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Just posting this in case some people didn’t see it. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-25/researcher-alarmed-at-moreton-bay-mud-university-of-queensland/103600324?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=mail

Hey All, Been a bit quiet this past 12-months, with not much fishing due to lack of motivation & house reno's , I think I managed 3 trips in 2022 and didn't catch a fish/ apart from catching live baits & squid, not sure if that counts, So I sold the Surtees in October 2022 as it hadn't been used enough and the offer was more than I paid for it, wasn't even advertised, just a random guy at the ramp liked it, so he bought it. So, I took it with plans on doing something else with money, but after a trip to Fraser Island before easter for a wedding the itch came back to get back on the water soon, So last week I bit the bullet and ordered another Surtees, not a Centre console but this time a 610 Gamefisher with a few tasteful additions along with a 130Hp 4 stroke and Aluminum Trailer. The Build will start at the end of May I believe and will be completed sometime in August ready for shipping. Should arrive early October from NZ and will take about 2 weeks to get fitted out and get her on the water, will be a tough 6 months waiting, but I'm sure it will be worth it. If I get any build photos i will try to add them up here once it gets started. Cheers Josh <><

Last 3 trips have been a little disappointing, but have managed to scrape up a few feeds of nice eating fillets. Did a whiting trip and got some quality whiting for the table , dropped a big Mangrove Jack right at the boat as I was trying to net it , surprised no one has mentioned hearing me let go a naughty swear word as I recon half the boats down the Gold Coast way would have heard me. Fished Peel Island this morning but had to fight sharks and dolphins , all morning , I surrendered at 8am after a 3m bull shark got a trophy snapper as it surfaced just behind the boat. I usually take pity on the cod and release them all , but I know this fellow pictured stood little chance of making it back down. Did a Hinze Dam trip with Ray K last Thursday , it was a slow day , but the company was good. I think it took me a couple of hours before I managed to entice a few bass to bite for me. Hopefully my mojo returns for the next trip. Regards Neil

Hi all, I went out with @ellicat (Brian) for a session around Macleay and Peel Island last Friday. We launched at 6:30AM at Victoria Point and we were fishing before 7:00AM at one of Brian's spots at Macleay. It wasn't long before Brian had caught a legal snap, but unfortunately after this we got sharked several times (and landed a couple more undersize fish). We stayed here for a while longer but eventually decided to head to a spot at Peel Island. We said hi to @Another Wazza quickly before starting a drift with some plastics and vibes. The weather was pretty good and it was around tide change, but I only managed two grinners on a soft vibe. We repeated the same and different drifts a couple more times but it was to no avail. Additionally, the wind picked up slightly as well as the tide so we decided to go back to Macleay to try there again. The anchor was deployed and I chucked over a fresh strip of grinner. It wasn't long before I was on, but it was pretty obvious I was on a ray after a few fast runs. I actually got this one up to the boat, but seeing as though it was gut hooked we cut the line and got rid of it. I hooked another one shortly after but the bite was pretty quiet for the most part. To finish up the day, we decided to do a couple of drifts around Macleay. This produced a few bites and one undersize snap for Brian, so a bit after 2 we headed back to the ramp and called it a day. Brian let me have the snapper and it tasted good. Thanks again for taking me out on the boat Brian, it was lots of fun. Thanks for reading, Cheers Hamish

If you haven't heard, a boat carrying 11 people capsized near Green Island yesterday arvo, I think during the storm. Seems that 8 people were rescued, two were found dead (RIP) and the search for the remaining person was called off at midnight last night, with the search resuming this morning at first light. Terrible storm yesterday, enough to turn over what sounds like was a 39ft cruiser. Thoughts are with the families of those involved and please say a prayer that the remaining missing person is found. Very sad . https://www.aap.com.au/news/two-more-dead-as-storms-ravage-se-qld-four-missing/

Thought I'd throw up a video of some pics from some sessions over the past month or so.

This is going to happen more and more, unfortunately. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-10/5-dead-after-new-zealand-boat-reportedly-hits-whale/101426264 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-07/whale-hit-whitsunday-boat-fishing-charter-mackay/8780688 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-08/breaching-whale-lands-on-boat-on-nsw-far-south-coast/100197626

Dragged the family along for a trip on the bay for my fathers day present, selfishly! haha! any chance to get on the water for mine even if it involves persuading the missus, a 3 and a 5 year old its a good idea.! anyway all aboard the 3.85 tinny for a bash on the northern bay with hopes of a snapper or two. fishing wasnt exactly going off for us, but we were throwing 3" holt prawns and 3.75" zman streakz around reefy areas in the northern bay. the missus was first to strike with a sub30cm snapper that went back swiftly then my 3 yr old boy got a little bar tailed flatty that was too small aswell. no action for yours truly and the 3yr old was letting me know about that "dad wheres your big snapper?! dad wheres all your fish? dad you fish alot what are we going to fillet?! the nerve!!! anyway persistence paid off when on our third and final drift (kids werent lasting any longer) my holt prawn got an enquiry hopped off the bottom and i hooked up solid to a fish that cut 20m or so of water in a hurry!! when i got tight it felt like there was a bit of weight an after a tussle we had a ripper of a barred javelin in the net and up on the front thwart grunting its head off to the kids amusement...a first for me and a great surprise after years of wanting to cross paths with one.

Launching a boat from Jacobs Well for the first time to go exploring the islands of Southern Moreton Bay. Are there any recommendations for good snorkelling spots in that area? Thanks in advance

I have a plan to go out with Steve this Wednesday, with the weather looking good. Then I was having a text conversation with Kat on Friday or Saturday and discovered she had Monday free from work. So, with the weather looking even better on Monday we decided it was too good to miss. Twice a week is doable at my age. haha Plan was to launch at Manly, hit Mud for some bait then head over to Harry's. We didn't make it to Harry's. After we got some bait, I just spotlocked on a mark out of habit and completely forgot to go to Harry's. Must have been the bad night's sleep... Anyway, the day started well with a legal grassie first up, then some other unders, all on my side of the boat. Knowing Kat had not been for a fish for awhile, I did the gentlemanly thing and swapped sides. Well, didn't she show me up, bringing in a few good ones whilst all I got were snags. So I went up the front of the boat and we both fished the good side. And we both caught more fish. Mainly grassies, some legal, some not as well as a few undersize squire and a little tusky just for good measure. I wasn't sure if the bag limit on grassies was 5 or 10. I tried to check on the Queensland Fishing App, but the wifi reception at Mud is atrocious, so I put out the question to both @Old Scaley and @benno573 via text. I thought we had 9 and a bream. With that in mind and at an opportune time, i.e. when I got a knot in my braid and didn't feel like retying my leader, we headed off to do some trolling for spotties again. The conditions at this point were excellent, with the surface of the water like an oil slick. So we sped up to the M8 where we started trolling, headed towards Moreton, then down to Shark Spit, then back towards Mud. A large school of Bonito sprung up in front of us so I just trolled straight into them. Shortly after, the trolling board popped up and Kat brought in little bonito to be vacuum sealed for bait at a later date. We didn't see much other action, other than a suspected school of spotties doing little bust ups. We tried to get in front of them without joy. We had to be careful as we were right on the edge of the green zone. Back to Mud we went for 1 more legal grassie and a few unders before pulling the pin at 1.50pm Kat caught the most for the day, which was good to see after her long layoff. It wasn't until taking the photo at the end of the day that we realised we had 1 less than we thought. 9 grassies (from 31 to 37), 1 bream (29) and the bonito. Thanks for coming out Kat. A very pleasant day.

@Old Scaley and I launched at Manly at 7 this morning and headed to Mud. Plan was to have a go at a snapper or two on the runout and tide change, then head up inside Moreton to troll for some spotties. Mud was a bit quiet but managed to put a keeper grassie and tusky in the esky. For the first time in ages we were able to rustle up some livies too. A few undersize fish and a couple of grinners saw us through until 12.30ish. We then decided to go for a troll. We headed up to a beacon with the plan to troll from there over to Moreton then down to Shark Spit. Steve had on a 3 inch spoon behind a 5M deep trolling board and I had on a Laser Pro 2.5M diver in Qantas. About 500 metres from the beacon Steve's rod went off, I hit the waypoint button and in came a spottie that played up deluxe beside the boat - ripping the line through Steve's hand 3 or 4 times. Finally he got it onboard, going 83cm. I quickly changed my lure to a 190mm 6M diver Laser Pro in Qantas while Steve cleared the mess on his line. Back in the water we passed back through the mark and on a bit when Steve's rod went off again. This time it was an undersize schoolie that flipped off boatside. We did a circle or two for a bonito, before deciding to head back to the beacon and then turn for home, as the wind had sprung up a bit. On the way to the beacon my rod went off, reel screaming at pace. By the time I'd throttled back, turned and got off my chair and got to the rod the lure was bitten off. Either a big spottie or maybe a Spanish or even a longtail. Who knows ? Whatever it was it won its freedom and I got the booby prize. (Not that I've got anything against boobies.) We trolled for another five or ten minutes on the way to Mud with no further action, so wound them in and headed for home. Thanks for coming along, Steve. That macky made the day.

@Kat and I headed out this morning from Manly. Fished Mud for most of the run-out tide. Managed a 45 snap and Kat a legal grassie around 33 from memory. Kat also got onto something huge that busted off about 15 metres from the boat. I'll post a video of that tomorrow. Conditions were superb with a glass-out for most of the day. We had a few runs and failed hookups along with some undersize squire and grassies. Around 1.30 we headed down to Green. I got a 44 snap and Kat got another grassie or two as well as a 37 squire. Dinner sorted for both of us. I hooked up to what we suspect was a large shovelly that did what it wanted when it wanted. Eventually it busted off on an abandoned crab pot that has been there all year. Easy release method. We had quite a bit of action and dropped more fish than we would have liked, but it was a good day to be out there. We were out there from 7.30am to 5pm but there always seemed to be something happening. Thanks for the day, Kat and especially the food - including homemade chocolate chop cookies.

Hi Legends @GregOugand I headed out for a session on Tuesday. Launched about 7.15 sounded out a couple of spots on the way, marked for later exploration. Arrived at Greg's spot X - the plan was to target Blackspot Tuskies. We were armed with various baits including sand crab. I landed the first fish first cast, an undersized cod of some sort - either Maori Cod or Honeycomb Cod. No pic cause wanted to get straight back down. Shortly after I hooked up to something that gave me a fair fight and had a bit of weight to it. At first in my head I was thinking shark - as has been my luck in the bay lately. After a few runs and me praying my hooks didn't pull I (Greg with the net) landed a 66cm MILF. Absolutely stoked - best fish in the bay for a long long time. Pretty sure on my third cast I landed another, my first ever legal sized tuskie (not Blackspot) - think it was 34cmm. Was really looking forward to the taste test though!!! Shortly after Greg landed a decent sized flounder and then a legal tuskie - over legal just enough to allow for shrinkage if fisheries questioned him again . Unfortunately this was not long before the bottom of the tide and then the dreaded whiptails moved in! They were picking out the crab meat and absolutely decimating the cuttlefish. I think I hate these things more than sharks/wobbegongs and grinners! Sick of re-baiting every 2 minutes we headed off to the earlier discovered spot only to deal with whiptails once again . Headed back to spot X once there was some more run - no joy - just whiptail after whiptail..... Trolled on way back to ramp in hope of a mackerel etc - again no joy. Beautiful enjoyable day on the bay! Thanks mate! Added bonus, Greg's chef mate, Mario filleted the fish while I was cleaning the boat Pics: excuse the ruler pic - Mario took it while I was cleaning

Steve and I headed out twice this week with both Tuesday and Thursday proving to be pretty tough to get a fish. Of course Tuesday the 16th we were raring to go after the snapper closure finished Monday. We couldn't find any livies before we headed to Mud. We fished Mud until late morning then headed over to the Rainbow to chase some schoolies again. Steve got a nice squid on a bait. That was it for the day. Home we went. Today we got up at the crack of farcical and headed out to Harry's where we dropped some livies in and fished plastics until about 10am before leaving defeated. Over to Mud we went. Very quiet. I had a hookup but dropped a half decent fish. Then around midday the reel spun and I landed a 56cm snap. That was it for the day. Got back to the ramp just before 4 disappointed for Steve who managed a few unders and a just legal tusky that was thrown back. I know all the workers are struggling to feel the pain here, but your turn will come.

Headed out with @Old Scaley today to try to make the most of the opportunity the weather gave us to snare a snapper or two. Steve always out-fishes me, but not today. First up we gathered some bait then headed to the mark where Steve was quickly onto a large Wobbygong first drop. It won its freedom boatside as we mucked around trying to get it in the net like a couple of old fools. haha Not long after Steve deployed again, he was on to a good fish that was not keen on playing the game. It took off for the hills, then Steve got some back then off it went again. This pattern continued for awhile but unluckily for Steve it was lost before it could show itself. Definitely a good snapper. Then it was my turn and a good fight turned into this one - It went 74cm on the lie detector. Some time passed and then I was on again. This time a 64cm one. It fought harder than the 74 to start with but calmed down a bit by the time it was in the net. I pointed out to Steve I was winning the numbers game for a change. He retorted that he was ahead on the weight game...it was a big wobby, so I had to concede. Steve also sent this pic of my fish to impress Mrs Scaley. haha A good day out with Steve until we made the decision to leave at the turn of the tide, which was also the turning of the weather. It was a tad wet and cold on the way home, but well worth the effort. PS Thanks again to @Allnighter.

Saturday morning conditions hovering between 10-15knots however the arvo forecast looks very good. Morning is a run out tide so wind and current will be in same direction meaning the 10-15knt might actually still be comfortable for fishing. I don't normally arvo/evening fish on a Saturday because it kind of messes up both days on the weekend. (Saturday prepping for arvo trip/Sunday morning clean up) What's peoples thoughts on Arvo fishing? I'm strictly an early start / early finish fisho. I'm 50:50 on whether I'll be heading out - Tight lines. Meteye 7am, 10am & 1pm - Conditions really improving after lunch time.

It's mid week....time to get interested in the weather forecast for the weekend of boating / fishing. Check out all the green . Saturday sunrise and high tide coinciding at around 6:30am. Ideal for an early run to spot X. Expecting some mint conditions and lots of boats out with all my weekend warrior friends. Mid week fishos/retirees need not attend (given all the great mid week weather) or risk some boat ramp madness. Nice morning westerly (only slightly blowing against the incoming tide). Expecting a comfortable morning cruise out with the tail wind behind me. Hardly a South-Easterly for the arvo run home with the breeze dropping off further compared to the morning. Expecting mint arvo conditions. Might anchor up for a nice lunch / afternoon tea on the water after a days fishing.

Wind looks ok although with inclement weather you can get bad gusts happening in the bay. Rain will be the issue for this weekend with some stations reporting a potential "Rain Bomb" this weekend. Sunday would be the pick however its still 50% chance of 0-8mm of rain. Looks like it's a weekend land locked with maintenance around the house.

Headed out for a session with @Kat today. We launched about 7am and struggled for quite awhile to find some livies. In the end Kat managed 5 pike which were sent to the livewell. That did us for a start. Managed to turn one into a keeper - Kat managed this one as well - 20220616_123438.mp4 We caught up with @GregOug on the radio and phone and ventured over near Harry's for a catch up. The Bay was a glass out. Greg had been having a bit of a disastrous day with a few things not going well to start the day. To put a full stop on the day he had some problems and couldn't get his Sounder/GPS to work when he went to leave. Did you figure it out, mate ? Fishing was tough and we ended up back at a mark at Green. No joy - just pickers. Kat suggested we hunt for more pike and we agreed to extend the day until just after dusk. They were again hard to find but we found a good patch eventually and Kat boated another 7. That would be enough. We quietly anchored at the next spot and deployed a pike each, then settled down to wait for that sound. It didn't come so we made tracks for home. Back at the ramp by 7. Apart from the one keeper it was a tough day at the office. Good company though. Thanks for coming out Kat, even though you caught more fish than me.

Saturday the stars aligned and @benno573 and I finalised a plan on Friday to fish the Bay together. An early start saw me rise at 2.30 for a 4am departure to Manly ramp. We were at Harry Atkinson artifical reef just before first light, with half a dozen others, where we fished plastics (as taught to me by @Another Wazza). Conditions were pretty ordinary with waves up to approximately a metre and the wind kept us cool. Not much joy on the plastics except for me losing a tail, so at 8am we moved onto Mud Island figuring we had passed the peak period. A lot of boats had also shown up. At the first Mud spot the weather improved and we managed to get a few legal squire, with me boating the best one at 48.5cm, somewhat shy of the 70cm I was after but I was still happy. Also managed a legal tusky. Somewhere during the morning Benno pointed out a barge in close to the island. Sure enough it was @Drop Bear and @Old Scaley as well as a couple of other gents from the OzFish crew doing their bit for our environment by doing a cleanup on the island. Good on you fellas. They popped over later to say G'day. Quite a few boats showed up around us and the bite slowed so we moved on to another spot where there was plenty of bait but no cigar, so we moved again where there was even more bait but no cigar there either. We spied the odd small bust up during the morning of both longtail and mack tuna, so Benno had a slug ready. Sure enough a couple bobbed up within casting distance and benno landed a slug almost in the mouth of one. haha He was on immediately. Only trouble was it was only on 10lb string that had a join in the line about half a spool down. It didn't take long for the join to be exposed and there was some nervousness about its strength. We were hoping for a longtail, but after quite a struggle, in came a big Mack Tuna going 85cm and just under 8kg. Well played mate. After that bit of excitement we moved again. The conditions were very calm now and so was the fishing with a steady stream of unders and pickers. Benno was also the grinner king for the day, but worse was still to come. A couple of snip offs occurred before the excitement of a bit of drag being pulled ended devastatingly - a giant sea toad ! Aaaarrgghh. Nooooo. Sure enough we had a couple of more snip offs before we moved on. We headed back to the first Mud spot where we settled in for the dusk bite. Not a lot going on apart from unders (mainly on Bennos's side), then there was something that set off a fair bit drag singing. Excited at first, the call was made it was acting like a ray and sure enough it was. Feeling defeated on the big snapper quest, we called it a bit early but well into the dark and headed for home. Back at the ramp at 7pm the fella pulling out next to us said he had caught a 90cm snap and also the boat that had just pulled out had caught a 90 as well. Ho hum. It had been awhile between drinks for us, so it was good to catch up with a long session. Thanks for the day Benno.

I recently bought two new G.Loomis rods and was keen to try them out so when today's forecast for Moreton Bay was for around 0.2 metre seas until after midday, Damon and I decided to head to our recently found spot over at Moreton to try them out. The river was calm as we headed out around dawn and things looked very promising. The calm seas continued until we got past the main shipping channel beacons but deteriorated very quickly after that. We were soon punching into a very nasty swell with cross chop and the wind was considerably stronger than the less than ten knots forecast. We decided to persevere but by the time we got to our spot the seas were probably at least a half metre of chop on top of a metre and a half swell, and very confused. We anchored and sent some baits down with some fairly heavy lead as the run was nearly as bad as the last time we were there. The swell and chop was pretty bad and I missed a couple of decent bites but then managed to hook something that obviously had some size to it because I wasn’t gaining much line for a couple of minutes, and then it would fight for a few seconds and then just be a heavy weight in between fights. I started to suspect a cod at this stage, but when we finally got our first glimpse of it in the white-capping swells behind the boat my heart sank because I thought it looked like a huge sea toad. But Damon said he was sure it was a cod, and he proved to be correct when I got it to the back of the boat. It was a very nice cod. That nice, in fact, that we had considerable difficulty getting into a landing net that was way too small for it! Lol. But eventually Damon somehow manoeuvred it into the net with the tail sticking out, and brought it aboard. My very first fish on my new spinning rod, and what a great start to its fishing life! I caught one keeper grassie after that, but we’d only been there about half an hour when I started feeling decidedly queasy. I was just about to mention this to Damon when he turned to me and exclaimed that he was feeling rather ill. The swell, chop and generally very confused sea was just too much and we quickly up anchored and started to head for home. We only made it a couple of hundred metres however before we decided it was going to be a very uncomfortable slog back to the ramp. I suggested we instead head down Moreton close in, in search of some better seas. By the time we reached the Sandhills it was considerably calmer and we headed towards Mud. By the time we were approaching Mud the seas had almost totally abated and it was much more like the predicted 0.2 metre seas than the maelstrom we had encountered at the top end of the bay. We were both feeling much better by this stage and decided to try a couple of spots on the northern side of Mud. But as usual, at least for me, Mud was reluctant to give up any of its mythical fish to us. As it was still before lunch time we decided to head to another spot we had caught a few squire at in the past. Surprisingly, this was when the day’s fishing really started. As soon as we dropped our baits down we started getting nice bites and a few decent runs. We bought a couple of grassies on board, then Damon caught a Moses Perch. It became a bit of a blur after that as we hooked fish, lost fish, boated fish, got bitten off, broken off and generally had a ball! The squire gradually got bigger. Damon boated a 38cm, followed soon after by a 43cm. Now, to us, that’s a decent squire! We high-fived each other and felt like we’d finally got the monkey off our back. Not to be out done, I soon had a good run and after a solid fight I boated a 50cm one. We kept getting big runs, often hooking up but either getting broken off on the bottom or bitten off. Whatever they were, they were biting through around 60 lb double leader just above the hook. Eventually I hooked something that was monstrous and peeled 30lb line on very heavy drag like it didn’t even know it was hooked. I fought this thing for at least fifteen minutes without ever sighting it, or even really getting it close to the boat. At this stage I remembered the giant turtle we had seen surfacing in the area a few times in the past hour or so, and it finally clicked that it was probably him I had hooked. He ended up breaking me off on the bottom, and I can’t say I was totally sorry, as he had just about worn me out. The G.Loomis spinning rod had certainly got a decent workout on its first day of duty. I love it! It has a sensitive tip and heaps of grunt, with a range of 15 to 50lb! We decided to call it a day and headed off to the ramp, knowing we had a fair bit of work ahead, cleaning the boat and gear, and scaling and filleting fish. All in all, probably our best day in the bay so far.

Well! I went out this morning and had one of those days. Firstly, the 0.2 metre seas predicted were over a metre of swell with at least half metre of chop on top by the time we got near Moreton. It was like we were in a washing machine. Then we tried to find some live bait around a couple of the beacons and buoys over there but the current was running that strongly that we raced past them and I couldn’t position the boat in one spot so that Damon could drop a jig down. We eventually gave up on the idea of live bait and headed to our new spot X. We calculated the wind, the current, the waves, the sea spray etc etc and finally dropped anchor so that we would be able to fish precisely over our spot. We didn’t even come close! Ended up hanging exactly the opposite way to what we thought and quite a distance from our spot. We dropped baits over the side anyway as at least the current was heading in that direction and they proceeded to water ski behind us. The current was that fast. We kept on adding more and more lead until I was worried that we might capsize if only one of us threw out at a time. Damon eventually got somewhere near the bottom because he started getting some bites. He bought in a just over legal sweetlip, but missed some really nice bites. Shortly afterwards I was up the front trying to tie my line onto the anchor winch so I could get it to wind my 24kgs of lead in for me, when Damon hooked another fish which seemed to fight harder and harder the closer he got it to the boat. When it broke the surface we saw why. There was a 35cm parrot (tusk) fish on the bottom hook and a 67cm school mackerel on the top hook! They took some getting into the landing net, especially as we discovered that Damon had made his leader exactly six inches too long for me to reach them with the landing net. Lol. He eventually proceeded up the front of the boat so they were close enough for me to net. A bit later, just as the current was slowing down to twenty or so knots and we were anticipating actually having our baits stay on the bottom for a second or two, Damon got a text from his girlfriend saying she had just tested positive for COVID! After discussing this for a minute we decided that it had put paid to any more fishing so we up anchored and headed for home in the forlorn hope that Damon wouldn’t have already infected me if he also had it, given that we had just spent the last three hours or so in the confined quarters of a 6m boat. It was like 8.30am when we got back to the ramp! I’m not sure what the neighbours thought as we handed each other rods, buckets, tackle boxes and all the other assorted paraphernalia you take each trip but never even think of, let alone use once you get on the water, and trying not to touch anything in the same spots the other had, all the while wearing face masks in the by then 35 degree heat! Oh well, these are the times we live in now.

Knowing that today would probably be a parking lot in the bay given it’s Australia Day, I decided to head over to Moreton yesterday and explore a new area we discovered right towards the end of the day on our last trip out. The forecast was looking good and we set off from P.O.B while it was still dark and actually had to wait a while in the river until dawn before it was bright enough to see. The seas were no more than the predicted 0.3m and we were able to motor along at cruising revs all the way from the river to near Tangalooma. We checked out one possible mark but it looked dead and uninteresting so we headed straight to our mark from last trip and started sounding around. There seemed to be a bit of activity on the bottom so we dropped anchor in about 50’ and started fishing. The bites were on right from the start and we commenced pulling in some just undersized grassies, small squire and tuskies. A legal grassy hit the esky, then a tuskie and then we caught the inevitable grinner. We didn’t know we’d hooked him until Damon’s rod buckled over and he commenced fighting a serious sized fish only for it to get off after a brief tussle. He wound in to find the remains of a large grinner, cleanly bitten off half way down, and with huge tear marks out of the remainder. He’d obviously just taken Damon’s bait when something much larger had come along and taken him. We continued to catch plenty of grassies, tuskies and squire, most undersized when I caught another grinner. I hooked him on as a live bait and dropped him back down. Nothing touched him for a while and I was busy doing something else, preparing more bait or something, when my 6000 Thunnus absolutely screamed off! I set the drag a bit tighter but this fish was a freight train and it was obvious there was no stopping this guy. He eventually broke me off, probably on some jagged bottom a long way from the boat. I am going to need to respool that reel because there’s not much left on it. I have no idea what type of fish this was! I got a new outfit out of the rod locker and started fishing again. Then Damon was on to a nice fighting fish which we eventually netted. It was a beautiful looking juvenile Red Emporer, which while nowhere near the 55cm minimum size, put up a bloody good fight. We measured him before throwing him back but can’t actually remember the exact size now. It was around 40cms though. Would love to catch a legal one. They would certainly take some bringing in. The tide stopped running but the bites didn’t. They just kept coming. Eventually we started swinging on the anchor as the current started running back into the bay. That’s when the fishing got rather hectic! We started hooking, losing and sometimes catching some very nice (well, at least in my books) grassies between 35 and 39 cms, as well as a couple of tuskies thrown into the mix. We ended up running out of bait by just after ten and were very satisfied with our morning’s fishing anyway. As the weather was so nice, we decided to troll for a couple of hours in a nice leisurely circle through the Pearl Channel before calling it quits and heading back to the ramp about lunch time. All in all, a great day out!