Old Scaley

Yep @Another Wazza, that was me you waved to on the way past. I saw you heading towards Brian’s boat and said to @Drop Bear “That looks like Another Wazza” (I recognised the boat and your hat ). Those green sea toads were a real pain in the ass today. Robbie had his 10 year old nephew onboard and he outfished both of us, landing 3 of the big toads and one legal schoolie. Robbie managed one squid, which was our main target early, and I narrowly avoided the donut by landing one sea toad, although that should be negative points. But, as you said, it was a great day on the Bay. Congrats on the snap. It is a beauty.

Really nice video @christophagus. People fishing Hamish’s shark comp would have learned a lot from that.

You might need to book early to get a spot in the caravan park. They have been pretty busy since the pandemic. If you can’t get in there, we have left vehicles and trailers in the carpark at the ramps a number of times with no problem, but try and park under the lights down near the shop and Air Sea Rescue base. It is a huge carpark but you will see what I mean when you get there.

I have used Lanox in the past. I think it does the job but needs reapplication frequently. There might be better lanolin solutions out there. I would avoid diesel because of the slick you might leave behind at the ramp.

Nice work Hamish. Hope you are feeling better now. Catching another thready would have helped.

@Ryannnnnnnn, I would be mightily p#ssed off if my brand new trailer looked like that or had any welds cracking. I would be particularly concerned about what you can’t see - inside the box sections. For the crossmembers I take the nozzle off the hose and then stick the fitting hard up against the small holes to force water to run through the crossmember. My redco has one on each side and another at the lowest point so I do both sides. My last redco was 11 years old when I got rid of it because the rear crossmember was starting to rust. My new one is 3 years old and has some rust on 2 bolts, but nothing showing anywhere else. Then again, it is carrying a 4.4 tinnie which I can launch and retrieve without dunking the trailer so I expect to get a lot of years out of it. I wonder if this white rust is common to Dunbier trailers? Personally I would be looking for a replacement, but maybe the work you did on it may have taken away that option. Good luck with it.

Haha Kelvin. Thanks for the offer but the Council declared the poinciana “a tree of local significance” several years ago so trimming it is a bureaucratic spiderweb. And it is beautiful when it flowers.

Looks very similar to my shed/boathouse. Similar dimensions but Mine is L shaped so I have a workbench and storage in the side part. Only problem I have is that there is minimum pitch in the roof and there is a huge poinciana tree overhanging it that drops lots of leaf litter and small branches that I need to clean off every few weeks or the roof rusts out like it has once before. Doesn’t look like you have trees right on top so you should be ok.

Good to see you out and about with all the Crosby men @kmcrosby78. I hope Liam and George are still keen when you are your dad’s age.

Does the battery have plenty of charge? I have seen sounders give those weird displays when the the battery is running low.

I have an 8000d and have had no issues at all. It would be at least 5 years old.

^^ Geez, @davostephens l got exhausted just reading that!

hope you are recovering well, Greg. Site looks normal on my iPad.

Merry Christmas @Mission. Since you are based in Queensland, do yourself a favour and get the Qld Fishing 2.0 app. It will help you identify fish immediately which will then help you decide whether to keep them or not. Nice luderick by the way.

It is a really big carpark. Your best bet is to park up near the Air Sea Rescue tower near the ramps. It is well lit and I think there might even be a camera in that area. There will also be lots of people moving around that part of the carpark at this time of the year. As @kmcrosby78 mentioned, there is a caravan park close to the ramp but you might struggle to get a booking at this late stage.

Looks like you will have an easterly wind, which is the best you can get for that area. It might be a bit bumpy from Urangan to Moon Point, but you will have a smooth run up the inside of the island. Leave as early as you can so you can catch the high tide (the entrance can be shallow and also it will be easier to unload from the boat). Don’t forget you need a camping permit, and a lockable dingo box for all your food and read the National Parks info on staying dingo safe. We used to take a length of conduit to whack on the ground to scare away any dingoes that got too close. Definitely no campfires. Try to get a camp spot on the northern spit, it is much nicer than the southern side. That’s all I have. Enjoy your trip.

Hamish, you probably could have kept the backbone, cut it into pieces about 150mm long, season them and throw them straight on the BBQ. Lots of deliciousness to be had around the bones. Next time.

Congrats, @AUS-BNE-FISHO. Welcome to the metre club! We all knew you would get there sometime but you have done faster than most. Filleting them is tricky and you have to let your knife do the work, just riding up and down over the bumpy backbone. I have only filleted smaller ones though and can imagine the big girls would be harder. Don’t feel bad about keeping it. No one could have done more to save it and they are not an endangered species.

Yep, sharked. I hate predictive text.

Yes @ellicat it was a long day. As you know Benno’s opportunities to get out for a fish are pretty limited these days so he likes to make the most of them. The fight with grunter was a lot of fun on light line but not epic. Forgot to mention that we also caught more than our share of catfish, a few of which we turned into fresh crab bait. We think we were sparked a few times as well so there is lots happening despite (or maybe because of) the murky water.

Had a crack at crabbing down the Pin area with Australia’s Greatest Deckie @Benno123. We needed an early start so we could be at the yabbie banks on the early morning low. Benno got to my place at 4am and we were on the water by 5am. The yabbies were plentiful and we soon had a day’s supply. We set our 8 pots on the way to the trusty yabbie bank, with the plan to fish for a couple of hours, then check and move the pots if necessary. The weather was perfect, with a light breeze under overcast skies keeping us nice and cool for the morning. The lines went out just around the turn of the tide and I was the first lucky angler very soon after that, with solid hookup. After s short but fun battle on 5lb braid and 6lb leader, a healthy looking silver slabbed torpedo came up beside the boat. This got Benno very excited cos he loves catching grunter, so he grabbed the net and we had our first for the day, a nice 42cm spotted grunter. Not long after that I landed a 35cm whiting and we thought we might crack the elusive 40cm+ on this trip. I had a quiet period for a while after that, and Benno started to add fish to the esky. We had a lot of by-catch throughout the day. Lots of good size bream, but we only kept 3 for the esky because they were well over 30 cm and gut hooked. Strangely Benno was the only one to catch stingrays, and he caught a few. There was a lot of by-catch in the pots as well, with lots of Jennie’s and few bucks. We shifted the pots regularly trying to find where the boys were hiding, but ended up with just 3 keeper muddies and 2 keeper sandies. On the fish front we ended up with 12 good whiting, 6 good spotted grunter, a tarwhine and the 3 bream. So overall, a pretty rewarding day. We were stopped by Fisheries just before the ramp for a spot check, and they were quite impressed with the quality of our fish. Good to see them out and about - this was about 7pm so they are not just working 9 to 5. Oh, and if you are wondering why I called Benno Australia’s Greatest Deckie, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I hardly have to lift a finger when Benno comes out with me. He tows the boat for me, prepares and deploys the pots as I drive the boat, does more than his share of yabbie pumping, ties most of my knots and even baits my line and tosses it out for me if I turn my back for a few seconds. All my other deckies are wonderful too, but Benno sets a new standard. oh, almost forgot the obligatory dead fish photo.

@Drop Bear, I never pictured you as a male model, but I see you are a man with many hats. Did you clean up your tub before the shoot or is that why you only get a long shot?

My best suggestion would be to avoid using live sharks for bait . These results are not filling me with confidence for a crabbing trip tomorrow with @benno573. There should be heaps around so fingers crossed.

Ray I am always intrigued by the screen shots of your GPS. Are all those dots waypoints? And are the numbers beside them their waypoint number or the distance you are from them. I think I have seen that style of view on videos but can’t remember what it is?

Geez, thanks for reposting my 2020 wish list, Hamish. I only had a 50% success rate. My targets were: 1. Prawns. Tick, although I only managed one session with @tugger and @Drop Bear. We did well and then COVID hit and we couldn’t get out again until after the season ended. So prawns are back on the list for 2021. 2. Mangrove Jack. Fail, but I didn’t actually target them. I guess I still have 2 weeks if the opportunity arises. Might keep them on the list for 2021. 3. Mackerel. Tick, managed a few so far and hoping for a few more before the New Year. Back on the list. 4. Longtail Tuna in Moreton Bay. Fail. Back on the list for 2021. The only thing I will add to the list is more trips with mates and maybe a 40cm+ whiting- it has been a few years since I landed one of those. The sad part of that original post was seeing Lance’s post hoping to be still vertical at the end of 2020. You almost made it old mate. Another good reminder to fish when you can.