Old Scaley

I was sitting on my front verandah this morning enjoying a leisurely late breakfast and thinking about the snapper closure kicking off next week. I haven’t landed a decent snap for months and usually the port area can be relied on at this time of year as a reliable source of those 40 to 50cm fish that go well on the line and on the plate. Then a number of things occurred to me: it was not raining; it was not windy; I had fuel in the boat; I had pilchards and squid in the freezer; there was a high tide in the middle of the day; I was free all day and the car was available until 3pm. I had no excuses for not going so I grabbed a bit of tucker for lunch and headed for the ramp. I decided to focus on areas close to the ramp that had delivered in the past, sounded around and found fish on the sounder but no hits on bait or plastics for the first hour. Moved up and out of the channel and found some bait schools so deployed the spot lock (love the electric) and was soon pulling in squire at the rate of a fish per cast. Trouble was they were all about 25cm, which seems to be my new limit. Fished up to the tide change and then headed home. So no keepers (hence the “short” snap sesh title) but still an enjoyable outing in great conditions. Maybe the bigger snaps will move in after the closure. Oh, and my new sunnies are fantastic. For all those viewers who enjoy my terrible photos of dead fish on a dirty esky, sorry there is nothing for you today, but here is an even worse photo of a live fish for your viewing displeasure.

What sounder do you have? All the dams are mapped in the Garmin GPS units.

Sunline FC Rock seems ok to me. They are probably all ok, I just buy that one out of habit.

Haha @ellicat, or should that be Nostradamus? They turned up today at exactly the same time as the clouds first appeared. Gave them a test run driving into the late arvo sun just now and they did the job brilliantly. Now to get a strap so I don’t put them down on the boat floor and step on them. Will report back in a year’s time on their durability and scratch resistance.

Thanks @Junky. I am the same with glasses that don’t have really good visual acuity. I end up taking them on and off all the time because I want to see as well as I possibly can. With my MJs I can leave them on for hours and not even register that I have them on. Ordered a pair of World Cup sunnies yesterday and can’t wait to try them out.

Nice work, Hamish. Never heard of butter bream being caught that far upstream so well done.

Sounds like another good trip, Mark, with heaps of tasty fillets to remind you about it in the months before your next trip. Plus a bit of creek work and some exploring. Life is good.

Thanks for that @Junky. I have been looking at what to do about new sunnies for fishing. For some reason, all the poly lenses that I have had have always developed a film over the lenses after a while and I like super clean glasses to help my ageing eyesight. Thought maybe it was my sunscreen or the salt water. So I was tossing up between just buying cheap servo polarised and tossing them when they get filmy and scratched, or going for glass lenses. Til now I haven’t seen any glass lenses in fishing styles. I have a pair of MJs for normal use and love them. The best lenses and most comfortable frames ever, but they are a poly lenses and not a wraparound style. Great for driving and other things but not fishing glasses. How long have you had the World Cups? How do you keep them clean on the boat without scratching? I used to keep a spray bottle of fresh water handy but they still ended up scratched and I am pretty careful with glasses.

That was a good read @Allnighter. Some great advice there and only a week to put it into practice.

If you have a gold card, @Dinodadog you deserve to be well looked after. Thanks for your service.

I kept a stingray once after seeing one of those lifestyle TV shows where a chef from Noosa demonstrated how to prepare them and how to cook them. I can’t even describe the mess I made of butchering that poor creature. It was all cartilage and guts. Felt bad about wasting it and never tried again.

I am definitely no expert, but here are a couple of things I can offer that might help. It seems that if you get one there will be more, so you are in the right area. Yesterday we were sitting on top of a small drop off where the water was about 7 metres deep close to low tide, but the run in tide is also good. Small crabs are supposed to be the gun bait, but we didn’t have any and were using squid and green prawns. They seemed to prefer the prawns yesterday- just a half a peeled prawn. I was using a 3 - 5 kg carbon fibre rod with a Stradic 4000 reel running 16lb J Braid attached to 16lb fluorocarbon leader, running size 2 sinker down to a swivel, then about 40cm of 10 lb trace. I was using a 2/0 baitholder hook because that works well with prawn baits, but I think you should just match your hook to the bait you are using. I would avoid circle hooks because they seem to be a fish that you need to strike to catch rather than wait for them to engulf the bait. Probably because of their small mouths and sharp teeth. Because you find them in reef areas, you need to be anchored (or spot locked) and not move your bait around or try to drift it down with the current or you might find you are spending a lot of time retieing terminal tackle and traces. Mono might be a better choice for that reason, but I was fishing with what I had. I just cast to where I want to fish, take up any slack and be ready to strike on even the smallest bite. Keep the drag as high as you think safe because they are pretty quick to head for cover and you don’t want your line rubbing on coral or shellfish. I got bricked a few times yesterday so fishing heavier might have delivered a couple of better fish, but maybe not so many? Anyway, like I said, I am definitely no expert, and there are others on this site more knowledgeable than me who might chime in with different ideas. I hope you get onto them soon!

Nah. I love him like a brother, but tuskies? Come on. Actually I did offer but he declined.

Delicious. Crumbed tuskie with steamed veggies last night. Crumbed cod and roast veggies tonight. Life is tough.

I had been talking with my brother about a quick trip on the Bay for ages, and finally teed it up for yesterday. He was a very keen fisho and boat owner until he discovered golf about 20 years ago and now his boat and gear is just sitting under his house going to rack and ruin. Anyway, the forecast was good so I decided that Mud would be good because you always catch something, even if it is undersize reefies or squire. Left the PoB ramp mid-morning and headed to spot A. There was a boat where I wanted to be so we sounded around and found some structure holding bait and hit the spot lock on the Minn Kota (did I mention how much I love the electric?). We spent the next 45 minutes feeding squire around that 25cm size, so decided to leave them biting and headed to spot B. Of course there was a boat on that spot as well so I sounded around about 70 metres away from there and found more bait and structure on a small drop off. First cast and up pops a tuskie that was right on the legal limit so back he went to grow some more. The bite was constant and I was pulling in small tuskies and grassies every couple of minutes. Then a bigger model came onboard, around the 34cm mark. Then a nice cod around 43cm and 2 more tuskies about the same size as the first keeper. The bite slowed as the run out tide slowed down. My brother is still a bit rusty so only managed a few undersize squire and grassies. I was desperate to get him onto a decent fish so we stopped at a couple of snapper spots at the port on the way in. Not much happening there until I said time to go home. As I packing up the boat he kept a line in, hoping for one last chance. Suddenly, his rod buckled and a good size fish took off. He called “finally!” And then it was over as quickly as it started - the fish spat the hook! Even though he didn’t take home a keeper I think he had a good enough time to want to do it again, and maybe soon the golf clubs will be gathering dust and his boat will be back on the water. All fish caught on prawns or squid. Only one photo- my usual poor effort with a pic of dead fish on an esky. Thanks for reading.

Definitely possible around the Pin area, but that would be an outstanding day by most people’s standards.

Good to see that new outboard getting some hours on the clock @ellicat. No vermin are safe in Moreton Bay now. It sure was nice out there yesterday. I went to Mud with my brother. Report to follow soon.

Great to meet some new faces @GregOug, @Cavvy and @AUS-BNE-FISHO. We sure did cover some ground today, visiting @ellicat‘s catshark hotspots, and Greg and I searching for ellicatch after following the wrong boat at one point. Lots of pickers out there today, but the conditions were too nice to be disappointed about the lack of keepers. Great day everyone. Thanks for inviting me along, Greg.

Looking at the website @DropBear, it looks like the charter supplies all the gear that has been mentioned above. Why spend big dollars on gear you might use once a year?

Shading of green zones.

Thinking of you tomorrow Robbie. Keep in touch mate.

Most likely the leftovers from a meal of bandicoot or other small animal that is their natural diet.

I told @ellicat you would be jealous. You would have been salivating at the size of theses babies.

Nice report @benno573. Good to see you getting out and about again. Seems like you made the best of the conditions.

@Hweebe, I was rigged for snapper so had a whole baby squid on a 5/0 circle hook. Size 2 ball sinker and about 40cm of 10lb fluorocarbon trace. We were drifting at the time but still getting to the bottom. I like to cook them whole in a little lemon butter, then fork the meat away from the bones, but I can imagine crumbed would be good too. Great tip about using the grinners for fertiliser. Thanks.