burger

Nice outing rebel,
Do you take stringy (or cabbage) bait with you or source locally?

Nice outing rebel,
Do you take stringy (or cabbage) bait with you or source locally?

With the big swells on the beach & rocks 3 to 4 meters we headed for somewhere Quiter.
Arrived around sunrise, sunny & cool.
Blackfish & bream were the go.
Caught two nice blackfish straight away. Went quite. Moved to the south side of the bridge.
Waited for a while, then two bream. Puppy was happy.
Moved further up the chanel. Landed two more blackfish.
That was enough. Called it a day.
Cheers.
 

I rate braids characteristics in the following importance:
1. is it a fused braid line? least desirable
2. is it a coated line? prefer uncoated.
3. is the line truly limp and memory free?
4. is thin for breaking strain....Siglon PEX8 and Tasline All white are my two long term favorite braids.
5. is it white or orange.
6. Does the PE rating on the box also include actual test breaking strain? If not I do not buy it.
For me the PE system for braid is crap you can get the same PE rating across multiple brands and versions and have wildly different breaking strains.
Casting diameters mean bugger all if your bait does not have enough weight or is too much weight for the rod that you are using.

Got away with the girls for the mothers day weekend.
Left Donnybrook boat ramp around 130pm on Saturday, boat packed to the gunnell , cruised over, set up camp.. 
Left the girls on the beach and dropped the pots in with some chicken frames, just on the edges of holes towards lime pocket. Pumped some yabbies to fish from mission pt campground. 
Got a few on the first soak, came back to camp to continue feeding the bream and Moses perch.
Second soak Got a couple more, had a flick and got a nice whiting and tested the trolling motor (it didn't fall off)
A mate that camped next to us caught a 53cm snapper and a 43cm whiting on yabbies while I was enjoying time with the fam. Some cracking fish for the passage.
The rest of the weekend was filled with camp oven lamb shoulder, toasted marshmallows and more crabs. Ended up with more than enough for myself, my mate, my mum and even the dog had a taste. 
Good trip. Keen to really give the trolling motor a workout soon.  

You have gotten out more than me despite the time up on blocks. Keep it going👍

SENSATIONAL effort! Well done to the young fella! 

SENSATIONAL effort! Well done to the young fella! 

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. 
 
 

Good topic....leaves me with mixed feelings on todays fishing.
Most notable fish changes I have noticed are the following:
Bream....catching genuine 1kg bream used to be normal....fish in the high 30's were normal in the 70's and 80's....biggest one I caught was 47cm but skinny as anything post spawn. In the past two years I have caught two legit 1kg bream.
Yellowtail kingfish.....in the early 80's there were large schools of simply massive fish in Moreton Bay....1.2 to 1.5m fish. About mid 80's NSW had massive YTK fishtraps being used....almost wiped out the stocks migrating the coast....Have not seen one over 1.2m in decades.
Snapper....numbers have not changed much but average capture sizes are about 1/2 the size of the 70's is most areas I have fished. Interestingly snapper were either bait or trolled hard bodies back then and plastics didn't work well....plastics have taken over, but I have noticed a bit of decline in the past 6 years in two places that hold decent fish....bait is still catching the same amount.
Sharks....seasonal for me and I didn't target them too often but I don't see the numbers of sharks I used to in the 70's and 80's.....I remember seeing them in the hot water outlet of the power station in frightening numbers, dozens visible any time of the day or night.In the Bribie Passage we used to lose decent snapper and jew to sharks fairly regularly back in those days...I have lost fewer than 5 fish in the past decade to sharks. I know lots of guys have real problems with them these days, but I just don't have the issue enough to bother me.
Gold spot cod......they are bloody tiny these days on average. I could manage 80cm cod every run to the port in the 80's....a 50cm cod now is noteworthy.
The biggest changes though are fishermen and women.....numbers are simply massive now and lots of those are decked out with high tech sounders and GPS units....Sure most don't use them well but still quite a lot use them effectively and catch lots of fish.....and this brings forward the next point.
Fish education.....catch and release might be good for fish stocks but it does educate them about the lures or baits we use. The "in" lure to use today gets flogged in the faces of the fish so much they learn to not touch that lure. Now catch and release is essential for all undersized fish and I fish myself also selective of the size of fish I will harvest.....I will not take snapper under 50cm for example....so I am guilty of educating the fish with the lures I use too.
I recently dug out an old lure box from the 80's....I will be giving these lures a run heavily over this winter to see how they go.....will let you know.
Also of note here is the environment.....it has changed massively in a lot of places, some better and some worse. In the 80's Redcliffe tides ran south for the incoming and north for the outgoing all the way up to Scarborough reef and probably beyond....todays water movement is a slow constant southward current and no north movement at all....This occurred with building Fishermans Island at the Port. The reefs off Redcliffe are well silted these days as well.
Water quality of the Brisbane River is far better today than in the 80's up to Breakfast Creek....not much data outside of that though.   We had regular droughts back then as well....salinity levels were higher then than in the past 15 years with the constant flushes happening.....results show in the captures.
In the mid 80's there was a quite severe drought where we saw lots of fish that were normally offshore being caught inshore. Pearl Perch land based around the Tweed and on the sunshine coast headlands....spanish mackerel in Bramble Bay...cobia at Dohles Rocks....YTK at Shorncliffe pier.
 

Fellow fishers
A fish that's certainly had my attention for a long time has been the humble barred javelin. Having only recently acquired a tinny less than 2 years ago i'd never caught a legal one. This changed earlier in the year flicking lures around mud island. I hooked a nice one off the bottom (pics attached) and am pretty stoked about catching one locally over 60cm.
I've not since been able to catch another even though trying whenever the weather allows. As always the case in fishing it leads to many questions, but moreso makes me hungrier to find them. I'm interested to see what others experience has been with these awesome fish, particularly in Moreton Bay (MB). Feel free to add whatever comes to mind when you think of them, biggest one youve caught, if you think theyre always around in MB in some form, if theres seasons. Not sure if it's just me but they seem to be popping up regularly (more regularly locally? or am i just noticing them) in my social media feeds, ppl asking for fish ids, some youtube clips even more recently. 
Totally understand if some dont want to share, either, but hope you like the pics....they are cool as.
 

Hi all, 
I've been out for two sessions at my local park recently. One was a couple of weeks ago and very unsuccessful, as the only thing I caught in the net was a catfish and there were many logs drifting by making fishing difficult. The second was on low tide one Friday arvo where I got enough prawns to have a cast and a couple of small catfish. Both were pretty disappointing sessions, but it was better than not going fishing. 
Quick Stats:
Tide: Varied, low and rising. 
Fish Caught: Nothing good
Bait Used: Prawns
The next session was last night/this morning with Thorbjorn on his tinny. We launched at POB boat ramp with a rather calm river awaiting us. After going through Boat Passage, it wasn't long before we managed to get a good amount of herring and mullet at Luggage Point. Following that, we went to the first fishing spot of the night, where Thorbjorn had some good success on snapper the night before, and dropped our lines down. 
The bites were a bit quiet at first, but just as I was about to cook my dinner my rod had a few taps. Sure enough I was on, and pulled in a small but legal snapper that was kept for dinner.

Snap
The bites stayed quiet here though, so we moved spots after an hour or so more of fishing and sporadic rain. 
It wasn't long before Thorbjorn had a good run at the next spot, but unluckily it didn't hook up. We sent baits back down, and after a decently long wait Thorbs was on again. This time the fish was hooked, and after a few nice runs and big headshakes we had a solid jewie on the boat (about 85cm I think). After a quick pic we vented and released the jewie, which eventually kicked off strongly. 

Jewfish
After this, we were hopeful of some more action and the fishing didn't disappoint, with Thorbs pulling in a nice 45cm or so snap on a livie that was also kept.

Snap
A catty later Thorbjorn had some jewie looking nibbles on his rod before hooking up to a very good fish. It was taking some pretty fast runs and plenty of headshakes, but before we could see it, the hook came out. We were both pretty disappointed about this but sent some baits down and continued fishing until after midnight. We finished up when we ran out of livies and because I sadly have a couple exams I needed to study for today that are in coming weeks. Thanks again for taking me out @Thorbjorn Hale it was a fun night, here are the stats of the trip for anyone interested:
Stats of Trip:
Tide: 6:50PM, 2.1M, High, 1:00AM, .6M, Low.
Moon Phase: 23%
Air Pressure: 1013
Humidity: 88%
Bait Used: Live herring and mullet
Fish Caught: Jewie x 1, snapper x 2, catfish x 1
Overall Success Rate: 100%, some nice fish landed. 
Thanks for reading the report,
Cheers Hamish. 

The 5th, Sandstone point & Pumistone passage

Me, my dad @dhessand my sister woke up at 4:30am, we left our home in Brisbane at 5am and started the roughly 1 hour drive to sandstone point, we arrived around the same time as the sun started to rise. The sky was overcast and the wind was fairly calm, just shy of being glassed out. This trip we all used lures,  we started off with my dad using a Zman StreakZ curly tail on a 1/6 ounce, myself starting off with a 65mm slippery dog, and my sister using a gulp worm on a 1/8 jighead. 
My goal was to try and catch a whiting on a lure. after 30 or so minutes of casting I had no follows or hits on the slippery dog, so I swapped over to a gulp worm. And sure enough after a thew casts I started getting some bites and quickly hooked into a legal whiting, however out of my own stupidity I lifted it straight out of the water at the bank and it fell off.

We leave sandstone point to fish the yabby bank we planned to fish on the outgoing tide, I was using a 130mm bent minnow on my second rod, got 2 hits but missed both of the hookups. around 7:40 am my dad landed the first flatty of the day around 42cm a nice keeper.
At 8:00 my friend tom and his dad arrived, both throwing plastics. 
The bite has really started to fire up now, we where hooking fish every minute, every one caught one apart from me of course. The died after about 15 minutes, fishing was fairly slow after that, in that period we caught 4 flathead and missed 3.
10 am: My dad landed a decent flathead low-mid 50 a bit down the bank.
11 am: Chris, toms dad got a pike.

All flathead caught on the 5th: 

The 6th, Port of Brisbane
We arrived at 1:20pmish with my friend @James Reeves prepared to fish the slack tide at 2:30. We brought mullet gut and a whiting. for bait. Today was super busy with around 15 people under the bridge when usually there are 3 or so. People around us where getting plenty of legal bream, but the current was still roaring.
Just before slack my sister landed a legal bream. My dad got bricked by bream multiple times. James hooked a good bream or a snapper but it came off. My dad got bricked again by what he thought would've been a cod. While the current was slack I tied on an unweighted 50mm bream prawn, I got a thew bites but didn't hook any unfortunately. Some guys next to us landed a legal snapper.
The tide turned and current has started to pickup, plenty of bites but no hookups until about 3:30, my sister hooked a good fish, it was pulling plenty of drag which was fairly tight, but she got bricked unfortunately.
We packed up and left at 4:30 pm

That sounds like a very nice mornings effort rebel.

That sounds like a very nice mornings effort rebel.

Good to see you back out there rebel 👍

That sounds like a very nice mornings effort rebel.

Nice day and haul, Neil. That southerly chopped things up a bit in the bay today.
@benno573 and I came upon a huge, thick school of herring at the Pin one day. We made the mistake of throwing the castnet. We got about 200 in one cast. 7 out of 8 of them were stuck in the net. It took us a good hour to get them all out. Never again. haha

Getting kids out for a fish, getting yourself back out there, laughs, fish, and your favourite spot for brekky. Hard to beat.

School free day. End of their Holidays.
Arrived around sunrise. Top morning.
One of the easiest places to go rock fishing.
First up a nice drummer ( Released ) The boys caught 2 tailor.
I caught two nice snapper 45cm & 48cm.
The boys caught 2 flathead & another tailor. They were happy.
Enough for me for my return to the rocks.
I tried out my new rod. Storm Gomoku 13ft. Casts very well. I had a Penn SpinfisherV 6000 reel on it. Good combo.
Newport Arms for breakfast
Lots of laughs.
Cheers.

All round slow day today with both the shrimp and fish hard to find. Ran out of bait by 10.30 with a tally of 19 bass and one tandan. Still good company and great to be on the water, Went upstream and only 2 trees productive a few bass just made 40cm rest mediocre.

We have been trying to get up to Baroon Pocket dam for a while and been thwarted either due to availability or the dam closed due to rainfall. We finally made it this morning to find the visibility near zero due to a heavy fog that did not lift until around 8am. We used the gps to find one of out usual spots and found the bass hungry . We pulled around 40 before they went quiet so we went upstream and could not find any bass so we went downstream and found another school where we ran out of shrimp . Final tally was 62 bass and one tandan. Largest bass went 42cm and the tandan 58cm. Only disappointment was that Bucks pies were closed due to anzac day. 2 fish kept for the table others all tagged and released.
 

Good to see you back out there rebel 👍

Good to see you back out there rebel 👍

Hi All.
Taking it easy. Rocks & Beach fishing can come later.
Luderick & Bream were the go.
Arrived after sunrise, bit on the cool side. Few people about. Forgot it was still school holidays.
Very quiet. Caught 3 blackfish in over an hour. Size 32 to 34 cm. I think it may be too early for blackfish. But the burley seemed to work.
Moved to south side of the channel near the bridge for some bream.
Caught 2 nice bream around 34cm. Puppy was happy.
Moved on the crowds were starting to arrive.
Had two rods with me. Ugly Stik Carbon with a Kastking Magenta 3000reel. great set up. Wilson Magenta 8' rod for those who remember with a Daiwa Legalis 3000 reel.
Bait was green weed & Aussie cooked prawns.
Nice to be back fishing.
Cheers.