ended up going to Scarborough, our plan was to go to Scarborogh on Saturday then the Gold Coast on Sunday. So we left on Saturday about 2.30am and made it about 10klms up the M1 before I had a blow out of 1 of my trailer tyres, so I changed the tyre and decided just to go to the Gold Coast. we headed out to 16nm fad and trolled around for 2 dollies 1 we kept 75cm and a 60cm model that we let go, we trolled around some other areas for nothing else then went home. Left early Sunday morning for Scarborough launched and headed for hutchison shaol. we flicked some plastics around then did some trolling around both flinders and Hutchison Shoal for no luck, we saw plenty of bait and some working birds but just couldn't get anything but had a great swim at the back of flinders and found some nice looking ground that I'm sure I'll be back to and get some fish at. So again thanks everyone Scarborough is a nice ramp.
Woodsy

Thanks all for the advice, I ended up going to Scarborough, our plan was to go to Scarborogh on Saturday then the Gold Coast on Sunday. So we left on Saturday about 2.30am and made it about 10klms up the M1 before I had a blow out of 1 of my trailer tyres, so I changed the tyre and decided just to go to the Gold Coast. we headed out to 16nm fad and trolled around for 2 dollies 1 we kept 75cm and a 60cm model that we let go, we trolled around some other areas for nothing else then went home. Left early Sunday morning for Scarborough launched and headed for hutchison shaol. we flicked some plastics around then did some trolling around both flinders and Hutchison Shoal for no luck, we saw plenty of bait and some working birds but just couldn't get anything but had a great swim at the back of flinders and found some nice looking ground that I'm sure I'll be back to and get some fish at. So again thanks everyone Scarborough is a nice ramp.
Woodsy

i find the scarborough ramp to be great. nice an protected, heaps of parking

Woodsy1, If you are heading out to the northern end of Morton, why not drive up to Bribie Island and put in at the ramp opposite the Air Sea Rescue there, it's multi lanes and has a pontoon to tie up to in between them, it can take large boats without drama. There are also a few other ramps in the area depending on size of your boat which are also suitable. If the wind is too strong outside then you could also fish the passage. I used to use the Spinniker Marina ramp but over the last couple of years  I now just use the first one I mentioned.

Port of Brisbane works fine but can be hectic busy.
 
There is a great ramp at the northern end of the manly boat harbour too - sheltered in all winds and tides too. Probably my favorite ramp to use to fish the bay.
 
there are also great ramps at Scarborough boat harbour as well.

Let us know how you go. We love reports on here. 

Look at all that deck space. Awesome. Must be a dream to fish from.

Thanks for the offer, but I get seasick outside these days, so stick to Moreton Bay.
There's a few on here that I'm sure would be happy to take up your offer or do a tag along.

Hey mate, welcome to the forum. Plenty of options for shallow water reef fishing in and just out from Moreton bay and off the sunny coast, also a bit south of the goldy out from tweed and off kingscliffe. 
 
I used to fish off the Gold Coast a bit when I had my boat and really struggled with bottom fishing, usually could put together a feed of pelagics in the warmer months though. I found I had to go either out to the 42’s and further or a long way north up the the pin reefs before you got into any reasonable ground that wasn’t completely flogged for reefies but you could find pelagics anywhere there is bait really - as @ellicat suggested palm beach reef is famous for its spotty mackerel run in summer.
 
Could be just me of course - I’m sure some people get bottom fish on the 18’s and 24’s!