fishkiller

on my way home from sydney(12/5/12) i stopped in at illuka for a sleep and fished the rockwall at dawn with prawns,after 15 small dart and 3 small bream and a 4cm tailor in nearly as many casts i decided to throw a top and tailed prawn into the back wash of sand coming out of the rocks on the river side of the wall,as i took up the slack i felt a touch and struck,i'm into something heavy,so i get as low to the water as i can,surprise,surprise,it is a boomer luddy,a PB, on a no.4 baitholder,at 40cm it had no trouble fitting it in its mouth,my 3rd one,25 years apart from the same river,made up for no PBs during the comp with adjustedpete.one side each with a mate at the gold coast for lunch,tasted beautiful with a salad.

Does anyone know whats happening with the balmoral navel base? I see they have demolished the old buildings. i would like to go and fish over there but I dont know if it is still off limits.

after 23 days adjusted is only one day in front on total daily count,but i'm ahead on salmon 4 to 2,and 5 behind on flatties,with only 4 days to go.we have level pegged on 5 days,and 3 days with no counters in the bag.hopefully the waters back in qld have cleared,"close to home" is still fishing well for me,fish twice a week,average about 6 take home fish a trip,mixed bags with some nice tarwhine over 30cm lately,and the 20+ undersize releases and stingrays and shovelheads each trip makes it pretty busy.nailed a small jew(72cm) and a threadfin salmon(48cm) in the dirty water not many days before i came south.tight lines,ivan.

hooked one at woody head,illuka many years ago,on my 14ft wilson with a 500 alvey and 30lb mono,was using a bottom rig for a snapper,it must have swum in to the line on the bottom,i felt the bump,struck and hooked it at base of left front flipper,for first 15 minutes i reckoned i was into the biggest snapper in the pacific,then it surfaced and it was at least 5ft from head to tail,i don't recall how many times it tried to head to nz,but when it would get far enough away i could swing it around in a big half circle and bring it back to me in the hope i could beach it and remove the hook as it was a big stainless with a wire trace,every time it felt the bottom it powered up again and headed out to sea,eventually and fortunately the crimp at the hook end of the trace slipped and the turtle went on it way.in 2003 i hooked a seal (rephase,a seal took my lure in the mouth,it was hooked on the out side of its teeth in the whiskers) on a 4oz slice with a large treble on it when fishing for quinnat salmon in nz in the ocean,again i wish to remove the hooks so it has a chance of a safe recovery,3 kilometres later down the beach it starts to tire and i was trying to work it gently in throught the shore break when the backwash tore it off the hooks,luckily for me,i was not looking forward to cutting the hooks out,they have a set of teeth like a wolf.the responsibilities of fishing,fishkiller.

hi Slinky,bit too much commercial traffic in the channel between lamb and karragarra,plus alot of sail boats and motor launches moored either side of the channel and no sand beaches plus midges and mozzies keeps the populous away,the south/east side of lamb is MNP27,i launch in the green zone and row up to where i fish which is just outside the south/west boundary of the zone,the ferries pass by about 30 metres away.MNP27 covers more area than lamb island,the best looking tidal flat in southern moreton bay,probably why they made it out of bounds,

have been out a few times in the punt and been getting a couple of feeds each time,mixed bays,but the weather has been marginal to put it nicely,today was a calm one so took a few picts to show just how close too home i fish,and what a mixed bay around lamb island looks like,took home 9 fish today and put back about 25 u/s,mostly squire,some up to 32cm,plus bream,tarwhine,sweetlip,even a shovel nose today,a busy couple of hours over the top of the tide,have been using pilchard cubes and prawns.the 1st pict shows where i launch from ,that is the end of my street where the 2nd boat you can see the back of is,and i fish about 50 metres out from the bank in about 5metres of water,from home to fishing about 30 minutes.cheers, fishkiller.

finally made the big decision,could not manage the tinny any more by myself with such reduced lung power and was making a spectacle of myself at the boat ramp with hyper ventilation problems in the hurry to get out of the way,so i sold it,only used it 5 times in 12 months anyway,fished off the island a few times,but not much close in on the mud,had kept the 7 foot oar's from the boat,so have made myself a 7 foot rowing punt,4 foot wide and 13 inches high,with wheels so i can drag it the 50 metres to the end of the street where the water starts.had all the timber and ply at hand so it only cost me another $140 to build,recyled some bits off an old lawn mower and here it is,ready for it's maiden voyage on monday hopefully if the big winds die down.

and you went to NZ looking for a big fish.WHY???when they are closer to hand at home.nice picture,goes well with nathan's fish of a lifetime.

was at the chosen spot waiting for 6.00 am,stayed local in the southern moreton bay islands,at the north end of garden island on the eastern side, light s.e. breeze, fresh pumped yabbies, mullet flesh and w a pilchards the selection for the day, first half hour saw 2 undersized bream, at 7.00 am plus, an 8ft shovelnose on mullet cube, bit of work on light rod with a small alvey star drag and 8 lb line in 2 metres of water, thought about photo opportunity,but not able to manhandle it into boat,probably a good thing,it might have hurt me.a bit after 8.00am i got 2 whiting (28cm and 27cm)about 15 minutes a part, picture of the 28 for the pirtek competition,and back into the drink",that hurt", the only whiting for the day,over the next 4 hours caught about 15 bream of which one was legal size,plus a small shovelnose, a massive female mudcrab(23cm),a porqupine pufferfish and a squire.wind freshened from n.w early afternoon, 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm when i gave it away as it was nearly low tide i boated a sole and 2 more bream,one of which cracked 25 cm.next year might be better if the floods stay away.till then,more practice.fishkiller

dawn saw me on the water during a lull in the s/e winds,get in some much needed practise.prawns are still in plague numbers around the islands,so not expecting too much action with so much tucker around,started at the top of macleay is. in 12 m of water with only yabbies,put back 2x 30cm plus snapper in 1st 1/2 hour ,then zero for next hour so up pick and go find some livies, fish along garden is.,1st whiting out hooked at dorsal fin ,taken without hookup in 10 minutes,2nd one nose hooked,swam for 1/2 hour then balloon took off fast,let it go 10 m,struck and got back whiting torn off behind pectoral fins."some days,eh",settled for a small feed,put back 4 bream,2 whiting and a sole that were all a little short on the ruler,not much in it though.missed a lot of whiting,think that i fish with my drag a bit light (pay's to around here as you don't know what is going to hit)and the hook is not tearing out of the yabbies with the way they clamp down, i strike the bite,the rod loads up,i think i'm on and they are gone, still i'm learning all the time.scattered pawns up the ramp when i returned home.

don't know but they are slow coming back to the southern moreton bay islands and water is still fairly discoloured on the out going tide.in five trips over the last month have scored a zero for trip one, another zero for trip 2 but put back 3 sand flatties and 5 duskies , a 68cm flathead on trip 3 plus 20 odd bream,tarwhine that were 1 or 2 cm short of legal, a lone whiting 34cm on trip 4, released back to the wild as i had nothing else to make a decent feed,and last friday a small shark,a bream and a forktail catfish, the catty was very tasty after being in the bay waters ,plus 2 snapper that were 31 cm plus that have to go back to grow some more.noticed a lot more turtles than usual,all 3 species working the channels between the islands,silt from the floods must be deep on the bottom of the bay.prawns are firing at present,some locals i talked with said they have been getting 5 or 6 kilos a session.hope the fish thicken in number for winter.

fished with my son,on the water by 5.30 and yabbies pumped,a couple of livies with the castnet, ready to go at 6.00am.very heavy mist over brisbane and the entire bay,didn't burn off until 10.00am.no breath of wind until 1.00pm,then built to a 10 knot n/w fairly quick. unfortunatly the choice of species for queensland meant that every body south of mackay would be looking for a flathead,even though there is a small population of threadfin at the mouth of the brisbane river,they don't match the ones up north where they can go 25 to 30 kg, and how many "average" fishermen have the gear for thoses tackle testers.the prawns are running here at the moment so there was at least a hundred boats full of cast netters,2 or 3 to a tinny in some cases, spread around the islands.the prawns are so thick every time you rocked the boat they went leaping in all directions,and with that much tucker around nothing was interested in our baits.for nine hours worth we caught one 34cm dusky,a few small bream and squire,a stingray and a shark with whiskers(moreton bay version of a port jackson).i did have a live mullet mouthed by the big one i know hides behind karragarra,but i think she felt the float and dropped it,went there out of desperation,after 6 hours with no hits.well we still have our hats and mats and next year they (pirtek challenge organisers) might be kinder to us canetoads and make allowance for the species distribution over such a long coastline.and.a day with your 28year old fishing is the added bonus.

i caught a big one beach fishing on a ganged pilly(1/0 hooks)in the mouth on the bottom hook,so i assume it was attacking the bait.

thought i had better get a fish in before the easter mayhem starts on the southern bay,so even though it was rain, today was it, as it is meant to get worse for the weekend.glad i went as there were a few fish about,and for a change most were legal size,hardly any put backs,maybe 2 dozen at most,1 stinger,1 shovelhead,rest were whiting,sqire and bream,and a flattie,6 bream and a whiting(should have been 3,but used 2 as livies,lost both to things with teeth,hooks and all)to take home,so bags are on the improve in the southern moreton bay.

good one,jelly.dad needs a few pointers on how it's done.