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Struggled to find the big ones on Saturday


kiwicraig

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Bit of a delayed post.  I went out very early on Saturday morning because that was the only time I could manage it - the rest of the weekend was jam packed with family and friends.

It was a day of exploration and discovery.  I wanted to go and sound out a new area in Brisbane Waters that I had read about here on FR but had not fished before.  I was up at 4 and launched just after 4:30am from Woy Woy.  I motored up through Paddy's Channel and headed over the sand bank very, very slowly.  It was about an hour after high tide I didn't want to risk running it too shallow in the dark.  I found the edge of the bank and anchored just off it in deeper water.  Given that it was still full dark I didn't want to be drifting.  I put out a bait behind the boat and then started working a fairly hefty plastic along the edge of the bank in the hopes that there might be a big flattie or even a Jew hanging along the edge.

The plastic didn't get any interest, but just as the sky was lightening the bait rod went off and I pulled in a nice table size flathead that went 55cm.  I dispatched that into the ice slurry and went in search of another to round out the family dinner.  As soon as it was light enough I started drifting over the same area and I got a few hits but not many, and did not get a hookup.  Since I was in exploration mode I decided to scout around the area a bit more.  First I set up a drift that took me hard along the deep side of the sand bank drop off.  I was expecting that to be a good drift but all I picked up was a small snapper ~ 24 cms.  That was the start of a run of undersized fish.  It did not seem to matter what I did - I just could not find the big ones again.  I tried working the top of the sand bank, the entrance to Paddy's Channel and drifting out with the tide through Paddy's.  I caught lots of fish, but couldn't get a second keeper for dinner.  I landed 3 whiting, 6 snapper, a bream (possibly a Tarwhine - hard to tell sometimes) and a second flattie.  One of the whiting, a snapper and the second flattie were all just short of legal.  If the bream was in fact a tarwhine than it would have been legal, but I don't tend to keep just legal bream anyway, I like them a little bigger get a decent fillet off.

I don't care - I was still having a ball and catching is always better than not catching!

Eventually I ran out of time and had to head back in to get back to real life.

That night I did the flathead on the BBQ.  Just tossed the fillets in a little flour, salt and white pepper and the cooked it on the hotplate.  My wife and I enjoyed that. The kids had sausages.  Everyone was happy!

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Still sounds like a good day on the water. Damn real life getting in the way again. 

I have never fished Brisbane waters before but have herd it's a bit of a nursery at times. But hay, where there's small fish there should be some big ones trying to eat them. 

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Oh yeah - there are plenty of big ones in there as well.  I've pulled some respectable fish out of there and on a couple of occasions I have hooked into and quickly been outclassed by big fish on light gear.  Just long enough to go "Wow, that has some weight to it..." *ping*

To a degree it is part and parcel with checking out new areas as well.  You have to try things to learn things.

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