BNB Fishing mag | August 2019

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August 2019 Print Post Approved PP100001534 Volume 30, Number 8

Winter bite in Moreton Bay

Swain Reefs

Terrific trips to Turkey Beach

Beach fishing 101

Brisbane Boat Show feature

Mulloway madness Cruise Craft F360M review ISSN 1832-4517

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Tips for fishing the shipping channel

08

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 1

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www.bnbfishing.com. au

Inside this month Land-based

Brisbane rivers

P30

P20

Swain Reefs

P43

Snapper This autumn/winter has been my best for snapper, with every trip producing at least one fish over 50cm.

Locating the fish with the sounder has been the difference for me this year, as previously I would do random drifts

OUR COVER

SAMMY HITZKE captured this cracking green jobfish on a Zerek Fish Trap during the recent Wilson Fishing Swain Reefs trip. Have a go at the leatherjacket coming back out of its gob! Check out editor BEN COLLINS’S article on Page 43 for more awesome catches.

Ben Collins Daniel Tomlinson Kacie Hubbert Jo Hendley, Lily Rochelle

Phone (07) 3286 1833 Fax (07) 3821 2637 Email: ben@bnbfishing.com.au Internet: www.bnbfishing.com.au PO Box 387, Cleveland, Qld 4163 Unit 2, 39 Enterprise Street, Cleveland, Qld 4163 AFTA PRINTER: Rural Press DISTRIBUTION BY: Fairfax Max. recommended retail price $4.50 (includes GST).

CORRESPONDENTS: Editorial contributions are welcome, as is news from clubs, associations, or individuals; and new product news from manufacturers. Entire contents copyright. Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. It is the responsibility of advertisers to ensure the correctness of their claims and statements. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher.

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EDITOR: SUBEDITOR: ADVERTISING: PRODUCTION:

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Bush ‘n Beach Fishing magazine is published monthly by Collins Media Pty Ltd ABN 43 159 051 500 ACN 159 051 500 trading as Collins Media.

AUST

SEPTEMBER edition will be on sale in newsagents from August 23. See subscription form on Page 76 to go in the draw to win a tropical getaway plus awesome Zeikel gear with a total prize value of $2500.

blindly casting my lures ahead of my drift.

This winter, however, I have been casting directly at fish seen on my Simrad sounder.

Snapper are very wary fish and it is important to get your lure well away from the boat.

Leader size, and, to a degree, lure sink rate have been factors that can be the difference between getting and not getting a bite.

The rain we received has slightly helped, with the water not super clean this year, and I have been able to catch fish on leaders up to 16lb, especially during the early hours of the morning.

Mixing up lure styles has helped too, as some days they have shown preference for one style over another (and it can be fun catching fish on a new lure style).

So, once located on the sounder, keep your distance from the fish and mix up lure styles, colours, weights and leader sizes until you find something that ticks the box for the fish on the day.

Mixing it up is especially useful later in the morning when the sun is higher and the fish tougher to catch.

Jewfish Jewfish have been a bit harder to find over winter but the past couple of weeks have seen more fish being caught.

Schools are generally smaller over winter because the fish can spread out, which means more areas hold jewfish rather than massive schools being in a couple of locations.

A mix of sizes has been

ATI ON

by PETER HERBST

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July saw some good weather, a bit of needed rain and most importantly, great fishing in Moreton Bay. Targeting a few species that thrive in winter will be worthwhile while they are still getting about the region.

Luring Moreton Bay

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ELL it’s the last moth of winter and hopefully it is as mild as the rest of the season has been.

Catching winter species .............by Peter Herbst....................................P3 Fishing the shipping channel ..by Brian Webb.....................................P7 Southern Moreton Bay ..............by Sean Conlon .................................P10 Don’t ignore summer faves ......by Neil Schultz ..................................P12 Mixing it up in Moreton Bay....by Mark Templeton ..........................P14 Finding game fish........................by Barry Alty ......................................P15 Flathead season firing ...............by Leeann Payne...............................P18 Jewies and flathead ..................by Keith Stratford..............................P20 Seaway and Broadwater............by Wayne ‘Youngy’ Young ..............P22 Winter on Gold Coast.................by Scott Van Burck...........................P25 Tips for targeting mulloway .....by Brad Smith ....................................P26 Wild weather wearing on ........by Gavin Dobson ...............................P27 Puzzle page...................................................................................................P27 Beach fishing 101........................by Warren ‘Wazza’ Morgan ...........P28 Ballina report.................................... by Brett Hyde ...........................................P29 Jewfish catches jump ...............by Tye Porter ......................................P30 Goss on deep dropping .............by Mick Clutterbuck ........................P31 Sunshine Coast............................by Grant Budd ....................................P32 Fraser offshore.............................by Rick Waugh ..................................P33 Squid and sweetlip ....................by Craig Tomkinson .........................P33 Winter squidding ........................by Melissa Frohloff ..........................P34 Recipe ............................................by Melissa Frohloff ..........................P34 Fishing familiar country ............by Helen Abdy ...................................P34 Hervey Bay....................................by Tri Ton .............................................P35 Back in the groove .....................by Greg Lamprecht ...........................P36 Fraser trip ......................................by Sean ‘Skip’ Thompson ...............P38 Offshore success ........................by Brad Young ...................................P39 Turkey Beach trip........................by Bill Corten .....................................P40 Terrific Turkey Beach ................by Lachie Baker ................................P41 Sojourn to the Swains ...............by Ben Collins ...................................P43 How to not lose your canoe .....by Dan Owbridge..............................P45 Brisbane Boat Show feature .............................................................P46-51 Boating & Marine .................................................................................P52-56 Cruise Craft F360M review .......by Ben Collins ...................................P52 Insights into boat insurance ....by Nautilus Marine ..........................P55 Readers Forum.............................................................................................P57 Charter Directory ................................................................................. P58,59 Predator to prey...........................by Jason Kidd ....................................P60 Stanage Bay .................................by Pee Wee ........................................P61 Stay safe when heading wide ...by John Boon .....................................P62 Superb Hinchinbrook.................by Team Crackajack ........................P63 Rinyirru National Park...............by ‘Billabong’ Bazz Lyon .................P64 Fishing on the Cape....................by Dave Donald .................................P65 Using your sounder ....................by Ryan Jamieson ............................P66 Torres Strait fishing lessons ....by Matt Potter ....................................P67 Caravanning adventure .............by Todd Eveleigh ..............................P68 Back to basics on the beach......by Paul ‘Chief’ Graveson ................P69 Inskip Point camping .................by Craig Tomkinson .........................P70 Monster Monduran barra .........by Les Gane........................................P71 Freshwater Impoundments ......by Matthew Langford ......................P72 Lake Borumba..............................by Callum Munro ..............................P73 Glenlyon Dam...............................by Brian Dare.....................................P74 Trading Post.................................................................................................P75 Subscription form ......................................................................................P76

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Making the most of winter species while they last

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This jewfish was a real handful on a 7wt TFO fly combo.

Big bass

HIN G T R A D E

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HOPE many readers had their say on the fisheries reform discussion paper that was open for feedback.

It is important the government is supplied with as much data as possible.

Understandably, some fishos may be a little concerned about giving data or feedback because it feels as though it was used against us for the last Moreton Bay Marine Park reform, but we need to move past this and try to do what is best for the fishery.

However, what is best for the fishery?

It is not an enviable job trying to come up with an effective management plan everyone is happy with.

Actually, it would be impossible.

In any case, I hope we end up with a plan that allows fishos to successfully fish now and far into the future.

Unfortunately, there might be some short-term pain, but I think this will only cement the long-term gains.

Given the number of recent quality captures offshore, especially of snapper and pearl perch, you could be forgiven for thinking the fishery is in tip-top shape.

What everyone needs to understand is this is the prime time for catching these fish.

It would be very concerning if these fish were not being caught.

I’m not saying I know, and in fact I think it would be nigh-on impossible for anyone to know exactly what the state of the fishery is at any given time.

However, we need to acknowledge there are definitely less fish, in particular snapper, than there used to be and this causes concern.

I realise bag and size limits are imposed but we may need to do more to ensure the long-term sustainability of the fishery.

I am fully aware of what it costs to run an offshore boat and I understand it should be people’s right to catch fish, but we need to look at the long term.

Hopefully Fisheries Queensland can develop a plan that works.

Though not specifically related to the reform, another issue I think needs to be addressed is the requirement for an all-waters fishing licence in Queensland.

I know some of you will not agree, and that’s OK, but I think the pros far outweigh the cons.

I realise this extra cost as well as ever-increasing fuel costs are making our recreation a little more expensive, but we have one of the best fishing resources in the world and need to protect it.

Putting it in perspective – even with the annual cost of a fishing licence, a day out in the boat would still cost less than taking the family to Movie World or a similar attraction.

In other news, the Brisbane Boat Show is on again from August 23-25.

If you have been thinking of subscribing or renewing your subscription to BNB Fishing mag, we have a cracking Show offer for you, so make sure you come along and check it out.

Have a look at this month’s Boat Show feature starting on Page 46 for more information.

Not only do we have a great Show offer, we have also teamed up with Zeikel Fishing Australia to offer all new, renewing and extending subscribers the chance to win an insane prize including a tropical getaway!

Check out Page 23 and 76 for full details.

Finally, I had an ‘Absolut’ (or was that Grey Goose, JC?) blast on the trip aboard Big Cat Reality Charters.

It definitely was the trip of a lifetime.

Thanks to all those on board who made it such an awesome trip and the team at Wilson Fishing for organising everything.

Head to Page 43 for part one of my trip report.

Ben Collins

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 3

Making the most of winter species while they last ☛ from P3

A great winter mixed bag for the plate.

about but I haven’t seen too many really big fish caught as yet.

These big fish are usually hooked by anglers fishing live baits at night, but plenty get caught during the day on lures, often from fairly shallow water.

I believe these fish are following squid up on the reef edges and rocky areas.

These can be very hard

A couple of nice jewfish the author caught fishing soft plastics.

to target on lures because they are probably only getting around in small numbers and moving a lot.

Bream The bottom end of Moreton Bay, Jumpinpin and the Broadwater is a winter bream hot spot.

The early parts of winter were very quiet for bream, perhaps because of a lack of autumn rain.

Big numbers have recently congregated around Jumpinpin and anglers have caught good numbers with the right techniques.

Just like snapper, bream can be wary fish, not so much from boat noise but from leader/line size.

Presentations need to be well considered because the larger fish can be very fussy and refuse unnatural lures/baits.

Very light lines of 2-6lb with light jig heads/sinkers will see many more bites than fishing with heavy lines and leaders of 6-12lb.

Lures and baits need to be premium quality too, with small soft plastics in natural colours the most popular lure choice and quality baits like prawns, worms and yabbies perfect for bait fishos.

Lure fishing is best done with a drifting boat, targeting either open water fish located with the sounder (especially on the smaller tides), steep mud banks that drop off quickly and draining flats.

Open water fish are best targeted with a ‘dragged’ lure, keeping the lure bumping along the bottom

while feeling for bites.

Use heavier jig heads of 1/8-1/4oz depending on the current fished on lures like 2” Gulp Shrimp over sandy bottom.

Pay attention to the difference between bumping the bottom and a bream bite.

When targeting steep mud banks, I like to cast my lure very tight to the bank and hop it down the bank as it drops into deeper water.

Most bream bites on these banks are usually quite close to the edge, especially on the bigger tides because bait can be pushed hard up against the bank.

Draining flats are also worth a look for bream because they will wait for baitfish like hardyheads to retreat from the shallows as the water recedes.

Looking for signs of bait and picking the tide times is important to get good results on the flats.

Plastics and various shallow-running hardbodied lures are best for flats bream, and be prepared to come across a few flathead and tailor at this time of year.

The days will start to get longer, which means getting up a bit earlier, but the mornings will begin to get a little warmer… I hope!

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This good size snapper was landed fishing with a crab fly on a TFO 7wt outfit with a fast-sinking line. Snapper on fly is a great challenge, quite effective and a tonne of fun.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

Bill Corten awarded OAM for service to maritime recreation industry

L

ONG-time BNB Fishing author and bar crossing master Bill Corten, who worked for Maritime Safety Queensland until retiring in 2007, has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the maritime recreation industry.

Though he retired from MSQ several years ago, Bill can still be found regularly teaching boaties the ins and outs of

crossing South Passage Bar off Brisbane.

Over a lifetime of involvement with the ocean, Bill has played a part in many maritime-related groups, championing the issues of recreational boaters and fishers, and making sure his voice is heard to impart real change for the benefit of fishos all over Queensland.

While Bill said he was surprised to be awarded an OAM, the BNB Fishing team can’t think of a

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more deserving recipient and we’re proud to have been publishing Bill’s writings continuously since 1992.

Here’s hoping he carries on making his voice heard by those in fisheries management and we look forward to printing many more of his musings in years to come.

If you’d like to learn how to cross a coastal bar safely, don’t hesitate to contact Bill on 0447 233 247 or email reel_affair@ yahoo.com

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More funding for more fish in NSW waterways

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HE NSW Department of Primary Industries has awarded $594,000 in grants to recreational angling clubs, community groups, landholders and local councils for 26 unique fish habitat projects under the popular Habitat Action Grants Program.

NSW DPI Fisheries Program Leader – MurrayDarling Cameron Lay said the grants will see major improvements to local creeks, riverbanks, wetlands and provide better access for fish, which will improve fish habitats and ultimately produce more fish.

“The range of success-

ful projects covers many iconic coastal and inland fishing spots in NSW, with over $840,000 committed as in-kind support from the successful applicants,” Mr Lay said.

“It’s fantastic that well over a million dollars will go into enhancing and rehabilitating fish habitats because ultimately, it’s not only the fish who will benefit – valuable agricultural grazing land will be protected and water quality in our rivers will be improved.

“This program, which grants up to $40,000 per successful application, provides a great opportunity to improve local creeks, rivers, estuaries or

surrounding areas to promote healthy waterways and to make more fish, naturally.

“This will have flow-on benefits to local communities and tourism through improved recreational fishing opportunities.”

The program this year was highly competitive, with 55 new applications submitted and strong support from local recreational anglers for all the applications.

Successful projects will be carried out right across NSW in areas including Forbes, Bredbo, Narrambla, Tamworth, Cooma, Borambola, Tenterfield, Jamberoo, Narooma, Merimbula,

Tathra, Berkeley, Coutts Crossing, Bowraville, Lismore, Dorroughby, Channon, Dumaresq Island, Bellbrook, Kempsey, Bankstown and Muswellbrook.

The projects include: • Installation of 35 woody habitats (snags); • Installation of over 12km of riparian fencing to manage stock access; • Revegetation of over 10km of riparian zone, planting at least 18,000 trees, shrubs and sedges; • Controlling 35ha of introduced riparian weeds; • Bank erosion control measures; and • Wetland habitat management measures.

“Funding for these

grants was provided through the Recreational Fishing Trusts, where all money raised by the NSW Recreational Fishing Fee is placed into the Recreational Fishing Trusts and spent on improving recreational fishing in NSW,” Mr Lay said.

“The Recreational Fishing Trust – Habitat Action Grant Program is a great example of how anglers’ money is being invested back into recreational fishing, supporting the improvement of recreational fish populations.”

A full list of successful projects can be found at dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/ habitat/rehabilitating/ahrgrants-program

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Commercial harvesting to control carp

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AN Australia successfully manage a pest fish population such as carp by commercial fishing?

And would it have a lasting success?

The answer is probably not on its own, at the continental scale.

Commercial harvesting to control carp could be used to support biocontrol methods such as the virus control being investigated by the National Carp Control Plan.

The research was led by Assoc Prof Paul Brown at La Trobe University in Mildura, Victoria, in collaboration with the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Tasmania’s Inland Fisheries Service.

“We compared what we know about carp biology with the biology of fish stocks at risk of overfishing to see if we could overfish carp deliberately,” Assoc Prof Brown said.

“We reviewed case studies where invasive fish species are managed by commercial fishing around the world.

“We identified what features were important for the success or failure in each case.”

The team then used the latest computer models of carp populations to simulate carp and commercial fishing activity typical of a known river catchment.

The modelling showed that unless commercial fishing removed substantial carp numbers of all sizes (even young ones), it is not possible to effecwww.bnbfishing.com. au

tively reduce carp populations.

The amount of carp that had to be fished from one Murray-Darling River catchment (more than 1400 tonnes over the first five years of fishing) would overwhelm the existing domestic markets.

In addition, if some carp were unavailable for commercial fishing – say in inaccessible areas, they could act as a reserve to repopulate the fished areas.

Under these conditions, population eradication became impossible and population reduction was ineffective.

Carp are very productive and a difficult species to control in Australia.

They are able to breed prolifically, survive in a broad range of habitats, have a wide distribution and adaptable biology.

These features mean that Australia would need a permanent and much larger commercial carp industry to maintain population control in a lasting way.

An upscaled commercial fishery would need to fish hard in all areas, forever, to control carp in Australia.

A commercial fishing industry this size could also create a range of other environmental challenges through by-catch of native fish species and other animals.

This research project is an important part of the NCCP. This is a $10.2 million program led by the Fisheries Research and De-

velopment Corporation on behalf of the Australian Government.

It aims to address two questions: Is it feasible to release the carp herpes virus to control carp?

If so, what is the most effective way to release and manage the virus?

The NCCP will be de-

livered to the Australian Government in December 2019.

The Australian Government will then decide on the next steps.

The NCCP was formed to investigate how to deal with the problem of carp impacts on Australian waterways.

Carp (cyprinus carpio) completely dominate freshwater fish communities in southeastern Australia.

Carp impacts are felt environmentally, economically and socially.

Carp affect water quality, native fish, fishing and irrigation.

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Likely areas through northern Moreton Bay.

Fishing the shipping channel and surrounds T HE shipping channel stretches from the mouth of the Brisbane River all the way north to Caloundra and offers a diverse range of bottom structures.

There is very little reef but a lot of coffee rock and some wrecks, along with the manmade beacons.

It also offers a diverse range of fish species, from bottom dwellers to surface feeders.

Northern Moreton Bay is predominantly shallow and sandy, with very few fish-holding areas due to the amount of sand.

To successfully fish the northern bay you have to overcome strong tidal flows on both outgoing and incoming tides, and when fishing the shipping channel you have to contend with a stronger flow than in other parts of the bay.

The predominant surfacingfeeding fish are the tuna and mackerel families, and they only pop up in areas where bait movement occurs.

Bait travels through the shipping, Pearl and Rous channels to get into the bay.

Birds are the big giveaway as to where the pelagic species will be feeding.

It’s also worth looking around the eddies coming off the many beacons throughout the bay.

As you leave the mouth of the Brisbane River, the channel beacons run a fair way out into the bay.

At night, both sides flash in unison.

To the left past Luggage Point is Koopa Channel, which runs north towards Nudgee, otherwise a massive sandbank system stretches up towards Bribie Island and across to Moreton Island, with the Pearl Channel cutting these banks in half.

Moreton Bay

by BRIAN WEBB

The banks east of Koopa at times hold whiting and sand crabs, while further north the massive bank system is home to the bay’s largest sand crab population.

The Pearl Channel has good depth and a fair few coffee rock structures.

On some king tides these structures can be covered in sand due to the big tidal flows.

Moving back to the mouth of the river, to the right as you enter the bay is a large rock wall forming part of the reclamation works for the Port of Brisbane.

Some species are now starting to move around this rock wall.

In the middle of the shipping channel are two beacons called the Coffee Pots, and directly south of these beacons is Mud Island and access to the large expanse of water called the Paddock.

North of the Coffee Pots are two wrecks, and a couple more can be found near the Measured Mile, though they don’t

seem to fish too well due to the structure decaying to a minimal height.

The easiest way to find pelagics as you travel across to the Four Beacons or the Pearl Channel is to look for birds.

You may be lucky and find the fish by spotting them chopping up the water.

Usually pelagics can be found at the bottom and top of the Pearl Channel.

Halfway across the bay in the northern shipping channel are two beacons called the Measured Mile.

These two beacons do for some reason hold a few fish at times and coffee rock bommies and wrecks can be found nearby Near Moreton where the shipping channel turns north are the Four Beacons.

These and the beacons all the way up the inside of Moreton hold fish depending where the bait is. ☛ continued P8

Sand crabs taken west of the Pearl Channel.

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 7

A grass sweetlip from Curtin.

A bait ball hanging over the coffee rock in the Pearl Channel.

Fishing the shipping channel and surrounds ☛ from P7

A tuskfish from the Bulwer ledge.

Snapper and spangled emperor from between the Bulwer ledge and Curtin Artificial Reef.

It can get crowded at times, with numerous fishos jigging the eddies at the base of the beacons.

South of the Four Beacons are the Sandhills and the start of the seagrass areas where squid and whiting are often found.

The shipping channel north of the Four Beacons all the way to Bulwer is the fish highway of the central bay.

Jigging any of the beacons through here is the way to find doggy mackerel as long as bait is holding around the beacon.

Just north of the Four Beacons is the shipwreck of the Captain Neilsen.

Very little remains, but it can at times hold snapper.

Heading further north you’ll find the famous Tangalooma wrecks.

Plenty of fish can be

A mack tuna from the shipping channel off Moreton.

found around these wrecks but they are well educated due to the popularity of the spot with fishers and divers, making them hard to connect to.

Midway between Tangalooma and Bulwer is the Curtin Artificial Reef.

Markers on Moreton show the start and finish of the wrecks.

Fishing among the wrecks is a gear-snapping affair.

It’s best to fish the shipping channel side of the wrecks.

The channel is quite deep through this area and has structure along the side of it.

Trolling Rapala lures, throwing large Gulp plastics, floating out live baits (yakkas, slimies) that can be found around some of the bay’s structure and the good-old pillie on gang hooks or a two-hook rig can at certain times of year draw a strike from a longtail tuna, cobia or spanish mackerel.

You can also attract the odd GT here, and the best way is to troll the edge of the channel drop-offs.

Curtin holds a variety of species, from snapper to spangled emperor, cod, tuskfish, morwong, nannygai and on occasion small red emperor, but once again tidal flows can be a big deterrent.

With Moreton Bay, the problem is often deciding what style of fishing you want to do.

Starting small will usually get you a decent feed of winter whiting on the banks west of the shipping channel or around the Sandhills.

They can be found right throughout the year, and during winter cricket score catches can be had, but it’s a good idea to limit your catch as they can become tedious to clean.

The banks across to the Pearl Channel are often a good area in which to quickly catch a good feed of sandies.

And if you drop down a bug tray you could end up with a feed of Moreton Bay bugs.

If you find a school of mack tuna feeding, it doesn’t hurt to drop a bait to the bottom because often free-loading fish like snapper, sweetlip and others are feeding under the tuna to pick up the leftovers.

You can fish in close to some of the coffee rock structure sides of the channel, which often hold big spangled emperor, snapper and squire, as well as tuskfish.

You’ll be surprised at some of the reef species that turn up between Curtin and Bulwer.

It pays to fish the dropoffs along this stretch with crabs, but use heavy gear because some of the tuskies (blackspots) are monsters and will make short work of light gear.

The last place past Bul-

wer is the Wild Banks Artificial Reef, and often big pelagics and cobia can be found here, along with a few species of reef fish.

I recommend using live baits if fishing this area.

The attached map also gives you a rough idea of where the green zones are, though for better and more precise positions, head online and search for Moreton Bay green zones.

Just remember, if leaving from some of the southern boat ramps the ride home can turn into a drenching and rail-gripping affair if the wind blows up over 15 knots.

A couple of boat ramps make sense in the Brisbane River.

I usually use Whyte Island because it’s closer to the mouth, but Pinkenba and Nudgee on the northern side are close too.

The only trouble with Nudgee is the entrance gets very shallow on low tide.

I hope this has given you some idea of where to fish in the top half of the bay and the many species the shipping channel and structures around it can throw at you.

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The author’s son Max got a couple of bream in the Broadwater on a Bulldog Crank.

The benefits of a back-up plan W

EATHER has been the main influence in the past month, with most of my tuition days or charters falling on the days when the weather has not really been playing the game.

Considering the limited number of times I’ve been out, the clients have still managed to get a few nice fish.

I had John and his brother out for a day charter and we fished the Redland Bay channel down to the Logan River mouth.

We worked pretty hard for a couple of small flatties, stopping at drains and casting soft plastics.

The tides were good and everything looked good but the fish just weren’t on the bite.

We persevered and just as the tide dropped to a nice low, we found a good bank covered in soldier crabs and a bit of bait action.

We deployed a couple of Zerek Bulldog Cranks and trolled for about 6m and bang, John was on to a very nice 67cm flathead.

Tick all the boxes and catch ch more fish! sh!

FISHING TUITION

Ryan captured a trevally on a Zerek popper and 6lb line. Great fun!

Southern Moreton Bay

by SEAN CONLON

It was one of those days when you just had to be persistent, even though everything looked great.

I also had Chris and his son Hayden for a day charter.

The tides were right, it was a good time of year for flathead and everything was looking prime.

The water was a bit clearer than I like but other than that everything looked solid.

We cast at a few drains and trolled a couple of ledges for nothing, so we fished right to the bottom of the tide and it started to turn, which meant the witching hour for flatties had passed.

So I had to come up with a plan B. The water was moving up the bank and we could see bait moving and fish feeding in the shallows, so we started casting surface poppers into the shallows.

Before we knew it, Hayden was catching bream and trevally.

In the end we had a great early morning surface

session thanks to changing it up.

Fishing doesn’t always go to plan, that’s for sure, so you might just have to change your plan of attack.

That’s why we have a whole tackle box full of different lures.

You never know when you might need that one buried in the bottom of the box.

On another day charter I had Victor and his nephew Ryan on board.

The tide and everything looked fine, so we went for an early morning snapper fish and just as we got there the west-northwesterly wind blew in hard so we had to change plans.

I snuck around a little, protected point that I knew worked with an outgoing tide and we started catching a few gar before suddenly noticing a bit of surface action.

We got the poppers out and laid into some nice trevally and bream on surface.

That kept us occupied

until the low tide when we chased flathead.

We picked up a few of those and were all finished by 11am after a great morning of fishing.

As I said, don’t be afraid to have a few different things in your tackle box!

Pack surface lures, squid jigs and all sorts of things because you never know what you’re going to need out on the water.

At least one of my courses this month went to plan.

I had young Adam out and the weather was good.

We had the right tides

to target squire on hardbodies, so we went and put that into practice and caught a couple of 40cm models on Zerek Ripper Divers.

Next we went and chased flathead and at first Adam was casting Zerek Flat Shads at the mangrove line at high tide but unfortunately dropped a couple because he didn’t feel the initial bite.

But then he got the idea and hooked up to a pretty solid fish.

It fought hard in about 40cm of water and took ☛ continued P11

Adam picked up a solid 78cm flathead on a Zerek Flat Shad.

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Hayden’s trevally hit a Zerek popper.

John landed a 67cm flathead on a Zerek Bulldog Crank.

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The benefits of a back-up plan ☛ from P10

nice long runs, yet Adam kept his cool and let the rod and correctly adjusted drag do all the work.

Before we knew it a solid 78cm lizard was in the net.

Adam was pretty stoked because this was only his second flathead, so he learnt plenty that day and hopefully he’ll get

out there and catch a few more with his newfound knowledge.

If you’re interested in any of our off-water or on-water tuition classes or you just want to do a charter, don’t be afraid to give me a call on 0432 386 307 or send me an email at seanconlonsfishing@ hotmail.com You can also check out

the Sean Conlons Fishing Charters and Tuition Facebook page.

As we all know with our busy jobs and lives, we are time poor, so if you can learn more to optimise your time on the water, then why not?

Remember: knowledge is the key.

Until next month, stay safe on the water.

Victor’s nephew Ryan landed a flathead on a Bulldog Crank.

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The author even got a couple of casts in this month and scored a nice little squire on a Zerek Maniac Vibe.

Victor with a flathead caught trolling a Zerek Bulldog Crank.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 11

Don’t ignore your summer favourites

T

HOUGH we are entering what is usually the coldest month of the year, we can still enjoy dabbling in our favourite warm weather pastimes, especially here in the sunshine state.

Trolling very small minnow-style lures is absolutely deadly on flathead, regardless of the season. This fish was taken on a Predatek MinMin during painfully cold weather on the mid-north NSW coast.

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It has long been common knowledge that some of our mainstay summer targets, including bass and Murray cod, remain extremely active in some habitats.

Most of our warm-water target species, in both fresh and saltwater environs, can provide quality angling opportunities year-round.

Even those renowned for being temperature sensitive (if not temperamental) like barramundi can be caught in August, though you may need to adjust your tactics.

Yes, I have caught barra during August in both saline waterways and freshwater lakes, but success is by no means a certainty during what is the most difficult time of the year to tempt them to strike.

Closer to home, a very popular estuarine species much sought after by lure fishers is the humble flathead.

Most often thought of as a spring/summer proposition, flathead don’t migrate and certainly don’t stop feeding during winter.

Even at the most southern areas of Queensland, sea water temperatures very rarely drop below 20C (22C at the time of writing in mid-July), warm enough even for humans.

Fishing for Sport

by NEIL SCHULTZ

Fortunately, we don’t need to learn new tactics nor techniques to tangle with a few lizards at this time of year.

Soft plastics are very effective on flathead, especially when fishing deeper water and steep drop-offs.

Basic body shapes are popular for the simple reason that they work and work well.

The grey haired among you may remember back to the seventies and the immense popularity of the Mr Twister, a basic soft plastic curl-tailed grub.

That ‘antiquated’ design is still one of the most used and most effective styles of soft plastic for flathead today.

Like many flathead anglers, I like the curl-tailed grub for its ease of rigging as much as its tantalising action at dead-slow speed.

As a casting lure for lizards, the basic soft plastic on a simple lead jig head is hard to beat.

Trolling opens up a whole other tackle box of options in lure choice.

Here, diving minnows reign supreme most often in deep-running variants and slender body shapes.

Small lures have a welldeserved reputation for being flathead magnets, with a handful of locally produced moulded lures being very reliable.

A personal favourite is the diminutive Predatek MinMin in the 50mm

deep-running model in any of the bright or reflective colour patterns.

There’s a popular conception that flathead prefer pink lures, but they will hit almost any brightly coloured design that comes within striking distance.

Another old faithful among flathead trollers in southern Queensland is the locally made Micro Mullet from Lively Lures.

These are tough prod-

ucts and being urethane moulded are tooth-proof and unsinkable.

The pink Micro Mullet has attained almost legendary status among anglers fishing the annual Flathead Classic on the Gold Coast.

One of the attractions of targeting flathead in winter is we don’t need to be on the water at first light (in the cold air) to achieve success because their feeding patterns are tide related.

Having stated all the positives of the pursuit of winter flathead in the estuaries, I still can’t wait for September 1!

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This average mid-winter flathead pounced on a paddle-tailed shad soft plastic fished in shallow water.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 13

Jason caught a cracking snapper.

Joel’s snapper smashed a soft plastic.

Mixing it up in Moreton Bay H

The Shorncliffe Pier continues to produce surprising catches.

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Veanna was very pleased to capture this beautiful snapper on sunset.

OW awesome are the Moreton Bay waters?

Every time you look around, you find something you didn’t notice before.

Cracking reports of snapper have been coming from the Bay, both inside and outside of Moreton Island.

Veanna and Luke have been venturing out into deeper water and the results have been nothing short of amazing!

Over a few trips prospecting new grounds, they found several snapper to be proud of.

It just goes to show investing the time to find new grounds can pay dividends.

So much ground is out there that has not been thoroughly explored.

A lot of us get set in our ways when it comes to fishing – always fish an hour before the change of tide, always on a certain moon phase, always with two types of bait…

Don’t be afraid to take those blinkers off and mix it up a bit, as Luke and Veanna did.

You never know what honey hole you will find or what species you will catch.

It certainly won’t hurt giving it a go for a couple of trips.

When the new proposed fishing regulations eventually come into force, you are going to have to do something different with your time.

Young Joel has also found a patch of his own in waters a bit closer to

Northern Moreton Bay

by MARK TEMPLETON

home and the results speak for themselves, with a very nice snapper taken on plastics.

Well done on that little cracker Joel and I bet your nan and pop enjoyed the fillets you gave them!

Jason Carson also struck gold, finding a great feed of snapper while his better half was busy working.

I’m not sure if she has forgiven him yet!

Another area still producing little miracles is the Shorncliffe Pier.

Chris Milgate certainly got more than he expected when he got nailed by a 115cm longtail tuna.

Chris had a battle on his hands when the tuna decided it was not going to come in without a fight.

After a cracking battle and a great performance for the crowds gathered, they both won, as Chris got a photo with his beast and the tuna got to live for another fight when it was successfully released.

Well done Chris, I am sure this will be spoken about around a few barbecues to come.

Back on the snapper scene, the Brisbane River has been a hot spot for a while now and it is producing quite large numbers of quality fish.

Herring, squid, mullet fillets and a diverse range of plastics have been the preferred choices to target them.

It seems there is no real pattern as to where they

are being caught, with some around the Port of Brisbane area and others further up near the toll bridge, both in deep and shallow but mainly after dark.

If you are going to venture out at night, remember to check your nighttime running gear to ensure you can be seen.

You don’t want to ruin a great night because you could not be seen.

Plenty of reports about tailor have also been coming from Moreton Bay , with quite a few undersized fish stealing bait, destroying rigs and making a mess of bait jigs around the piers.

A night-time high tide

seems to be providing the best results, from the rock groins at Brighton to the northern side of Scotts Point, Pine River, Brisbane River and Pumicestone Passage (upper and lower).

Get out there and bag a great feed while they are still around.

There’s nothing like fresh smoked tailor!

For those chasing a feed of whiting, it will not be hard to get a few for the table.

Fishing Skirmish Point at Bribie Island with live bloodworms provided a couple of meals for Graeme and his family during a family morning out.

Young Aedan had his day made while fishing off Baxters Jetty with his dad when he caught his first-ever whiting.

Well done Aedan, that

is a great start and hopefully you will be smiling a whole lot more when you get out there again!

Not all of us have a boat to get out on Moreton Bay, so Jesse and his crew decided to hire a yacht from a local boat hire company and made the best of Moreton Island by spending the day fishing and swimming.

Abel and Amy made the most of the Tangalooma Wrecks, and bream were on the chew and made the day worthwhile.

So if you want to get out there and experience a great day on the water, check out boat hire companies in our region.

They can be quite economical with a few people on board.

Be safe out there and keep sending us your photos and stories!

Maintain the passion.

This big snapper made Luke’s night.

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Page 14 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

A bream from a hired yacht.

Abel and Amy held a solid bream.

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Finding game fish – part two F

OLLOWING on from last month’s article on finding fish, we are now ready to go fishing and let’s start with blue marlin.

Before we leave the dock, we check the weather.

We use buoyweather. com which is a very accurate virtual buoy service.

You can get weather reports for any latitude/ longitude position two weeks in advance but obviously decreasing in accuracy further out.

We also look at the most recent sea-surface temperatures to see where the warmest water is, if there are any warm eddies, where the temperature breaks are and which

Game Fishing

by BARRY ALTY

way the current is going.

Nirvana would be a stationary or slow-moving eddy positioned around an area that has some bottom features with a propensity to hold bait.

We also consider fishing reports from other club boats that will be posted on the club’s members-only Facebook page.

Thus, we potentially save fuel and time by heading to what seems to be the most likely location.

Generally we fish water from 200-500m deep,

though one year we caught several blues in just 150m.

However, the area off the Gold Coast where we frequently fish does not have a lot of strong bait or marlin-holding features.

It’s always a bit of a lottery.

Now at sea and starting in our most promising location, we look for baits and birds and watch the sounder and sonar to see if we can mark baits or marlin.

We also scan the commonly used channels on

Certain marlin species can be found close to shore.

the VHF radio to listen for anyone else out at the same time who is seeing anything.

We compare notes with other club boats.

It’s rare for blues to be biting or active all day.

This was the case though back in 2003 where we went 14 strikes, 13 hook-ups and 11 tags for the day.

They were still biting when we pulled the pin at 3.30pm.

There are usually one or two activity periods per day, which may last one to two hours each.

They most commonly occur around tide changes.

So don’t be upset if you spend some fruitless time seeing nothing.

The area in which the fish might be can be quite small and though they are not a schooling species, where there is one blue marlin, there are usually more.

They are in the same location for a reason!

If there seems to be a bite somewhere and you haven’t seen anything, be prepared to move if it’s close enough.

A ‘bite’ is several boats getting strikes/catching all in the same area.

There is no need to react if they are just single shots widely dispersed.

We also consider any

flotsam worth looking at.

Small baits, dolphinfish and marlin may be in the area.

Same with dolphins.

We have pulled lots of marlin out of dolphin pods, particularly when the dolphins are feeding. ☛ continued P16

Small black marlin will follow the bait schools.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 15

Finding game fish – part two ☛ from P15

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If we find a school of small tuna, we will work it with lures if the school is travelling quickly.

If the school is relatively static or slow-moving, we get one or two and put them out live.

Live baiting is undoubtedly the most effective method of catching blues when you can keep your baits within or close to the school.

If the school is moving too quickly (faster than 1.5 knots) you can’t tow a livie, so don’t bother because you will be fishing in a desert.

All the marlin in the school will be moving with it.

If you find a school of yellowfin tuna, you really need to consider whether you want to catch them or the marlin that love them because they are highquality food and full of blood, oil and omega 3.

If you want to catch the tuna, troll close to the sides of the school or position yourself in front so they come to you.

Don’t charge through the middle because that will usually spook the school or break it up.

If you want to catch marlin, troll behind the school and a bit wider off the sides.

When you find a bait school, don’t assume marlin will be in it.

In 2003, when fishing the five-leg Bahamas Billfish Championship on the 58’ custom Hey Jude, we were sight-fishing using $A7000 Steiner gyroscopically stabilised binoculars.

We found if we fished a bait school for 20 minutes and hadn’t had a shot or marked a fish it was time to move on to the next

The best guide as to where to go is fishing reports from fellow club anglers.

If there are no recent reports, try locations known to have been productive in the past or known to hold bait. school because there was just nothing there.

We also learnt to check out even minor things.

For example, we saw one bird dip into the water to feed.

Underneath it we caught a white marlin and dolphinfish.

Small black marlin Little black marlin are something of a different prospect.

SSTs are of little value because the little blacks will be where the baits are in water ranging from very good and hot to quite cool and green.

The best guide as to where to go is fishing reports from fellow club anglers.

If there are no recent reports, try locations known to have been productive in the past or known to hold bait.

On the Gold Coast that makes Spot X, Sullies Reef and the South Stradbroke water tower among the likely prospects, but of course there are others.

If you find a bait school, do the same as you would for blues.

Work the school for 20 minutes and if you don’t

get a shot or mark anything, move on.

You can fish lures, live baits and dead baits for little blacks and there are times when one of these methods will be more effective than the others.

I will spend more time elaborating when I write a later article dealing with different fishing methods.

Briefly, suitable dead baits are mullet and garfish while livies are yakkas and slimy mackerel (do not use pilchards because they die quickly).

To catch livies, stop over a bait school and use sabiki jigs.

They are remarkably effective.

When at sea, keep your ears on the radio, talk to your mates to get information/intelligence and watch where other boats are – particularly if they start to aggregate in one location.

Sailfish Sailfish are found in the same locations as little blacks but tend to be a real hit or miss affair.

They travel in schools, so it is not uncommon to have several come into

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the spread at the same time and get multiple hook-ups.

They can be caught on lures, live baits and dead baits.

There doesn’t seem to be any particular location attracting massive quantities of sails on the east coast anymore.

At one time they were prolific at Cape Bowling Green southeast of Townsville but now it has turned into a little black fishery.

It was a similar story at Cape Moreton off the northern end of Moreton Island.

For years huge quantities of sailfish were there eating, among other things, puffer fish, which being toxic, reportedly gave them a high.

Not many are at Cape Moreton now but the Sunshine Coast to the north is one of the better little black grounds.

Big black marlin Giant black marlin spawn off the Great Barrier Reef from Townsville to north of Lizard Island from September to lateNovember/early December each year.

If you want to catch a ‘grander’ (1000lb/450kg fish), this is the place to be.

The blacks aggregate along the reef edge and on banks like the Linden Bank, which is almost straight out from Port Douglas.

Schools of blacks can come into the reef anywhere along its length, so there is a lot of area to cover.

If you are fishing out of Cairns or Port Douglas, the Linden Bank is traditionally a very productive location right through the season.

If fishing out of Cooktown, the closest highly productive location is #5 Ribbon Reef.

Cooktown, being relatively central, gives you the opportunity to fish north or south depending on your choice, which will inevitably be influenced by various fishing reports.

From Cooktown it is two hours on the plane to the bottom of #10 Ribbon in the north or Escape Reef (within reach of the Linden Bank) in the south.

One of the most famous locations is #10 Ribbon, the top of which is a 20-minute boat ride from the excellent anchorage at Watsons Bay, Lizard Island.

Some famous and highly productive locations can be found along the 32km length of this reef.

Among them are First Corner, Second Corner, Heartbreak and The Marks.

If I had to choose three locations to fish on the Great Barrier Reef they would be (in no particular

order) Linden Bank, top of #5 and #10 Ribbon.

Quite often the top end is the first area to fire and then the middle and lower ends fire up.

Consequently, towards the end of the season Jenny Louise Shoal and the area around the Euston Light out from Cairns can be the most productive.

I did experience one season when the whole fleet was fishing this area because there was nothing to the north.

Fishing for big blacks is primarily with dead baits – usually a skipping scaly mackerel, tuna or spanish mackerel on one side and a swimming scad or queenfish on the other.

Most boats run a shotgun with a small scaly or large rainbow runner as bait.

Several granders have been caught on lures but these are generally only used to allow more speed when travelling from place to place and when moving to or fishing wide.

Often when it is slow along the edge of the reef the fleet heads wide to the seamount 160km out from Cairns or to Flora or Holmes Reef about the same distance offshore.

There is also a sometimes-productive location at Flatterys Plateau offshore from the bottom of #10 Ribbon.

Remarkably, very few blues are caught by the fleet fishing the Reef, despite the water temps and depths being suited to them.

If you want to find blues in this area, they will be well offshore.

I have found Flora Reef particularly productive for blues and it is 160km out.

Just goes to demonstrate once again that blues are more current driven.

Striped marlin Most striped marlin caught off southeast Queensland are a welcome by-catch when fishing for blues.

Most of the time we are probably fishing a bit wider and with bigger lures than we should be if specifically targeting stripes.

Were we doing the latter, I would probably be fishing from 100-250m using lures with a maximum size of 9”.

I would also try live baits around bait schools that have reasonablesized marlin marks on them.

Of course, stripes are prolific off Port Stephens during late-summer/early autumn.

They are feeding on bait balls, and live baiting with weighted baits is the most productive method.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 17

The Zerek Tango Shad is a proven fish catcher in shallow water.

John’s been trained as landing net man. Having a job to do, when not catching a fish themselves, can keep the kids entertained.

Flathead season off and firing T

HIS year appears to be gearing up for another fantastic flathead season around the Jumpinpin area, with good captures of flathead coming from the channels leading from the boat ramps at Cabbage Tree Point as well as Jacobs Well.

John with a flathead caught casting the popular Zerek Fish Trap.

School holidays proved a bit of a mixed bag with the weather, but we were thankful the heavens stopped sending down the liquid stuff and bunged on some sunshine and calm days for the hordes of holiday-makers to enjoy.

Generally we don’t do

Fishing Australia

by LEEANN PAYNE

much during the holiday period due to the crowds and we tend to avoid them somewhat by heading north from Cabbage Tree or just steering clear of the Jumpinpin Bar region in general.

Flathead have been turning up in all the channels and obviously low tide is one of the easiest periods to catch them by trolling or casting lures along the edges of the banks.

We’ve been privy to

some great new colours in the Zerek range and honestly there hasn’t been one colour in the Flat Shad range that hasn’t worked for us, meaning it’s the action of the lure that’s attracting the fish.

Being fishers, of course it’s always beneficial to have more than one colour in the tackle box, just in case, and my kids generally like to pick their own lures so it’s nice to have a couple of choices for them.

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I’m actually a little chuffed having the kids finally choosing their own lure and talking about why the lure works, and, when it’s not, questioning their choice and sometimes where we’re fishing!

When out on the water it’s important to take note of water levels on each bank and in time it begins to become apparent when the best time is to fish that particular bank.

We’re at the stage now ☛ continued P19

Spinning reels are the easiest for young kids to fish with, especially when casting reasonably light lures.

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Flathead season off and firing ☛ from P18

too where it’s OK to mix up our fishing and do a bit of trolling as well as casting because the kids aren’t too bad at getting the lure out without some disaster happening.

After casting the Flat Shads, it’s a matter of letting them sink before using a reasonably slow retrieve without too much erratic movement.

Having said that, my son John has done some pretty wild retrieves and caught fish, so it pays to play around with speed when retrieving.

Our little Johnny is definitely of the opinion that trolling is better because you get the bigger fish.

We’ve been concentrating on fishing the shallows of late and once we pick up a fish in an area, it’s second nature for us to turn around and fish the same area again because time and time again other fish will be picked up by doing so.

Another option is to deploy the electric motor and hit anchor mode, as peppering the area with casts provides a good chance of catching more fish.

Trolling as slowly as possible is a great way of covering ground, particularly if new to an area, and once fish are found, fishing can be concentrated in that location.

Of course, fishing with

a sounder and GPS is important to find bait because bait equals predatory fish and it’s also an important tool to help you follow contours so the lure remains in the strike zone.

A multitude of weed beds can be found around the Pin and casting a lure so it hits a clear, sandy zone within those weed beds is another way of targeting flathead when the water is a bit higher and covering the banks.

If the water is covering a bank, another option is to find a gutter on that bank and troll the contour, always using a lure suited to the depth of water so it bumps the bottom.

For future reference, marking contours of banks or a gutter is a great idea, along with marking where fish are caught on the GPS. We’ve had numerous occasions where fish have been caught in the same area year after year.

Lure wise, Zerek Tango Shads in the 50mm size for trolling and 4.5�

Flat Shads and 65mm Fish Traps for casting remain terrific lures to have as staples in the tackle box.

Transducer mount On the work scene, Robert’s been hard at it making a transducer mount suited to the Garmin Panoptix and Lowrance LiveSight transducers.

These transducers are usually mounted on electric motors, which isn’t ideal because they move around too much to give an accurate picture of a bank, especially if using anchor mode.

Because of this, Rob has made a transducer bracket to permanently mount to the transom.

The direction of the transducer can be easily and readily changed depending on where you need to sound and can be easily lifted from the water when moving between locations.

These brackets are made to order and are available through Rob Payne on his Rob Payne Engineering Facebook page.

John and Robert showed off a nice keeper caught while trolling.

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The author’s husband Robert Payne can supply this versatile bracket to mount new Garmin and Lowrance transducers.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 19

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HIS month will see winter coming to end.

Towards the end of the month the weather generally starts to warm and we might even receive a couple of afternoon northerly breezes.

In years past I’ve had good success on mangrove jack in late-August.

Most anglers believe it’s too early for mangrove jack to be getting active, but if you’re willing to make plenty of casts, the rewards are there.

Flathead will still be very active during August in the local rivers, but once spring arrives the numbers will thin.

The spawning season for flathead will start on the Gold and Sunshine coasts towards the end of the month.

The big breeding lizards make their way out to the mouth of the estuaries to begin spawning with the smaller males.

This normally coincides with a new or full moon towards the end of August.

Jewies and threadfin will still be feeding in the local rivers, with goodquality fish among them.

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Trailer repairs & servicing

Local Luring

by KEITH STRATFORD

65-75cm range have been caught this winter, which is a really good sign.

These smaller fish have been a bit quiet for a few years, but there is no shortage of them in the local rivers at the moment.

Fish this size are often very aggressive and will belt a soft plastic aimed at flathead.

They’re not shy and can tend to roam areas with no structure or shelter to hide in, such as sandbanks and barren straights in the rivers.

As long as there is bait in the area, it’s likely a jewie will be close by.

Jewies eat a wide variety of lures.

Three-inch and 4” fishprofile soft plastics are always a good option, but prawn imitations also work really well.

Soft vibes including Zerek Fish Traps also entice a lot of fish.

Hard-bodies catch good numbers, especially deep divers trolled through holes and rock bars.

My all-time favourite lure for chasing jew would be a Gulp Crazy Legs in New Penny.

This plastic has caught heaps of fish for me over the years and it’s generally the first lure I’ll tie on when chasing jewies.

Crazy Legs catch just about everything with fins.

Threadfin are another species that can’t resist and flathead are very fond of them.

Jacks also show a lot of interest in Crazy Legs, especially between the lakes at Noosa.

Speaking of threadfin salmon, they have been a little quiet in the smaller rivers this winter, but what they have lacked in numbers they have made up for in size.

Some absolute beasts around 130cm have been caught on lures in a couple of the local rivers.

Most of these fish have been hanging around in

very small numbers and often on their own.

This can make targeting them quite difficult and it can take a lot of time to get a bite from one.

Once hooked, they are a real handful, with blistering runs and lots of directional changes.

Threadfin are masters at rubbing through leaders with their sandpaper-like mouths, so a heavy leader is good insurance.

Unfortunately, they can shy away from heavy leaders and dropping down to 12-15lb is often needed to get the bite.

Fish hooked down the throat on light leaders rarely last a couple of seconds on the line.

Striking hard and fast at any bite is the best way to keep the lure from hooking up down their throat, but sometimes it’s unavoidable and the inevitable happens.

The Brisbane River will still fish well for jewies and threadfin this month.

I’ve found August to be one of the better months for school-sized fish in the 70-90cm range.

Sounding along the wharves looking for schools of fish will work, as will jigging the rock ledges with Gulp Crazy Legs and prawn-imitation plastics.

The fish sit tight into any ledges and pinnacles that give them somewhere to rest out of the current when it’s running hard.

When the current starts to slow, the jewfish will move around and feed on any baitfish in the area.

This is a prime time to get a lure down into the strike zone.

Jewies can be a bit leader shy at times, just like threadfin.

Thankfully they find it hard to rub through leaders.

During the fight you can feel the leader rubbing across their teeth when they are hooked deep.

I’ve landed lots of nice jewies on 12lb leader that have rubbed the leader on their teeth through the whole fight.

It’s still not a great feeling when you load up on a big fish and can feel their teeth running across the leader.

Trevally numbers are

excellent at the time of writing.

The Pine and Caboolture rivers both have plenty of fish willing to eat a lure.

They range from small 20cm fish right up to 70cm-plus models.

Trevally of the larger size put on a real show when hooked and are great fun to target.

They are feeding machines and will swim up and down a stretch eating everything in their way.

Trevally aren’t too fussy about what lures they will eat, but you won’t go wrong with a 3”-4” fish imitation or soft vibe.

That’s it for this month.

Get out there and enjoy the last month of winter and I might see you on the water.

Ben Monro captured this Brisbane River jewfish jigging a Gulp Crazy Legs.

Some big threadfin have been causing havoc in the local rivers. Jarryd Corney caught this one on a soft plastic after finding the fish on his sounder.

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Jarryd Corney landed this thumper threadfin salmon measuring in at 131cm.

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Page 22 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

Of late, Mother Nature has been causing enough problems for me planning fishing trips, with big swells, strong wind and rain making things difficult.

Late June and early July were terrible but the long-range forecasts are looking much better, so hopefully this month will see plenty of fishing opportunities to catch up.

All the bad weather has plenty of benefits though, as baitfish will move back downstream in the estuaries towards the Seaway.

Even small baitfish from offshore will move into the Seaway and Broadwater for protection from the big swells.

This is why you may notice a good number of reef fish in the Seaway during and just after these bad weather events.

Snapper especially will move in to feed and the Seaway and coffee rock areas of the Broadwater have plenty of the type of structure they like to inhabit.

Not monster offshore snapper, but normally 40-50cm fish that give a great fight on light gear to the mostly bream fishers catching them.

Like bream, they will eat most baits, however, we get most of ours on 3” and 4” grub soft plastics, and white is the preferred colour.

Jig head weight depends on depth of water.

In the Seaway, up to 1/2oz is used, and on the shallower coffee rock areas around Sovereign Island 1/8oz and 1/4oz are best.

When we have snuck offshore we’ve seen good numbers of school mackerel, which is common for this time of year, but these toothy critters can be a pain as they go around biting off hooks.

Tuskfish, moses snapper, jewfish and maori cod have all been caught as well but the snapper have been a little slow on the close reefs.

Bigger snapper have been caught out wider on the 36-fathom reefs and as the water temperature gets colder the numbers of fish on the closer reefs should improve.

Most fishing in the past month has been inshore, with bream, whiting and flathead numbers all good.

Each species has to be targeted differently though.

This is probably your last month to catch good numbers of bream locally.

The underwater rock wall in front of The Southport School, under Sundale Bridge and the Seaway have been best.

Just remember to fish as light as practical, berley

Broadwater Region

by WAYNE ‘YOUNGY’ YOUNG

if possible and while big hooks catch big fish, the right size hook will catch the most fish.

Unless you are using very big baits, size 1 and 0 hooks are best for bream.

If fishing heavy structure, fish with no trace, just the sinker straight on top of the hook.

This month will see big numbers of flathead caught as they move into the Jumpinpin and Broadwater areas for spawning.

Bait fishing for flathead is a very simple process involving drifting through the many small channels between sandbanks in the above areas.

Large yabbies will produce good numbers but baits like herring, white pillies and even larger blue pillies will produce better-quality fish.

Lure fishing for flathead is harder work, moving from area to area to get the best bite times on each part of the tide.

Trolling is very popular with old fellas like myself.

Large areas of water 2-3m deep are best for this, and the section north of Tipplers to ‘Millionaires Row’ can be productive.

The area from the ‘Five Ways’ west to Kangaroo Island presents another good trolling area at Jumpinpin.

From Crab Island to the sandbanks opposite Sovereign Island is worth a crack too.

Small Zerek Tango Shads seem to be the favoured hard-bodied lures at the moment but any small lure that dives to the depth you’re fishing will work well.

Small, lightly weighted soft plastics present the most popular way to catch flathead these days, especially for the younger fishos.

A great way of catching fish but way too much work for this old fella.

Using an electric motor, slowly work your way along a drop-off casting your lure at the edge of weed beds and

any other structure.

Flathead are ambush predators and just love to lie next to structure such as weed beds, rocks and logs or branches that have fallen into the water.

The main areas to target with soft plastics for flathead on the runout tide is the mouths of small drains where the water runs off larger sandbanks.

These areas and the mouths of small creeks will always have flathead around them waiting to attack any baitfish coming out of the shallows.

Plenty of soft plastics are on the market and most work quite well, but Z-Mans will always be my favourite for their durability.

Whiting fishing has been great as usual, with catches of about 20 fish standard for a morning or afternoon session in the Nerang River.

I wish all fish species were as easy and plentiful to catch as whiting.

The only bad thing is it’s a long drive up the river to find them at this

time of year.

The best area has been from the Bundall Rd Bridge up to Carrara for the past three months and it will be no different this month.

Another good thing about fishing for whiting in winter is it’s nowhere near as busy on the water and you won’t have to fight for a spot like you do at the Council Chambers over summer.

Bloodworms are always the best bait, with wriggler

worms a close second.

Tackle and rods are the same as we use in summer at night.

Unfortunately, tailor have been very scarce in the Broadwater this winter.

The only good news is a few might still be around and normally these lateseason fish are better quality.

‘Til next month, fish for the future.

Your kids will appreciate you for it.

Young Gus held a great eating tuskfish from the 40m reefs.

Small snapper have been landed lately but hopefully they will get bigger this month.

Gordy with a school mackerel caught while snapper fishing off the Goldy.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 23

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Winter woollies on the Gold Coast

W

HAT should be sunny days with flat seas, slight wind and a sprinkling of rain has turned into a fishing charter operator’s nightmare.

May, which is often a quieter month, was not only slow for bookings but when the weekends arrived the charters were wiped out by strong wind and high seas.

The regulars were so disappointed but moved their bookings to later dates.

June opened with great promise and then the skies opened, the wind started to roar and the seas joined the act.

With school holidays just a matter of weeks away, all charter operators had their fingers crossed for pleasant weather.

Before the house-binding weather that so far has kept all indoors or looking for some other holiday activity, we had an influx of Chinese visitors.

The Chinese fishos enjoyed the challenge of fighting cobia, kingfish and amberjack.

Snapper are drifting into the Gold Coast waters but the big knobbies haven’t arrived because the water temperature

Fish the Deep

by SCOTT VAN BURCK

hasn’t dropped enough to entice their presence.

Though June was a reasonable month, it was nothing to rave about.

Once again the weekends were lost to wild wind and high seas.

The days that were fishable were classified as choppy thanks to southerly wind.

The Chinese once again filled our books and landed quality fish.

Kingfish and amberjack were the main species landed.

Live bait is the best bet, with pilchards and squid runnersup.

The reliable trag jew, tailor and flathead saved many a half-day charter when the snapper decided it was their rest day.

When they are active, good sustainable quantities of snapper have been caught on pilchards, live bait and squid, with sizes ranging from 3880cm.

Snapper are great eating cooked in foil with lemon and a nice teriyaki sauce mixture.

Fish the Deep is starting to mix the bait up with mullet, which has proven successful on stressful days.

It is significant to appreciate the many varieties of fish that bless the Gold Coast waters including rosy jobfish, venus tuskfish, mulloway, moses perch, cobia and mack tuna to name just a few.

These many and varied species continue to embellish our waters throughout the winter fishing season.

Lately, good size amberjack have been caught at the 50-fathom line, along with rosy jobfish, pearl perch, samson fish and kingfish, all of which have taken live yakkas and slimies.

A bit of current is still around but it’s not affecting the catches.

Great catches have gone hand in hand with whale watching.

With ever-increasing numbers in our whale population, during winter those fishing are able to relish in their favourite sport while delighting in the antics of the humpbacks.

Hopefully the weather will improve so lost charters can be forgotten.

Weekends disappear very quickly with many advanced bookings, so wily fishers are using their RDOs to fish Mondays and Fridays.

As winter morphs into spring, hopefully more positive fishing tales can be presented to you.

Happy fishing and hopefully that ‘big one’ doesn’t get away.

Daniel Joiner held a solid cobia.

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Alan Champion landed a fantastic spanish mackerel.

Gold Coast | White Water Marine 10 Hinde St, Ashmore Q 4214 Phone: 07 5532 4402 sales@whitewatermarine.com.au whitewatermarine.com.au Noosa | Laguna Boating Centre 16 Project Ave, Noosaville Q 4566 Phone: 07 5442 4872 info@lagunaboating.com.au lagunaboating.com.au Wynnum | Wynnum Marine 31 Fox St, Wynnum Q 4178 Phone: 07 3396 9777 info@wynnummarine.com.au wynnummarine.com.au This mulloway was boated by Trent.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 25

Ben with his first-ever jewie.

This jew took a Strike Pro Cyber Vibe tea bagged in a deep hole.

Tips for targeting mulloway

G Richard caught a good-quality fish on an Ecogear ZX40 blade.

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’DAY everyone, isn’t this year flying?

Summer will be back before we know it.

But for now, this is a great month for targeting the mighty mulloway or jewies as they are more commonly known.

Locations The big rivers along the east coast of northern NSW and southern Queensland fish far better than the smaller creeks because the big rivers have deeper entrances for the fish to come and go and follow the bait schools.

Our big rivers also have more deep holes, and it pays to learn where they are in the chosen river system because these are the places to find the fish.

It is a bonus when a deep hole has adjacent rock bars and ledges because these areas create eddies and fluctuations in the tidal flow.

Some anglers think jewfish can only be caught near the entrances of the rivers but they are happy to move right up the rivers to almost brackish water in search of food.

The most common time for them to migrate to the upper reaches is during drought when the salinity is high in the upper catchment.

The flip side is to fish the river mouths and lower reaches in times of

Gold Coast Guide

by BRAD SMITH

Some anglers think jewfish can only be caught near the entrances of the rivers but they are happy to move right up the rivers to almost brackish water in search of food. flood or high rainfall.

It is vital the chosen deep holes contain a lot of bait because these apex fish are constantly in search of food to sustain them.

Moons and tides I have caught jewfish on all phases of the lunar cycle but have had some very consistent results about a week after the full moon.

For me, the moon is not as important as the tides, with by far the best bite period occurring around the tide changes.

The tide changes are vital for the spike in this fish’s feeding pattern, with equal success coming from both the changes.

Equipment Most past and present clients of mine know that when I target jew in the holes upstream I favour light equipment and small lures.

I use a 2-4kg, 7’ spin rod with a 2500 size spin reel loaded with very high-

quality braid that is 14lb test but only .06mm in diameter.

My favourite lures are small soft and metal vibes such as Ecogear ZX40s, Zerek Fish Traps, Atomic soft vibes and Strike Pro Cyber Vibes.

Jewies of all sizes respond well to these small lures.

As I have always said, elephants eat peanuts.

Jew are powerful but clean fighters, so if your drag is not set too firmly and you take your time, these fish can easily be landed on light equipment.

When targeting jew around river mouths, I fish with heavier gear and bigger lures because there is a lot more tidal flow to contend with.

My chosen rod for fishing the entrances is a 7’, 6-10kg outfit with the reel loaded with 20lb braid.

I team this with 5” and 7” soft plastics and the ap-

propriate-sized jig head to get the lure to the bottom depending on the amount of current flow.

Technique Whether I am using the light or heavier gear, the technique remains the same and I have nicknamed it tea bagging.

This is a very simple procedure but needs to be done very well.

First, you must locate the bait or jewfish on your sounder and position the boat directly over them, lowering the lure to the bottom as quickly as possible.

Once your line goes slack, flick the bail arm over and lower your rod tip close to the water, then start an even and robotic jigging action, with the rod tip moving no more than 50cm each time.

The lift part of the technique is not as important as dropping the tip quickly because the lift draws their attention and the strikes come as the lure flutters back down.

I use my petrol motor to continuously reverse back or move forward to keep the lines and lures running vertically and on the bottom, though an electric motor can also be used and would likely make the task easier by spot locking.

Well that is all for this month.

I hope this article helps you to catch one of these bucket-list fish.

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www.issuu.com/bnbfishing Page 26 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

This is a screenshot of a 40mm blade being tea bagged along the bottom. Take note of how even the hops are at 50cm intervals.

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Wet and wild weather wearing on ■ Mud crabs ■ Snapper offshore ■ Dodging leatherjacket

D

ROUGHT in almost all of NSW and I’ve got to wear gumboots on my own lawn.

Tweed to Byron Bay

by GAVIN DOBSON

It’s been a rough stint of weather, that’s for sure, with massive swells and heaps of rain for nearly three weeks now, but the forecast is promising an improvement at last.

The fishing has jumped into life in the river here at Brunz, with mud crabs the best they have been for a long time.

The fresh has really stirred them up and pushed them down the river in big numbers.

Keira and I caught a couple of nice feeds and one pot each would have been enough to get our bag limit.

As it was, we sorted through the best crabs and brought home a nice bag, releasing many legal crabs.

Another mate of mine put two pots out and had 12 legal crabs in the first pot.

He picked out the best five crabs and brought the pot home and didn’t even check the second pot until the next day.

If only it was this easy all the time, but we all know it won’t last.

Flathead and jewfish have also responded well to the fresh.

Some nice jewfish have

been caught in the river but most are undersized and it takes a while to get a legal one for a feed on most days.

The fish I saw caught in the river came on soft plastics, but heaps were hooked off the north wall on worms.

Driving the river cruise boat one day, our customers were treated to the spectacle of an elderly gentleman landing a big flathead off the Memorial Wall.

He was chuffed with our round of applause.

I was chatting with the film crew of Sea Change

There sure are some colourful fish in the deep.

on the jetty another afternoon when a few of the lads said a big fish was landed off the wall on the other side of the harbour.

Curious, I wandered around to discover a beautiful flathead had been caught by a young bloke by the name of Curtis.

By the time I got there they had released the fish but his friend Molly kindly shared the photo with me.

I showed the pic to those of the film crew who didn’t see it landed and I think they are now all fishing in their spare time.

I was fortunate enough to get in a few trips out wide before all this bad weather.

The pearl perch fishing was great on the 50-fathom line but we might have missed the best of it because I’m sure the leatherjacket will have moved in over the past few weeks.

I caught a big one on my last trip out and heard they weren’t far south of us at the time.

Doggy mackerel were still around right up to the last trips out but they might be long gone by now because the big swell will have chased the bait off the reef.

I got some good doggies a few mornings in a row and invited Jason out to catch some with me the next day.

The first bait out was

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half a pilchard under a cork and something ate it and took me into the reef.

We only had light line and 18lb wire but Jason did really well on the next cast to land a nice 4kg snapper.

We caught a few more snapper and got busted up again without even getting a doggy bite before things went quiet and we headed wide.

A couple of mornings later I headed back out with the intention of getting into the snapper and not a snapper bite was had, but I got 15 nice doggies.

Fishing, hey!

We’ll never really work it all out. ☛ continued P28

Curtis Baldwin caught this quality lizard from a rock wall in the Brunswick River as the crew filming the new series of Sea Change looked on. Photo: Molly Anderson

A quality squire from 50 fathoms. Here’s hoping the leatherjacket stay away this month.

PUZZLE PAGE Spot 10 differences

Winter Wonders Words can run vertically, horizontally, diagonally and back to front.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 27

A nicely formed gutter held good numbers of dart.

A productive gutter on Pottsville Beach that held dart, bream and tailor.

Wazza’s beach fishing 101 H

I people, well I guess I need to get my focus back to the job at hand now the smoke and dust has settled on my Baia Lodge trip.

The pirate with a good chopper.

That job is educating

This healthy chopper was landed by the author.

you good folks in the ways of beach fishing.

Not that you need much education, this is just my spin on how I do it.

The humble art of beach fishing isn’t all that complicated.

It sometimes can be, and even though I have been beach fishing for over 58 years, I quite often get it wrong unless I stick to a formula I have been using ever since I can remember.

Some people might call it luck, some may call it experience and some might even call it BS. I just call it the recipe and if you don’t have all the right ingredients you won’t make the cake.

I’m not going to put the ingredients in any particular order but you do need them to make it work: bait, tides, moon phase, gutter type, and gear choice.

The most effective and versatile bait is the old beach worm, whether live or preserved.

The humble worm will account for about 95 percent of all fish

Wet and wild weather wearing on ☛ from P27

Hugh came back down for a visit this past month.

We headed out wide one beautiful afternoon with the aim of getting a few pearl perch.

Hugh hadn’t been out this wide with me before and when we eventually pulled up on the reef I heard him practising the haka.

The first couple of spots were a bit quiet but the third was home to nice perch and squire and I regret to say we were so busy in the short bite before dark that I didn’t even get the camera out.

We left them biting and headed home in beautiful conditions as Hugh told me some

more tales and jokes from years gone by.

I hope some good fishing can be had after this miserable weather because everyone I’ve spoken to has cabin fever and needs a fix.

The deep reefs are an unknown quantity at this stage because of the leatherjacket.

If they have shown up,

Jason with an early morning snapper.

Page 28 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

then daytime fishing is all but ruled out because you won’t be able to tie hooks on fast enough.

Night-time is an option, as is anchoring on Windarra Banks.

During the day, this spot can fish well because the jackets don’t seem to come up on the high reef and it seems to be a bit of a refuge for fish trying to escape the hordes of piranhas.

Evening and nighttime fishing for jew and snapper is also a good option here at this time of year.

On the shallow reefs jew and snapper along with moses perch, tailor and trag should be around.

The water is still warm, so don’t write off a big longtail tuna either.

Let’s hope some of the good flatties hang around in the river this month.

Otherwise, the usual suspects of bream, blackfish and a few tailor should keep us entertained.

Good luck.

Tweed Coast

by WARREN ‘WAZZA’ MORGAN

caught off our beaches.

That remaining 5 percent will take pilchards, strip baits or can be lured, these fish being mainly tailor and trevally.

Tides play a huge factor in beach fishing.

The general rule of thumb for best fishing is an hour before and an hour after the tide change.

This is only a rule of thumb because you might come upon a patch of fish that will bite for hours, regardless of tidal influence.

If you are a gatherer of beach worms it always pays to throw a worm in the same spot you caught it on the incoming tide.

You might also come across a big patch of tailor that will bite their heads off until they either run out of water or the bait school disappears.

When hunting the big silver ghosts, mulloway, at night, fish the gutters either on the low or top of the tide, as long as you have a tide change.

I’ve seen big jewfish pulled out of some very shallow water.

Tailor are another predator that doesn’t mind shallow water and I’ve seen tailor in the shallow stuff basically stranded for two reasons.

First, they rip and tear and work themselves into a feeding frenzy, disregarding the tidal drop.

Second, they hole up in the shallow gutters at night to rest and get away from the bigger predators such as jewfish and sharks.

Moon phases are important.

I’ll probably cop a bit over this but I prefer the lead-up to the new moon, and I find the darker it is, the better it is.

A quarter moon is really good for dart and if you find dart you usually find tailor.

I know some people swear by the big moon but, honestly, do you think small fish want to be visible and on the menu for bigger predators?

Gutters are a pivotal feature in landing big greenbacks and silver ghosts.

Gutter formations are like fish highways and the fish travel from gutter to gutter chasing bait or es-

caping from predators.

I like the smaller, narrower gutters with an entry and exit to allow the fish to come and go.

Having a smaller gutter increases your chances of nailing fish because it narrows your target area.

Blind gutters fish well on a run-out tide for tailor and bream.

They are also a fairly safe bet for fish to hole up in and rest.

Melon holes usually form in big surf conditions and are basically a big deep hole with a large rip run-

ning back to the ocean.

The mouth of these melon holes can be quite productive if you fish either side of the opening.

Big wide gutters that seem to run the length of the beach are a worthwhile option too.

You will catch fish here if you do your homework.

Have a look at these features on the bottom of the tide from a vantage point such as a sand dune or headland where you can sit and study the gutters.

Mark features such as small potholes and deeper patches of water because these are the spots to have a crack when darkness falls. ☛ continued P29

The author caught a solid jewfish from the Iluka beaches.

The author’s three beach outfits.

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Crazy conditions don’t dampen inshore fishing ■ Rain changes river ■ Bream bite more than flathead

H

ELLO and welcome to this month’s edition of BNB.

Bazza nailed a shallow-gutter chopper.

Wazza’s beach fishing 101 ☛ from P28

I either fish during tide changes, especially the start of the new moon in that window of an hour before and after the tide change, or I target the usually reliable times of sunup and sunset, again an hour before and after.

I usually have three rod options when I go beach fishing.

The first is a dart outfit, which is a Wilson Heritage one-piece 12’ stick matched to an Alvey Ripfighter 62 loaded with either 9lb or 10lb mono.

My second outfit is a Snyder Glas Mag Surf matched to an Alvey 650B loaded

with 18lb mono.

My third outfit is a spin setup comprising a Wilson Sea Coaster matched to a Penn Spinfisher loaded with 10kg braid.

Sometimes I take a little flick outfit when the tide has gone and play around the melon holes chasing lizards and the odd whiting.

These aren’t hard and fast rules, but basic advice for those who are having trouble fishing the beach or are new to this wonderful style of fishing.

I hope this has helped.

Next month I will delve a bit deeper into gutters and rigs for different species.

Well, hasn’t Mother Nature decided to turn things on their ear this month?

We have had very uncharacteristic weather, with late-afternoon storms, plenty of wind and enough rain to sink a battleship.

These are the sort of weather patterns you would expect in summer, not the middle of winter.

I suppose our only saving grace is the bulk of the rain we have had has fallen mostly on the coastal fringe and not slightly further inland where it could have caused some problems.

I am hopeful we have seen the last of this weather pattern for a while and can get back to normal winter weather with lovely calm days, light westerly wind in the mornings and plenty of fishing.

After a fairly long and reasonably dry spell of weather over summer, plenty of people were happy to see rain, even if it was excessive.

Before the rain, the Richmond River was fairly clean.

The rain has not had a great effect on the water colour at Ballina, however the water in Lismore has some colour to it, though I

Ballina Bait & Tackle

by BRETT HYDE

think it should clear fairly quickly.

The rough weather has meant some of the mulloway that were holding on the close reefs have moved into the lower reaches of the river.

As is usually the case at this time of year, the deep holes between the river mouth and Burns Point Ferry have produced most of the fish, especially if you have a live bait swimming around on the change of tide.

With the recent rough weather, a few fish have also come from the breakwalls.

Most mulloway have been in the 10-15kg range, but the occasional larger model over 20kg has also been landed.

Hard-body lures in various colours are the most effective on the walls at present but it would still be worth soaking a mullet fillet or large squid at night.

Good-quality bream have continued to show up in the lower reaches of the river.

The run-in tide has produced the bulk of the fish, as usual, with curl-tail soft plastics, metal blades and vibes as well as baits like

pilchards and prawns all successful on different days.

Berkley Gulp 3” Minnow Grubs have been working really well in colours such as Watermelon, Pepper Prawn and Nuclear Chicken.

The tides during the day have not been terribly large, so stick with 1/8oz or 1/12oz jig head weights.

Flathead have been fairly disappointing compared to bream.

This has largely been due to the strong wind and colder temperatures we have been experiencing.

Even though we saw some colour enter the water further upriver, I don’t think it was enough to push the bulk of the flathead down towards the mouth.

I would look between Pimlico Island and Broadwater for the better concentrations of flathead.

With the weather still fairly chilly, they are going to be difficult to tempt, but if you try your luck on the run-out tides after lunch when the fish have had a chance to warm up on the shallow sand flats you might find

yourself heading home with dinner.

It will be worth trying to slow troll hard-body lures for flathead along the edge of the drop-offs because hard-body lures will stir up the sand and catch the attention of the sleepy fish.

This particular style of lure will also continue to stay on or close to the bottom, so the flathead will not have to swim a long way to grab the possible food source.

If you are going to flick around a few soft plastics, I would stick with more natural colours because the water quality is improving each day.

For flathead, I would also keep the plastic close to the bottom, so jump up one or two sizes in your jig head choice and slow roll to ensure your lure stays close to the bottom and in the flathead’s strike zone much longer.

With the weather settling, I am hoping we can get back to some beach and offshore fishing.

The formations on the beaches will require some time to repair, but in the meantime it will be worth checking out Boulders and Angels beaches for winter bream, and Seven Mile and South Ballina beaches should be holding tailor.

The usual baits such as

pipis, pilchards and mullet fillets will all be good options.

As for the offshore fishing, well it has been a struggle to say the least.

The close reefs will be worth a look over the next few months for quality snapper.

The trick to fishing the close reefs, whether with bait or soft plastics, is to keep your sinker as light as possible and make your bait or lure look natural.

At the time of writing, we were waiting to hear about the leatherjacket and whether they had made their way this far up the coast yet.

They are pretty good eating fish but the set of choppers they possess is very hard on your terminal tackle, so make sure you have extra supplies for your next trip out.

With the current dropping, it will be worth checking out the northern 42 and 48-fathom lines for pearl perch and kingfish.

Stick with bright colours such as silver, glow zebra and even pink if you are using slow-pitch jigs.

You will probably find that if the wind is not too strong 80-150g jigs will be ideal at this time of year.

Well that’s about all from me for this month.

‘Til next time, tight lines!

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 29

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Mischa with a typical winter river fish taken on live mullet.

Jewfish catches jump as sharks split

F

ISHING along the Clarence Coast of northern NSW during July saw anglers reap the rewards of braving the cold chilly nights, with good catches of jewfish, tailor and bream taken from the river, beaches and headlands.

Inside the Clarence River, bream are spread far and wide, with Grafton angler Toby Scullen landing nice fish to 980g in Carrs Creek using homemade dough (that was meant for mullet) as bait.

Further downstream, Lismore angler Dick Erone also landed bream to 980g at Maclean using fresh school prawns, while Katherine McRae and Janelle Foster of Casino landed fish to 700g and 800g respectively at Browns Rocks.

David Graham of Yamba fished the Yamba wall using live nippers for bream to 1.3kg, while George Dwyer of Brisbane chose to fish the beach along Shark Bay with pipis for bream and tarwhine to 1.25kg.

Catches of flathead have slowed a bit due to the colder weather, however, captures of pan-sized fish can be taken yearround as Grafton angler E. Brooke proved by boating a good feed of fish to 1.6kg at Lawrence on fresh prawns.

Luderick finally made an appearance inside the river and Iluka anglers Tony Arnold and Wayne Franklin were just two of the many fishos on hand at the Old Ferry approach to snare fish to just over a kilogram on black weed.

Here at Iluka, Back Beach and Main Beach have been consistently producing big tailor to 4.8kg on whole garfish and bonito strips while the headlands at Woody Head, Second Bluff and the southern end of the Iluka Bluff have yielded fish of similar size on hard-bodied lures and metal slugs.

Quite a few big tailor have also been taken from the point of the Yamba

Just Jew

by TYE PORTER

and Iluka breakwalls by anglers using soft plastics meant for jewfish.

Talking of jewfish, these smelly critters really came on the chew during July, with nice fish taken from the river, walls, beaches and headlands.

Inside the Clarence River, the plague numbers of sharks have begun to thin a tad, which in turn has seen jew catches increase.

Ted McLean of Ashby spent a few nights fishing the Goodwood Island wharf area with his son Ben who was visiting from Melbourne, and while Ted was not lucky enough to snare a fish, Ben scored an 11kg specimen on a soft plastic.

Mitchell Cook of Casino has been fishing his secret spot well upstream for solid fish around the 14kg mark on live mullet, while my son Mischa has also been floating live mullet upstream for fish to 16kg.

Though Mischa has not lost a jew to the sharks yet, he did go close one night when a little toothy critter decided to have a gnaw on one of his fish as he was playing it (see pic).

Mischa finally got sick of putting up with the sharks in the river and decided to have a spin for jew on the southern end of the Iluka Bluff one afternoon, being rewarded with an 18.2kg fish on a hard-body lure.

Other anglers have had similar success at the Bluff during the past month, with the good news being August will continue to see big fish taken on lures at this spot both day and night.

Both the Yamba and Iluka breakwalls are producing fish to 26kg on live mullet and lures, with the T-Piece on the Yamba side being the hot spot.

Here at the Iluka wall, the bulk of the fish have been taken near the old shipwreck just 100m from the carpark.

Good schools of flattailed mullet have been holding at both locations and will continue to do so this month.

As usual at this time of year, snapper have dominated offshore catches, with just about every mark known to man producing reasonable catches of these red fish.

This month is the time to get into the luderick and bream inside the rivers before they drop their eggs and head back to sea, while those anglers want-

ing to chase tailor will have no problem getting a feed along the beaches and headlands.

Jewfish will still be taken inside the rivers on live mullet and lures because the flat-tailed mullet will remain around for at least another month or so.

All in all, you would have to be unlucky not to get a feed of fish this month, so get out there and have a go.

Finally, my Facebook page Justjewtp got hacked and I am currently rebuilding the new version, so if you have previously liked my page, please relike the new page.

‘Til next month, safe fishin’.

This 16kg fish taken inside the Clarence River was very close to becoming shark food.

Tired of putting up with the sharks inside the river, Mischa decided to have a spin at the Bluff with a hard-bodied minnow and was rewarded with this nice 18.2kg fish.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

Getting the goss on deep dropping

W

ELL that’s a wrap, with the end of the club year done and dusted in barely the blink of an eye.

In true form that reflected much of the past year, a possible last fishing day for the season was waved tantalisingly in front of us, but alas was pulled away at the last minute.

Five to 10 knots of wind and under 1.5m of sea was on hand, but a bloody great easterly swell of 3-3.5m put paid to those plans.

Even a trip heading around the top of Moreton Island would be dan-

Power Boat Anglers

by MICK CLUTTERBUCK

gerous in those conditions.

Schombie reflected that he and another boat had stupidly tried it many years ago.

Comboyuro Point was like a bar but they got through OK, however when they hit North Point both boats met huge easterly swells with no backs, resulting in huge air and paying the price when they finally landed.

They made a quick retreat and Schombie had

Deep drop luminous lights.

Birdy’s rigs.

Salty nearly on its side going back through Combie, with both deckies on top of him in a confused sea that changed dramatically in the 40-odd minutes since they first went through.

Two fellow anglers lost their lives that morning and it is sobering to reflect on times like these to realise the ocean is a lovely place to be but never take it for granted.

While on the subject of getting in trouble on the water, I’ve got to send a big thanks to the Volunteer Marine Rescue Brisbane team for retrieving me and my mate from Moreton Island one recent Sunday.

It wasn’t anything dramatic, just a broken steering cable (though would have been if crossing a bar), but we would not have got home without them.

I’d encourage anyone who has a boat and travels any distance from home to join the VMR as you never know when you’ll need help.

On a brighter note, at the July meeting we had fellow BNB scribe Jason ‘Birdy’ Bird along as a guest speaker on the subject of deep dropping.

As per normal, some minor AV issues were encountered but once the tech gremlins had been sorted Jason went through the whole gamut that is the art of fishing the deep.

Jason delivered an excellent presentation on the subject, showing the tools of the trade and tackle used to deal with this addictive form of fishing.

The reels are generally electric and he explained how to not destroy the reels that would commonly be used.

Basically, you can’t just hit the go button and hope for the best.

Unless you have a dedicated winch reel, you just need to play the fish and turn it before you hit the go lever.

Not doing this will allow smoke to blow out of your expensive and shiny new reel (bad) and cause it to make angry noises (also bad) that Rob Schomberg will begrudgingly attest to.

Worse still, it may even die (really bad), meaning you have to handline up a big angry fish from 300m.

Jason also went into rigs (he makes and sells them on Facebook under the name of Leader Systems Australia), which are generally made with 200lbplus leader carrying three to six circle hooks in 12/0 to 15/0 size.

The smaller hook will account for pearlies and other species like nannygai that inhabit the deep areas.

The rigs have a light attached to the top to attract the fish in the darkness.

Interestingly, he suggested luminous tube and beads can attract greeneye sharks, the nemesis of deep anglers.

I hear a few guys and girls went home and remade a few rigs they’d previously put together after hearing that.

Birdy then went into the depths and locations to fish, what you could expect to find at the different depth contours and what to look for.

If you can’t see the bottom, you can’t see any fish, so sounder setup is the key to the whole bun fight, which is a whole new subject.

Fish species was next on the agenda and while bar cod would be our main target, bass groper, eastern nannygai, blueeye trevalla, gemfish and plenty more species are down there too.

Basically anything from the deep is good to eat,

apart from the sharks, with some species apparently eclipsing coral trout on the plate for texture and taste.

Jason then answered myriad questions and donated a rig and a couple of lights to the club that we will put to good use on trophy night.

Many thanks to Jason for coming along and imparting his considerable wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject to the members present on the night.

Now we’ve just got to get out and put it all into practice.

Next meetings The next club meeting will be held on Monday, August 5, followed by Monday, September 2 at The Club Manly (bowls club) located at 26 Faine St, Manly.

All interested parties are more than welcome to attend.

Until next month, safe boating.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 31

Last of the cold on the Sunny Coast

W

ITH August being the last month of winter, water temperatures are now at their coolest, so there’s never been a better time to target those cold-water species.

Don Gallespie caught an 82cm jewfish. Photos: fish ingnoosa.com.au

Todd Rees was happy with this stonker sweetlip.

In the Noosa River, this means big stud bream and flathead getting close to that magic metre mark, if not above.

These huge fish are rare but are there and often found in the lower reaches during the runout tides.

The Noosa River mouth and Frying Pan are two great areas to try your luck.

The first time I landed a big croc pushing 90cm, I almost fell off my rock at the river mouth!

You can certainly understand why they are called crocs and lizards, because you would be fooled into thinking you have just caught one.

At this size they are obviously to be released as they are big breeding females.

These special captures need to be netted and handled with care to ensure they continue to breed.

Do not use lip grips to

Dave Langan with a pair of fantastic bass.

Sunshine Coast

by GRANT BUDD

haul the fish up for a photo and be sure you support the fish under its belly.

To target a monster flatty does not require superfancy gear, rather any 7’ spin outfit in the 10-20lb range coupled with a 4000 size spin reel running 12-15lb braid and up to 20lb leader depending on water depth, clarity and current speed.

I have caught flatties on small plastics and big dead baits, so options exist for both angling styles.

Lure fishing is definitely the most popular way to get a big flathead and soft vibes from Samaki, Berkley and Jackall are all well worth using.

They are heavy enough to let you cast a long distance and cover a wide area.

These big fish respond very well to big lifts and will often hit the lure on the drop.

It is important if using any lure to stay connected during the fall phase because this is when most bites come.

If you miss that subtle tick when the flatty first hits your lure, it will often turn and engulf the lure, which now means you could get rubbed off.

Taking your time on the bigger fish means they are less likely to panic and thrash about.

The secret to landing one is to keep its head below the surface and break out the net at the last second.

No fish wants to see a big black hole waiting for it, which is one reason why they often go ballistic and break you off boatside or in the shallows.

Getting back to the Frying Pan, this well-known flats area has also seen great bream along with elbow-slapper whiting of late.

Ella Rose Koll extracted a barra from Bli Bli Barra Fishing Park.

Page 32 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

These fish often school together and if surface fishing a quick way to determine what species is following your lure is to pause.

On the pause whiting tend to retreat as fast as they appear, whereas bream will hang around and sit under your lure before smashing it.

This is great visual fun on 2-3kg gear with small surface lures like Bassday Sugapens and Atomic K9 surface walkers, not to mention small poppers.

If you like soft plastics, stick to the very effective small grubs and prawns such as the Squidgy Wriggler and Z-Man EZ ShrimpZ. At this time of year you’ll often find good tailor in the same area, so try medium size poppers and walk the dog lures because the surface hit from a hungry tailor will get the heart pumping.

Be sure to try a variety of retrieve styles and speeds because all too often tailor will hit a slow-moving lure right at your feet.

The Woods Bays, Noosa Sound and Gympie Terrace stretch has seen mixed schools of trevally including golden, diamond, tea-leaf, big-eye and giant feeding hard early of morning and late in the afternoon.

Micro jigs continue to be the pick of the lures for chasing trevally throughout the river, with the Jigpara from Majorcraft a popular choice.

A good tip is to rig these lures with an assist hook on top and treble on the bottom for a better hook-up rate.

Prawn imitations are another consistent producer but ensure you take the time to rig your plastics nice and straight for maximum results.

Further upstream, the ski run has produced smaller school-sized jewfish up to 80cm on prawn imitations including the Chasebaits Smash Prawn and Gladiator Prawn as well as live baits.

In the Maroochy River, bream catches are increasing, with numerous solid fish getting up to the 40cm mark.

The river mouth has been the pick of the spots for big bream, with fresh mullet strips and small pillies the go-to baits.

Chopper tailor and GTs have been schooling together and making their way through the river mouth on the run-in tide.

Small slugs worked fast through the schools of baitfish have claimed their fair share.

Jewfish have been active throughout the river, with most quality fish

caught at night.

Soft vibes including Samaki Thumper Tails and Berkley Shimma Shads are ideal lures due to the vibration emitted when worked, which jewies find irresistible.

Of course, don’t be surprised if you catch a big lizard at night too!

If the wind is blowing too hard, why not take a look at the Bli Bli Barra Park.

This place can certainly put a smile on many an angler’s face, especially one who is yet to land an Aussie icon!

Offshore water temperatures have been perfect for our favourite reef dwellers, with plenty of good-sized fish on the chew.

Be sure to carry a few live baits or sabiki rigs in your kit because live bait can certainly lure the big fish out.

Pearl perch are suckers for a live slimy mackerel and a big bait sorts the small from the huge.

Even though the trout are not as active at this time of year, there is always the chance of finding one when using live yakkas.

Out on the Barwon Banks in the 60m range, good size pearlies up to 70cm have been caught as have cracking snapper.

A great bait presentation has been butterflied slimy mackerel rigged on a set of 5/0 Tru-Turn gang hooks.

You can place this bait on either a paternoster or running sinker rig depending on the current.

Up around Noosa, Sunshine and North reefs have been reliable for catches of snapper, trout, tuskfish, a few large squid and some standout sweetlip.

To the south off Mooloolaba, Nine Mile, Murphys Reef and Gneerings Shoal have seen most anglers boating sweetlip, maori cod, snapper and moses perch.

The late afternoon and into the night have been the preferred times, with quality pilchards, slimies and local squid doing the damage.

The key to night fishing on the local close reefs is to have plenty of berley and fish both a single running sinker rig and a floater consisting of either a large pillie or whole squid for those big snapper.

If the wind is blowing from the south and the swell is light, you can use the headlands of Noosa and Mooloolaba to secure yourself some protection on the shallower reef sections.

The beaches from Coolum to Pincushion have been popular, with tailor sizes improving.

Most anglers are finding the run-in tide after dark the better time to target the bigger fish.

The perfect setup for big tailor involves good strong-scented bait like salted bonito fillets on a two-hook strip bait or gang-hooked rig.

The key to keeping the bait on is to use bait wrap or thread.

This lets you punch casts out and know your bait will not fly off or get picked off in seconds by smaller fish.

Jewies are still going hard at Yaroomba Rocks on the run-in and the sandbags at Cotton Tree on the start of the runout.

Fresh mullet has been responsible for most catches, with live beach worms the winner in the open beach gutters at night.

Chunky bream and tailor have been landed on the open beaches around Teewah, with first light on a run-in tide proving the better time.

One important note when chasing bream in the surf is to throw a handful of berley around your feet, allowing the waves to slowly disperse it.

This helps bring the fish in closer, and remember a little often is better than a lot once in a while.

Away from the salt water, the freshwater impoundments have been producing great fish.

Borumba Dam’s bass have done their trick of trying to spawn and have been found in good numbers around the dam wall.

It should be noted to stay away from the float line for safety reasons.

As the end of August signifies the end of the wild bass closed season, it would be a great idea to plan a day trip into the Noosa Everglades.

This pristine area is a delight to fish and after the spawn you can expect to find good numbers in the lower reaches.

In the cool water it would be best to use a slower retrieve and have suspending lures at the ready, with gold and silver colours personal favourites.

Lake Macdonald will also have schools of bass around the dam wall, so be sure to use side scan and down imaging settings on your sounder while under way to spot the fish.

Lake Macdonald and Borumba both require a Stocked Impoundment Permit, so be sure to get one before you hit the water.

Don’t forget to check in to fishingnoosa.com. au for all the latest up-todate info on fishing and bar crossings.

The knowledgeable teams at Davo’s Tackle World Noosa and Davo’s Northshore Bait & Tackle at Marcoola can provide you with the right equipment, bait and advice to ensure success! www.bnbfishing.com. au

Fraser Island offshore doesn’t disappoint

J

ULY produced a couple of good trips between the windy conditions.

Matt and his crew came out for an offshore trip chasing good size fish.

We headed northeast from the Wide Bay Bar to a nice ledge that runs northwest/southeast with good little reefs all around within a couple of miles.

From this ledge we sniffed out good squire, moses perch, cod and quite a few undersize reds.

Fishing in 60m of water on the eastern side of the ledge, the pearl perch would not play the game, with only five coming on board.

I have caught some very big pearlies on and around that ledge over the past 10 years.

Moving out to the more open smaller reefs, we bagged out on venus tuskfish over the course of the afternoon, with good squire in between.

Matt hooked what I class as a shelf tuskie.

These are big brutes with wonderful white flaky fillets.

I’m sure they taste better as they get bigger out in that clean ocean water.

With a decent bag of fish, we were back at the boat ramp around 9pm.

Tin Can Bay

by RICK WAUGH

Crossing the bar at dark is technical and should only be done with good experience of the area, tides and swell.

The sand spit that runs from just off Inskip Point up about 6km to the main bar entrance has been moving north for a while now, with a shallow break at its far northern point.

If you’re thinking about a bar crossing here at the Wide Bay Bar, you’d best respect it.

A few better fishers than us have lost their lives on it.

Check it out in daylight, running out on the blue lead lights at Inskip Point.

Take some marks and someone who knows the bar, and make observations of the single white light on Fraser Island in respect to the northern end of the sand spit/break.

Over the past decade I have had to face up to some rough conditions, mostly while I was commercial fishing.

Charter trips are 10/15 knots max and the calmer the better, thanks.

For more tips on tack-

ling the Wide Bay Bar, check out Bill Corten’s article on Page 31 in the July edition of BNB. I did a trip with a group recently and got quite a few nice reef fish ranging from pearl perch to big jewies.

We planned on doing a northeasterly run as the wind eased throughout the day.

The forecast was for 15/20 knots and it was for a while, so we tried around the close reefs and the fish played hard ball.

We stepped out a bit and found grass sweetlip, good squire, pearl perch and moses perch in the mix.

With a wind increase likely, I decided to head to a spot for some beach mulloway.

Well my spot did not disappoint, and with a change of tackle to a snooded double 6/0 slammer rig I showed the blokes how to hook their squid up so it would swim like a live one (backwards) and down we went.

The southwesterly wind started getting up straight

away, the current was running back against the wind and things started getting exciting, with Steve cracking the first one.

I must say these magnificent fish crack the squid hard and those Mutsu Gamakatsu 6/0s hook in well as the jewfish fight tough.

Duncan was on straight after Steve, pumping away and bringing a great silver glow up in pinwheels.

I gaffed it and as soon as it came in Tim was onto another big healthy jew.

Only one of the crew missed out.

I put a dead yakka on his line and it was smashed but being harder than the squid, sometimes the hooks just don’t set.

Being good mates, they were quick to call him ‘jewless’ after.

Sorry Chris, yours is waiting for you and getting bigger every day.

The boat at this stage was rocking around, with waves slapping all over the place as we drifted up the anchor line.

We upped the pick, headed straight in over the bar and on to home.

‘Til next time.

Tim with a healthy jewfish.

Matt’s big shelf venus tuskfish. The author was jealous as it looked tasty.

Squid and sweetlip on northern Sunshine Coast

H

I, it’s Craig To m k i n s o n here.

With August upon us, what can we expect to be on the chew?

Well the squid at Tin Can Bay have been good all winter, so I hope they are still around in numbers this month.

I was told by local fishing legend Shaddy to try the range of Yamashita glow squid jigs in 2.2g size.

I bought mine from the chandlery shop at the Tin Can Bay marina.

Each week the squid seem to want a different colour, with no one jig being better than the other.

I just have a couple of rods or handlines each with a different jig on to start and then change colour until I find what they want on the day.

Early morning they seem to bite best and then from 11am until 1.30pm they slow before getting going again until dark.

If we get a heap of rain, they will want the darker jigs.

As I type, we have been getting big rain showers on the Sunshine Coast for days on end, so the local rivers are in a semi-flood

www.bnbfishing.com. au

Noosa to Fraser Coast

by CRAIG TOMKINSON

state, with dirty water going offshore.

This will make the squidding harder but fire up the reef fish.

The big grass sweetlip will be on the hunt in close to Noosa.

Noosa River Bar is shallow and two 10m cats have run aground in the past few months along with dozens of smaller boats.

I wonder if council will ever dredge the channel?

I hope so, considering the council is the main cause of it getting shallower due to pumping sand from the river or just off the rock wall back onto Noosa Main Beach.

The natural current that runs northward then carts the sand back up and dumps it on the Noosa Bar. I was at a training meeting the other day and got talking to a bloke who attended meetings with council and coast guard years ago, and apparently the boundary of Noosa North Shore National Park is right in the bar, so council cannot dredge that part of the river.

What a load of rub-

bish that is.

Surely they can get their crap sorted and get permission to dredge a deeper channel before someone is seriously hurt or killed.

With the Rainbow Beach Family Fishing Classic coming up, there should be great fishing in close thanks to the wet weather.

Good luck to all entrants in the comp.

I would love to fish it but am off to Weipa for three weeks fishing instead.

For me, it comes down to fishable days for my money.

It would cost me $500 to $1000 to fish the comp once I factor in accommodation, bait, ice and fuel, and at best I might get offshore three to five days out of eight.

For a bit more money I can tow my 5m tinnie to Weipa and be gone for 26 days, fishing offshore for 21 days in a row if I’d like.

I can do my whole year’s offshore reef fishing in one place if I want and be warm at the same time.

It’s a no brainer for me.

Steve and Tim pulled the double trouble jew trick.

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Winter squidding in the Great Sandy Strait

W

INTER in the Great Sandy Strait produces nice arrow squid.

The author with a respectable Great Sandy Strait squid.

Don’t discard the tentacles, as they make a great appetiser.

They taste divine and chasing them usually makes for a fun-filled day.

Don’t be afraid to take the kids because they will have a ball and probably even get Mum or Dad inked at some stage.

This is low-cost fishing.

Simple gear such as a 7’, 2-4kg rod, 8lb line, 2000-3000 size spin reel, a couple of squid jigs and a bottle of tuna oil will see you into the squid.

Drifting over the weed beds or rubble bottom seems to be the best way to fish for squid in this area, and you can cover plenty of country.

We put out two rods each.

One rod we hold and use a soft lifting motion to jig while the other sits in the holder, bobbing along to keep the squid interested.

It always pays to keep a couple of jigs in the water.

Dipping the jigs in a tub of tuna oil is another way to entice the squid to eat your jig, especially if they are a bit finicky on the day.

The downside is that it can also attract the attention of a sea toad.

If you retrieve a jig and find it destroyed, it will normally be the handywork of these critters.

Squid can be leader shy,

Fishing Trip

by MELISSA FROHLOFF

so it’s a good idea to use 10lb fluorocarbon.

The colour and size of a squid jig can be the determining factor in catching a feed or missing out.

We find 2.5 and 3 size in 10-14.5g weights have been working a treat in the Strait.

Pink, orange and green have produced the best catches.

The price of jigs can also make a difference.

The cheaper jigs will still catch squid but dearer jigs are made with higher-quality components and the material will withstand the attack of a squid’s sharp beak, lasting longer.

When the material on the lure becomes damaged, it will affect the lure’s action and reduce your catch.

Pick a calm day.

Fish to the top of the tide and the start of the outgoing, regardless of the time of day.

You need some run in the tide for the squid to be active.

They go off the bite at the top and bottom of the tide.

Midday high tides present a great way to fish if you want to take the family out on the water.

You don’t need an early rise in the freezing cold.

Lifting a squid into the

The author’s sister Emma found out what it was like to be inked by an arrow squid.

boat and straight into a bucket can work well for adults.

If you have kids on board, a net over the side would be advised.

They will at some stage shoot the ink from their sack in defence, causing an awful mess if you are not ready.

You can slide your finger between the body and backbone to kill the squid instantly, which will make handling easier, stop the release of ink and increase eating quality.

Make sure you look after your catch and put them in an ice slurry.

Cleaning squid is messy.

Hold the body and remove the head, pulling out the ink sack, clear skeleton and innards.

Cut off the tentacles in front of the eyes and remove the beak, keeping the tentacles for stir fry,

soup or crumbing.

Working from the head end, remove the skin by peeling it back towards the tip.

Remove the flaps from the skin and you’ll find these can be used in the same way as the tube.

Rinse the squid’s body and slice crosswise to make squid rings.

The secret to cooking squid is to do it over high heat and fast.

You will find calamari can be quite rubbery if you cook it slowly.

Crumbed squid rings, salt and pepper squid, squid balls, deep-fried tentacles, Thai-style stirfried squid or my latest recipe squid linguine (below left) are only a few suggestions for the delicious food you can create from your catch.

Who’s hungry for a feed of squid!?

All squid jigs will catch fish, though more expensive jigs will withstand the attack of the parrot-like beak of a squid and last longer.

Old time fishing in familiar country

W

I N T E R means cold weather and even though I don’t like the cold at all, it is the best time to go fishing for whiting, bream and flatties.

by MELISSA FROHLOFF

Squid linguine Ingredients: • 450g cleaned squid tubes, cut into thin strips • 300g linguine • 4 cloves garlic, crushed • 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped • 525g tomato and basil pasta sauce • 2 eschalottes, finely chopped • 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes • 125ml dry white wine • Salt and cracked pepper • 1 tbsp olive oil Method: 1. Heat oil in a heavy-based pan, add garlic and eschalottes, cook and stir for a few minutes

over medium heat.

2. Reduce heat, add chilli flakes and parsley, stirring for 30 seconds. Add tomato and basil pasta sauce.

3. Tip in white wine. Bring sauce to bubble and cook for 10 minutes until sauce starts to thicken.

4. Put a large pan of water on the boil and follow packet instructions to cook linguine.

5. Stir the squid into the sauce and by the time the sauce comes back to the boil the squid should be cooked and tender.

6. Drain pasta and add to the squid sauce. Toss to combine.

Add salt and cracked pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh parsley.

Prep time: 15 min | Cook time: 25-30 min | Serves 4 Page 34 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

I grew up fishing for these species with my parents and old memories never die.

I was raised in a country area around north Bundaberg where the Kolan River and Baffle Creek, just to name a couple, were right on my back doorstep.

A lot of things have changed since then but not the species… they are still there.

As kids, we took turns going with Dad to different spots to pump yabbies for bait on the saltwater flats.

Sometimes we would throw the cast net and get little poddy mullet for chasing the bigger flatties.

We’d gather our selection of baits, Mum would make our lunch for the next day and we’d get up early and head out to the creek for a full day’s fishing.

We would fish all day but anchor for smoko and lunch and put lines

Fishing Tips

by HELEN ABDY

out while we poured a cuppa and had a sanga, which was usually the time when something would take our baits.

Though we would never really complain.

When the fishing was quiet, we’d joke-about and say out loud: “It’s time for a cuppa”.

The outcome was to bring home a feed, which would last us until the next trip.

I think back now and they were absolutely the best days.

I also remember back then as we grew with the times, becoming more aware of sportfishing so that after we’d caught a feed, and if the fish were still on the chew, we’d catch and release and marvel at the fun of landing these fish and watching them swim away saying “catch you when you’re bigger”.

With these times we also added to our selection of artificial ‘baits’ for these bread and butter species, and, as it turned out, other species

that also inhabited these creek systems.

What I’m discovering now is how many more ways you can catch these fish using lures that probably weren’t designed with them in mind.

There are no set ways to fish these lures, you can mix it up and experiment.

Lures on the market today are mostly designed and marketed to catch specific species.

And they do, but nothing is wrong with mixing it up and seeing what other species they might attract.

When the fishing is a bit quiet, try something different.

Go smaller, mix up the retrieve, go slow, and sometimes go really, really slow.

Bottom line, excuse the pun, don’t be afraid to mix things up.

Years ago, we’d troll for flathead.

We were dragging lures up and back over likely looking areas and then be close enough to the flatties that they would be comfortable to leave their hiding spots to grab a feed.

What is a likely spot?

Drop-offs, weedy edges, sandbanks that drop into deeper channels, drains that come out of mangrove creeks and creek mouths. ☛ continued P35

Even this juvenile grass sweetlip couldn’t resist a blade.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

Go lighter to get the winter biters W INTER is in full stride.

We had a fairly rough ending to June, with a few tours cancelled due to poor weather, but it seems to have passed and I expect to see more glassy afternoon conditions.

Fortunately the bite has been steady, even if it’s not the easiest fishing.

I expect the fishing to get a bit tougher, especially around the neap tides.

Things to try when the bite is tough include lighter lures and leaders.

Lighter lures often waft and sink more realistically, and can be fished with slower actions and retrieves.

Just think of holding a soft plastic – have you ever noticed how difficult

Fraser Guided Fishing

by TRI TON

it is to hold the lure dead still?

It’s basically impossible, so sometimes less is indeed more.

Dead sticking can be extremely effective on fussy fish.

Just be sure the lure is actually in the vicinity of some fish.

Often teamed with a light lure is a light leader.

It can be important to help the lure sink and transmit the feel of soft bites or the bottom.

A light leader is obviously skinnier and harder to see, something to consider with the smaller winter tides and cooler

Ian with a nice calamari.

water – two factors that control affect clarity.

So far this winter I have not needed to use silly weights or light leaders.

Time will tell.

The above should catch you anything from snapper to tuna in the next month.

Yes, tuna.

You may not see them boiling on the surface but they are often schooled with trevally and snapper and they commonly eat the lure on the bottom.

It is crazy how regularly we multi hook-up snapper and tuna, especially longtails, and of course the usual trevs.

It can be great fun when the sharks go on holiday, battling hard-running diamonds and stoic goldens and brassies.

Thankfully these fish are generally manageable on light snapper gear.

The tuna can be a handful, especially when they break the metre mark.

A few nice queenies are around too.

Mostly sub-metre fish but the odd horse is mixed in.

It would be nice to see the numbers stay around, particularly if a few horses remain in the game.

Do not fish light leaders for queenfish because they will often rub the

leader to failure.

I recommend a quality, hard-wearing 30lb leader as a minimum on fish that might be around or over a metre.

I have had them wear out 40lb leaders in the past.

They have highly abrasive teeth.

Queenfish are fast and honest sportfish.

In winter they don’t seem to jump as much and hence do not burn themselves out.

If you catch them, be quick with photos and swim them before release, especially when the water is warmer.

Diamond trevally are another fish you need to be careful with.

They too will burn themselves out, and if caught from deep water (anything over 15m) will at times suffer from barotrauma.

If required, I use a release weight to plumb the fish back down.

If that doesn’t work, it goes into the Esky.

They are good table fare.

Fast photos will also reduce mortality rates.

As a general rule, keep the fish out of water for as short a period as possible.

If you are eating the fish, it doesn’t matter, but let’s not kid ourselves about catch and release.

Do so with caution, because what’s the point if you throw back a compromised or dead fish.

Remember what catch and release is meant to be about: putting the welfare of the fish first.

The photo is nice to have, but it doesn’t compare to a fish that is recaught after packing on a few more pounds and potentially spawning another generation.

Ming and Brook scored a cracking double hook-up.

Adrian learnt tuna are definitely no joke, especially metre-plus specimens hooked on snapper gear.

BOB – Bait-only Brock with a non-bait spanish mackerel.

Old time fishing in familiar country ☛ from P34

Then casting became more common and myself I still find it more exciting.

What you do is position yourself in a likely spot and spread your casts around.

Sometimes, one cast is all it takes.

It can be a case of don’t be in a hurry – it could take 20 or more casts in the same spot to attract attention.

Over the years I have taken a real liking to metal blades.

They are seemingly trivial pieces of metal with some hooks attached

but when retrieved they resemble a baitfish with attitude.

Just experimenting with these lures in different sizes and weights, I’ve caught an assortment of species from bass to barra in fresh water and whiting to barra in the salt.

An old saying in fishing that originated in the fly fishing world is ‘match the hatch’.

If you’re chasing barra, you’re not going to intentionally catch one using a size 4 hook with a yabby for bait on the sand flats.

If you’re chasing whiting, you’re not going to intentionally catch one

Everything loves blades.

A quality whiting.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

by casting a 20+ diving Mann’s lure around the rocks.

You really need to be using something that’s going to resemble the bait those fish might want to eat.

Metal blades don’t look like something they would eat but their action and vibration in the water resembles bait.

I believe putting assist hooks at the rear resembles a prawn fleeing with its feelers out the back.

I recently spent a couple of weeks fishing the mouth of Baffle Creek.

It’s such a great river system uninhibited by weirs or dams so it gets the full advantage of tidal movements and wet season flood, with fish moving freely throughout the system.

Removing both front and rear hooks off 7g blades and placing assist hooks at the rear generated plenty of movement when casting over the flats during low tides.

Mixing the retrieve up from a stop, lift, stop and sometimes just a steady retrieve with the occasional stop produced fish.

Whiting love a constant, fast retrieve.

A light-tipped 2-4kg spin rod with a good-quality 2500 size reel makes casting these light lures easier.

Not only flathead and whiting but also estuary cod, yellowfin pike and bream were among the

species caught.

Using a heavier blade means it drops to the bottom quicker, which is what you need when the tide has more movement.

In the shallower water, it will stay close to the bottom and stir up the sand and mud as you retrieve, which in turn is an attractant.

A lighter weight blade can also be used in the stronger tides because it will sink slower but also cover more ground on the drop, which

> Hervey Bay > Fraser Island > Sandy Strait

attracts the bream.

You must keep contact with the lure on the drop and not have a big belly in the line.

Nothing is better than spending quality time on the water and catching a few fish.

Some days are doughnuts where nothing works, but you’re bound to have more success if you’re not afraid to mix things up.

It’s all about having fun.

Enjoy and happy fishing.

The author’s first flatty on a blade.

Get into the best fishing action!

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www.fraserguidedfishing.com.au > 0427 230 261 Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 35

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Page 36 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

Back in the groove wide of Fraser Island

H

I readers, it’s been a while since my last article but I’ve been enjoying great fishing around the Fraser and Brisbane regions.

With a fantastic-looking forecast recently, a group of us decided to head north of the Wide Bay Bar around the southern Gardner Banks region off Fraser Island.

I like to head up to this area once a year if the weather allows and then fish my way south over a few days, finishing off at Double Island Point.

We made our way out the Wide Bay Bar very early of a morning and set the Furuno autopilot for a long run north.

We fished various spots along the way with limited success, other than getting bricked into the reef using Zerek Fish Trap vibes.

Once we started fishing rough country around the southern Gardner Banks we pulled venus tuskfish, moses perch, amberjack and green jobfish but overall the fishing was extremely slow.

We headed to an area where I’ve caught big reds in the past and though we don’t normally get many, the size usually makes up for it.

This area has some smaller rocks spread out over a fairly large area of live bottom, so you need to adopt a slightly different technique to successfully find the reds.

What I mean by live bottom is where you identify many forms of coral growth on the seabed, which a well set up sounder will identify.

Though this growth is more commonly found on rocks and reefs, it can also inhabit a flat sea floor, which doesn’t stand out easily on the sounder and will often be overlooked.

The problem with fishing these areas is fish such as red emperor tend to spread out and roam around looking for food.

This ‘grazing’ makes it hard to locate lone reds and drop a bait in front of them like we do on small rocks.

The best technique to adopt here is to do long drifts over these areas to cover more ground and give enough time for the reds to find the baits.

To further increase your chances, it’s important to keep your baits on the bottom at all times, so I recommend using a paternoster rig with enough weight to hold bottom during windy days or strong current situations.

I also back up with the current or into the wind so our lines are up and down under the boat.

This gives you the best chance of ensuring your baits are on the bottom where the red emperor feed.

We arrived at our location and found the current running hard at around two knots, which meant more time for me on the wheel nudging the boat in and out of reverse trying

Offshore

by GREG LAMPRECHT

to keep the baits in the strike zone.

The plus side to the strong current was our drifts were much faster and we covered the large live bottom areas a lot faster.

The drifts were about 300-400m long and right at the end of the second drift, Dad got smashed and line screamed from his reel.

The fish was putting up a solid fight with big head shakes and more big runs that had us very hopeful.

We were all looking over the side with anticipation and soon enough saw that red glow down deep get bigger and bigger as it approached the surface.

It was a beautiful 15.1kg red and I was so happy to see Dad catch it because he’d been through some health issues after being diagnosed with bladder cancer and having a tumour removed.

Due to some complications and infection, he endured a couple of long stays in hospital, so it had been a rough few months for him.

As I write, he goes back in for more surgery tomorrow to remove more of his bladder, so fingers crossed we can get this hurdle out of the way and he can continue fishing for many years to come.

After taking some pics of the red, we went back for another drift and patiently waited to see if we could find another one.

This style of fishing can be slow and after another couple of hours and many drifts we had dropped another two really big fish, which was super frustrating.

The fish were shy and biting really lightly, which made them hard to hook and when we did, the hooks were pulling easily, meaning we were only hooking them in the lips or side of the face.

We noticed that Dad’s 15.1kg fish had been hooked in the side of the cheek, confirming they were being very finicky.

With time getting away, we decided to move to another area nearby that held lots of bigger rocks and reefs.

We started catching a range of reefies but I was hoping for a big redthroat emperor, like those this area has produced many times before.

We kept fishing from rock to rock and I finally hooked a decent fish.

It pulled some line and was very jerky, so I had a fair idea it was a redthroat, but how big was the question.

It turned out to be a beautiful one at 64cm, and though we’ve caught them just shy of 70cm, I find any redthroat over 60cm is a pretty rare catch.

We persisted in the area for a few hours and caught nice reefies but all the reds we hooked were sharked, which was extremely frustrating.

The afternoon was getting on, so we went in closer to Fraser to try to

get out of the current and anchor for the afternoon and night.

We did a drift over a likely looking spot and hooked what felt like two good reds but the mongrel sharks smashed both fish midway up.

Going back for another drift, once again good fish were hooked and sharked, so we went searching for another spot instead of continuing to waste good fish.

We anchored for the night and the current was roaring, which made it extremely hard to fish, but we managed to catch some hussar, moses perch and one red for our efforts.

The next morning, we headed back to the area where we had caught the big red the day before and started sounding my way south in new areas where we hadn’t found ☛ continued P37

The author landed this cracking large fin snapper, also known as frying pan snapper, 30km east of Double Island Point.

Rob ‘Macca’ McNamara with a cracking 14.3kg red caught from a newly found rock after more than five hours of sounding.

Using paternoster rigs and hussar/mullet for bait accounted for nice red emperor including this specimen boated by David Fox.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

COMPETITION DATES Doing long drifts over an area with flat live bottom produced this 15.1kg red emperor for Terry Lamprecht.

Back in the groove wide of Fraser Island ☛ from P36

any ground before.

The weather was unreal, with a total glassout, which makes it easy for sounding around at 20-plus knots and finding even the smallest rocks.

After over five hours of zig-zagging south through a large area we finally came across a small rock.

It didn’t look all that special but we had a drop and pulled some hussar and venus tuskfish before we continued looking around.

We soon found another rock close by and decided to keep searching around that area because it’s very

common to find many rocks in one area.

After about an hour of searching I had marked 12 new rocks within one square kilometre.

One rock in particular showed up 40m to the starboard side on the new Furuno DFF3D. By simply touching the location of the rock on the Furuno TZtouch2 screen I marked its location on the other Furuno TZtouch2 plotter and was able to pinpoint it straight away.

The beam on the DFF3D is 120 degrees wide, so in 50m of water the beam covers 100m of ground, which can be very handy

The author with a beautiful 64cm redthroat emperor taken near the southern Gardner Banks off Fraser Island.

for finding new marks.

After fishing a lot of the new rocks without much success, we moved to the one I had found on the 3D. I checked it out with the Furuno 295 and narrowbeam transducer and it had the best-looking show of them all, with good fish close to the rock and above it.

The current was now 2.8 knots, so I stayed on the wheel, putting the outboard in and out of reverse to keep everyone’s lines up and down and baits on the bottom.

As we drifted over the rock, Macca sunk the hooks into a good fish and line screamed from his Shimano Stella reel.

After losing good fish the day before to sharks and pulled hooks, Macca’s confidence was down and he was extremely nervous pulling this fish up.

All that doubt soon disappeared when a cracking red of 14.3kg hit the surface and was safely netted.

Reds over 14kg are truly special fish and not only was Macca happy but I was stoked as well.

I’ve been lucky enough to catch some great reds over the years and while I love catching them, I also get a huge thrill out of finding new ground and reaping the rewards with trophy fish.

We went back for a second drift and it wasn’t long before all the crew was hooked up and battling good fish.

Unfortunately, Macca’s fish was sharked pretty quickly but Dad managed to pull a red of about 8kg while Foxy struggled to get his moving off the bottom.

The Furuno FCV-295 and DFF3D showing a newly found rock that produced quality fish.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

After a fair battle he pulled a huge blackspotted cod to the surface, so I quickly released the air from its swim bladder by making a small incision a couple of inches behind the pectoral fin.

Once the majority of the air was gone, it made some kicks and swam back towards the bottom.

A couple more drifts over this rock resulted in very little, so I moved onto another rock I had marked close by.

Unfortunately, Foxy nailed another monster cod but we had a lot more trouble releasing this fish and had to make up a release weight that allowed us to lower the fish enough for it to swim back to the bottom.

After searching the area some more with little success, I continued south, fishing various marks along the way.

By now it was late afternoon and we were about 80km south of where we had started searching that morning.

After more sounding I came across a nice show of fish sitting off the back of an older spot I had in the bank.

First drift resulted in a double hook-up of reds, with Foxy pulling a nice one weighing around 12kg.

We captured five nice reds from this spot before it went quiet, and with the sun starting to disappear, I headed in a little closer towards Double Island Point while fishing various older marks along the way, which accounted for one more red.

The next morning we fished 30-40km off Double Island Point and the Wide Bay Bar, which produced moses perch, venus tuskfish, pearl perch, amberjack, snapper and one of the biggest frying pan snapper I’ve ever seen.

It turned out to be a great trip with high-quality fish caught and many smiles and laughs along the way.

The fishing certainly wasn’t action packed but we made the most of the great weather, covering a massive 507km to get the results.

Until next time, tight lines.

COMPETITION

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LOCATION

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Aug 11-19 Aug 17-18 Aug 17-18 Aug 24-25

Rainbow Beach – rainbowbeachfishingclassic.com Somerset Dam – Russell Nowland 07 4167 8183 Borumba Dam – FB @noosafishheadz Miles – 0408 777 811 E: miles4x4@machinerysolu tions.com.au Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club – 07 3396 8161 moretonbayfishingclassic.com.au Dam TBA – Russell Nowland 07 4167 8183 Lake Wivenhoe – reelwivenhoeclassic.com.au Fitzroy River FB @events/182647292394368 Moreton Island moretonislandadventures.com.au Somerset Dam – Russell Nowland 07 4167 8183 Emu Park – emuparkfishingclassic.com.au Rockhampton – Shara VanHaeren 0429 923 243 Maroochydore – FB @scfaustralia

ARB Moreton Island Aug 27-31 Fishing Classic ABBT* Bass Aug 31Round 4 Sep 1 Emu Park Fishing Sep 6-8 Classic Women that Fish Sep 6-7 Barra Classic Sunshine Coast Fishing Sep 13 Research & Sustainability Competition Western Downs Sep 14-15 Condamine – 0408 777 811 Carp Busters Round 2 E: miles4x4@machinerysolu tions.com.au ABBT* Bass Sep 21-22 Wuruma Dam – Russell Nowland Round 5 07 4167 8183 Bowen Family Fishing Sep 21-22 Bowen – Russ McCabbin Classic 0428 776 653 E: bowenfamily fishingclassic@yahoo.com.au Flathead Oct 1-4 Gold Coast flatheadclassic.com.au Classic Monduran Family Oct 19-20 Lake Monduran – Gin Gin masa-fishstocking.org.au Fishing Classic Rocky Barra Oct 21-23 Rockhampton Bounty rockybarrabounty.com Lake Moondarra Oct 25-27 Lake Moondarra lakemoondarrafishingclassic.com.au Fishing Classic ABBT* Bass Nov 30Dam TBA – Russell Nowland Grand Final Dec 1 07 4165 4286 or 07 4167 8183 *Australian Basstasstic Bass Tournament To have your competition listed in the calendar please phone (07) 3286 1833, email design@bnbfishing.com.au or fax (07) 3821 2637

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 37

The view from the Air Fraser Island plane showed a big channel running parallel to the beach out the back of some inner gutters that were a bit chopped up from big swell.

Fraser Island, and Eurong Beach Resort, is a great place for a group birthday bash.

Celebrating on Fraser Island E

VERY trip to Fraser Island is special to me, but my 30th trip to the island in 24 years was just that little bit extra special.

The author’s son Josh with a beautiful grunter caught on plastics in a couple of feet of water on the western side of Fraser.

The tennis courts are a great option for the family, with friendly rivalry always on the cards.

Alvey medium tailor rig

Pre-ganged Tru-Turn 4 x 4/0 hooks with swivels

Celebrating in style at Eurong Beach Resort, my family and friends had a great trip despite some very trying weather, particularly 3-4m swells and southeasterly wind to 30-plus knots at times.

The trip proved a couple of things to me.

First, you can catch fish in all weather and winds at Fraser.

And second, Fraser, and Eurong Beach Resort in particular, is a perfect spot as a family group destination for a birthday bash or similar.

Eurong Beach Resort As mentioned, my host destination for this trip was Eurong Beach Resort, which is perfectly located centrally along the beach front, close to many sightseeing destinations and nearby fishing hot spots.

My wife and I have been visiting Eurong since we were dating way back in the 1990s, so it was only fitting the resort played host to my 50th birthday bash.

What I like about this resort is it has so much to offer, whether you are there with a group of

by SEAN THOMPSON

mates for a fishing trip, a family, a couple, or a big group of 18 like we were.

A variety of accommodation options cater for all budgets, from hotel rooms to two-bedroom apartments complete with fully equipped kitchens.

There are also ‘superior’ options in both choices for those who like a few extra comforts.

Eurong Beach Resort often has a range of deals going and their prices are below what you come to expect to pay in other resort locations – with the bonus of the natural beauty and fishing of Fraser Island!

What’s more, when the wind is up or a bit of rain is about, as we experienced, it is much more pleasant coming back to a hot shower and comfortable facilities than a sandy and cold tent, especially when you have invited guests who have travelled a long, long way.

All rooms come with your own deck/patio or balcony with various views.

These are not only a great place to store and rig up some of the fishing 60 -70cm 30lb fluoro

Black size 10 swivel

25cm 30lb fluoro Soft green bead

Fraser Trip

Black size 10 swivel

6-10 ball sinker

Dropper medium tailor rig 50cm

50lb fluoro 20cm

15cm

15cm

2-3 star sinker Pre-ganged Tru-Turn 4 x 4/0 hooks with swivels

Black size 8 swivel 15cm

Surf fly y with 3/0 hook k

Surf popper Su with treble

Diagram 1: tailor rigs.

Page 38 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

rods and gear (try carrying a bunch of rods into some other resort locations and see how far you get!), but also a top place to end the day with mates or family chatting over a drink about the day’s fishing and sightseeing.

One key benefit of Eurong Beach Resort for a group or family get-together is it is fully fenced from the dingoes and sits away from the designated road (beach).

This means you have no fears for the kids playing basketball, volleyball, touch football or anything else unaccompanied on the huge grass expanses of the resort.

Other resort facilities include barbecues, a tennis court, two swimming pools, a restaurant and dining area and Beach Bar. The shop also has fuel, plenty of food and drink options and heaps of very reasonably priced souvenirs and fishing shirts.

Surprisingly, the many bait options are also only a dollar or two different in price to mainland tackle shops, despite the added transport costs, so don’t feel you need to bring all your pilchards and other frozen bait with you and risk transporting too much or it defrosting on long trips.

The bakery is also the perfect option for morning tea or lunch and as a bonus, the baker, Harry, delights in making special birthday cakes and mine was an absolute ripper (see picture).

The Eurong Beach Resort team pulled off a fantastic group dinner for us, as we feasted on a range of tasty pizzas, garlic breads and salads with plenty of cold beers to go with it.

It even came complete with balloons for the celebration, for a fantastic night enjoyed by all.

Finally, the dollar coin wash-down facilities

in the parking area are a great option to remove excess sand and salt at the end of the day and give the waders, wading bags and bait buckets a freshen up to avoid complaints of bad smells in the car.

The fishing – tailor While Fraser is noted for its tailor fishing, unfortunately the only tailor we got all week was my son catching one by jigging soft plastics off the Kingfisher Bay jetty.

This was simply a result of the very big swells we experienced thanks to strong southeasterly wind.

However, the good news is (as we saw from our Air Fraser Island scenic flight) great gutters and a big long channel run parallel to shore out the back of these gutters.

When the wind eases and changes to a westerly (as forecast for the next week as I write), the swells will drop, the baitfish will move back in close to shore and with them will come the tailor and mighty mulloway.

Apart from looking for the usual gutters, try some of the rocky outcrops close to Eurong including Poyungan and Yidney rocks.

In addition to tailor and jewfish, you will catch tarwhine and bream on pipis and worms in the middle of the day at these locations.

In fact, just as this article was being finalised, two days after returning home, sure enough I read all the above has happened and some tailor were caught at Poyungun Rocks!

Also, in last month’s article, unfortunately there was a bit of a mix-up with the pictures of my tailor rigs.

Diagram 1 shows my two main types of tailor rigs.

If bait fishing for tailor, pilchards are a mainstay and very reliable.

I prefer IQF pilchards because you waste too many pilchards in the jigsaw-type blocks, with them snapping off when you try to break it up or pull a few off when you don’t have time for the pack to defrost.

An added tip I picked up from Cliff Andreassen on an Australian Fishing Network video a few years ago is to bleed your tailor over the pilchards in your bait bucket to add more scent and oil to the pilchards.

It really works.

For bigger tailor, use strips of bonito, legal size tailor and even dart.

Hiding from the wind In strong southeasterly wind, you can seek protection in a few places.

The first is along the beach just north of Indian Head or Waddy Point.

However, this area will be out of bounds to all fishing from 400m south of Indian Head to 400m north or Waddy Point from midday on August 1 to midday on September 30, 2019 due to the annual closure for tailor spawning.

If you sneak in a lateJuly fish in this area, it can be very productive.

On our trip we found ☛ continued P39

The author’s birthday cake, a masterpiece from the Eurong Beach Resort bakery.

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Offshore success out of Bundaberg

T

HE past month has seen several opportunities to head offshore for those with ‘credit’ in the bank or able to dodge commitments.

With the wind seeming to blow constantly for the past 18 months, opportunities for an offshore trip have been limited.

After many months looking at the boat and waiting for an opportunity, a couple of days of good weather appeared to be opening and I started planning a trip offshore.

Together with my son Lachlan and mate Chis and his son Brennan, we took the opportunity to head out and had success fishing some country I had fished before.

The area we fished, like much of the country off Bundaberg, consisted of scattered rubble with some minor features and small bommies.

We had planned our arrival time to coincide with the sunrise but as we had enjoyed a great trip out sitting on an average of 35km/h, we arrived a little early, so had the opportunity to survey some of the marks I had previously fished to check for any notable shows.

We had planned to troll for spanish mackerel on arrival as we checked the marks but with the sky overcast and no sun get-

Bundaberg Region

by BRAD YOUNG

ting through the clouds, decided to bottom fish from the get-go.

The first three or so marks had little or nothing to show, so we moved on to the next cluster of marks where two had good shows, so the decision was made to add sinkers and hooks to our pre-rigged paternosters, bait up and prepare to drop.

I usually take the opportunity to complete a couple of drifts over a target to check the drift line before anchoring to help ensure I drop the anchor in a position to have us sitting a little up-current of the target.

As we had arrived about mid-tide, the current/tidal stream was still fairly strong and saw us moving quite quickly away from the mark.

A relatively strong northeasterly wind was blowing too, which made the task of anchoring a little more of a challenge.

It is difficult to predict which way a boat will sit when tide and wind are not in unison.

After a couple of drifts I planned where to drop the anchor, threw it over and we sent our baits over the

side to see what we could pull up.

We were using WA pilchards, squid and poddy mullet as well as fresh flesh baits.

It wasn’t long before we landed fish, with a grass sweetlip quickly followed by a couple of baldy bream, which we used as flesh baits.

While the fish were not coming over the side in a flurry, we were kept busy with small red emperor and the occasional nuisance triggerfish to test our strength.

Lachlan had a great tussle on his hands with one fish.

We were hoping it might be a legal red, big grassy or tuskie.

Unfortunately, it was a hard-fighting morwong/ thicklip/slatey.

We all shared his disappointment after the hard work he put in to get it to the boat.

The radio chatter from those a little further north near Musgrave Island and Fitzroy Reef told us they were experiencing scuds of rain and wind and the conditions were worse than we were experiencing.

However, the northeasterly wind had created a cross swell/chop that

made the conditions quite jiggly.

We also realised that while we were not putting a heap of fish into the box, we were doing quite well compared to those we were listening to.

We continued to catch a mix of species, with the undersized reds becoming a nuisance, as well as another baldy bream and a couple of small cod and squire just under the legal limit.

Each time we contemplated a move though, someone would land another fish that kept our interest up.

The fishing continued like this until just after the tide turned.

Things slowed markedly then, so we decided to up anchor and move 8km westward to another patch of country.

This area was similar to where we had fished first, comprising rough country with plenty of scattered bottom features.

As the tide had changed, we completed a couple of drifts, dropped anchor and prepared to send our lines out.

Unfortunately, we were hammered by small stuff so decided to move again.

We found another area close by that had a good show and we again anchored.

This area produced squire and a couple more

tuskies as well as nice hussar to add to the box.

While the fish did not come over the side quickly or in big numbers, we put together a box of 20 fish including squire, hussar, grass sweetlip and some tuskies.

We also caught and released about 25 juvenile red emperor, which were so prevalent they were a genuine nuisance.

I hope good karma will see us landing a legal one at this spot in future!

I am now looking forward to another opportunity and the chance to target new ground when the next break occurs in the weather.

As always, I can be contacted via the Bush ‘n Beach website, by email at fishnboat@bigpond.com or post at PO Box 5812 Bundaberg West Queensland 4670.

Until next month…

Lachlan with the slatey he landed after a tough battle.

A respectable mixed box of fish for the day.

Celebrating a fantastic 50th on Fraser Island ☛ from P38

The author’s son Mattie landed a nice flathead on the Kingfisher Bay flats.

lovely shallow whiting gutters north of Indian Head and landed a few fish on beach worms and pipis despite still being somewhat exposed to the wind further away from the headland.

Those fishing nearby were only catching dart because they were fishing in deeper water.

This is so often the case, particularly on Fraser’s main beach.

Low or high tide, shallow gutters are better for whiting.

Fraser’s flats Another great option in strong southeasterly wind is the western or calm side

Wash-down facilities at the resort are very handy for your 4WD and fishing gear at the end of each day.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

of the island, particularly when a bit of easterly is in the wind, as the island provides some protection.

However, the further you venture from the shore on the flats, or if there is a decent bit of southerly or northerly to the wind, you will be more exposed.

In this case, just try to position yourself to cast with the wind for extra distance.

During our trips to the western side, we fished mostly with soft plastics, though some of the younger kids used live yabbies pumped from the flats.

Using soft plastics we caught a variety of fish including barred grunter, giant trevally, flathead, bream, dart and a few extras such as pike and even remoras.

As usual, the discoloured water from the southeasterlies meant more variety in terms of fish, but either the dirty water or the professional netters seen netting the flats at Kingfisher Bay might have explained why the flathead (and whiting) numbers were down.

Why commercial fishing is still allowed along the foreshores of Fraser Island, a tourist mecca, is beyond me.

Our go-to plastics on this occasion were a mix of Madeye soft plastics

from the Halco Tackle brand.

These are very strong and come in a variety of styles, sizes and colours.

Our favourites include the 4” prawn and 3” and 5” models in Pearl, Fluoro Pink and Amber Oil. The best fishing, as usual, came in the last two hours of the run-out and first hour of the run-in.

Our successful target locations were the entrances of creek mouths and shallow drains, sandy patches among weed and the deeper ledges or dropoffs, particularly for the bigger fish like grunter.

We didn’t get up there this trip, but inside the mouth and along the flats of Wathumba Creek is another excellent location.

We worked our plastics on the flats in a few different ways, including a simple three hops and pause approach, a sideways flick, flick, flick, pause in shallower water, or a slow wind and pause approach along the bottom.

Mix it up, as some days one action works better than others.

Kingfisher Bay jetty Another great option for those arriving via the Kingfisher barge, or even for a day trip from Eurong, is the Kingfisher Bay jetty and nearby flats.

Apart from the fishing,

This is awesome fun you can grab a very nice coffee from the Sunset and a great way to get Bar at the start of the jetty people not used to soft or have lunch at the near- plastics fishing onto fun

by Sand Bar and Bistro. fishing action, as I did If you want to mix your with young kids and some trip up a bit you could of the women on our trip. also add a night or two at We caught a variety one of the rooms or villas of trevally, bream, pike, at Kingfisher Bay Resort fingermark, a tailor and and fish the jetty during more using 6’6” to 7’ the peak night-time pe- graphite rods and 2000riod.

2500 reels.

There have been, and My go-to combo for the still are, some monster trip was my Quantum fish caught from this jetty, Smoke inshore combo but the great thing is the – these things are still sheer variety on offer, flying under the radar in even during the middle of Australia but are highly the day. regarded and used by While bait anglers do most tournament bass anwell with bream, flathead, glers in the US. bonito, tailor and more off For the budget-minded here, soft plastic and live or a great kids’ combo, try bait fishing can be very the Jarvis Walker 6’10” productive and, in my Bullseye graphite rod and mind, is a lot more fun.

Using my son’s refined 2000 size Rovex reel.

They are incredible val‘jigging’ techniques from ue and a great option for our local Brisbane marinas, we dropped our beginners as a back-up on weighted soft plastics a trip in case of breakage.

All in all, it was a fantas(1/6-1/4oz depending on tic trip and a great way to the current) so they driftcelebrate my big 50! ed under the structure.

I can highly recommend By running bright braid (5lb Rovex braid in bright Eurong Beach Resort as yellow) you can tell when a location for your own your lure hits the bottom birthday bash, family gettogether or a fishing getaas your line goes slack.

You then give your lure way with a group of mates.

Until next month, be a few rips and a pause (fast flicking of the rod sure to jump on, follow tip and two or three quick and like my Instagram turns of the reel) and the and Facebook pages (Onfish will jump on when tour Fishing Australia) for more tips and reports. you least expect.

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 39

Sunset on a glassy sea out on the deeper ledges.

Jim Carlson scored a typical classy redthroat emperor from the shallows.

The author got lucky with this red emperor.

Jim struck with a nice snapper.

Plan B delivers a beautiful bounty I ’D been sitting around home admiring the broad spread of isobars on the weather map that indicated some very light wind heading our way and was keen to get offshore again.

A solid snapper hooked in a light northwesterly wind.

George Baumber held the first of the night’s pearl perch.

George with a cracking coral trout from the shallows.

Page 40 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

I didn’t know it was going to result in plan B. This good weather was going to coincide with a fishing booking for a group I have had out before and everything was sorted, the boat prepped for them and ready to go.

When the phone calls came through indicating they no longer had the numbers to make up the charter crew, I was actually elated because this was the opportunity to do what I wanted to do for a change and selfishly go fishing with my mates for a bit of fun.

Plan B it was called and it really only took a few calls to organise the madkeen crew, food, house keys, special bait and so on.

Soon we were on our way to Turkey Beach for an overnighter out on the reef.

We got some ice and a few supplies from the local shop and took notice when the proprietor said the fishing had been quiet.

Yeah, daytime in the lead-up to the full moon can be like that, but we took it with a grain of salt because we hadn’t been here for a while and were itching to get out and explore new areas.

Almost out through the estuary before first light, we had decided to head northeast for the shallows because we had done well there on our way home last trip and were keen to lay a good foundation early on as we are always the optimists and believe in making our own luck.

George Baumber got straight onto a nice coral trout to christen a new 6’6” Wilson Venom PE2-5 spin stick and I settled for some average redthroat emperor on a small running sinker rig.

George did what George often does and immediately landed a bigger trout on the next drift.

I would call it the biggest coral trout we have so far landed up there.

We were laying a nice foundation of fish in the box as our other crew

Offshore

by BILL CORTEN

member Jim Carlson from Trymax Marine Electronics was going ballistic right from the first drop on large redthroat and several good parrot.

His 15-24kg Live Fibre rod seemed to be bent over every time I looked around and thank goodness these guys were on fire because their skipper was going a tad slowly at that stage.

Jim liked the way the mid-frequency Garmin CHIRP sounder was tuned and was impressed with the bottom discrimination on the flat hard seabed away from the main peaks, as that was where he consistently got the bigger parrot.

As luck would have it, on the next drift Jim almost had a trout in the boat when the taxman decided to bite off his share just as he was about to lift the trout from the water.

Bugger, two big trout to George and one trout head to Jim. It turned out to be the only time we were sharked all trip and interestingly enough, the one undersized redthroat we caught on those early drifts was the only small redthroat of the whole trip.

Feeling pretty cocky, we headed out deeper to some of our favourite haunts and the rot set in.

There was not much fish life on the sounder at all and we struggled to lose baits.

After moving about a lot, it was a common story of slow fishing and not much fish life anywhere.

The woman at the shop was right.

We did the XL redthroat spots, the big maori cod spots, the snapper ledges and holes as well as the goldband and pearl perch grounds.

Not much joy, except for the odd parrot and hussar, but it was good being out on a glassy sea.

Rather than take the easy option of going back to the shallows, we pushed a little further north and decided to stick to the plan and anchor for the night in the deeper waters and see what happened on

the top of the tide a few hours after dark.

After transferring some fuel, tallying up the fish and cooking up fresh fish for dinner, it was a game of patience waiting for the tide to slow.

The sign of things to come was a couple of good redthroat at around 9pm, then George brought up a bloody big cod on the trusty broomstick and the 925 Alvey loaded with braid.

Yep, it took a bit of drag but was essentially a straight wind on that outfit.

At 120cm or so it was a big fat bugger and oversized, so it had to go back.

It was swum until it kicked away and then it was the pearl perch hitting baits followed by a wave of redthroat under the boat.

One of Jim’s redthroat was an unusually light colour, almost white and something we don’t often see.

A nice snapper to Jim was a bit more variety and the icebox was looking great.

He pulled a 62cm pearl perch and was really excited but was immediately outdone by ‘King’ on the next drop who landed a 64cm pearlie.

Jeez they were quality fish and it really didn’t matter who had the biggest, but George has a well-known habit of doing that.

It was my turn to get something large and an 83cm red emperor with a whopping girth hit the deck.

We were all pumped, got some quick photos and jumped back into the hot bite while it lasted.

That was about one and a half hours in total and once the tide started to run again the fish shut down.

We had time to reflect on that good hot bite that coincided with the top of the tide and where the moon was in the sky and full.

It was about putting together a combination of factors that have worked well for us over many

years of night trips and making sure we were on that part of the reef where the fish would likely come through.

After a good snooze, it was time for brekky and a hot cuppa just before daylight and then the reef pick was pulled so we could drift the ground we had anchored on all night.

Some big pearlies, redthroat and nice snapper were the order of the morning, but the fishing slowed as a light northwesterly wind started to spring up.

A line of dense low storm cloud was getting closer and as it did we chose to head a bit south because of a prediction for a moderate southerly change sometime that day.

We weren’t concerned about the long run home in a southerly because the boat handles those conditions easily, but wanted to be where we could run to shelter if necessary.

As luck would have it, a few kilometres down the road we ran over an interesting line of reef on the sounder and decided to stop and sound around.

The wind had now gone to the west and we got a dozen drops of rain on us, then suddenly the fish went ballistic.

It was nothing to do with a tide change, just a weather change that became a fish bite trigger.

Some nice maori cod, large redthroat and ex-

cellent pearlies were the mainstay of this session.

They kept biting, so we headed inshore to check some shallow ground on the electronic chart where we had never fished previously because we had a big bag of pearlies and found it was useful ground to top up on some other species.

We aren’t the type who need a couple of nights to take home as much fish as we lawfully can, heading home around lunch content with a great feed of reef fish.

That southerly did get up before we left and we had to take it steady on autopilot for about the first 20km slightly off the nose to the wind.

Gradually as the breeze dropped right out and our average speed increased we were cruising on a glassy sea, filleting what we lawfully could and had even scrubbed the boat down by the time we were in the estuary.

Another good trip, and I reckon it was the best plan B ever.

It was Jim’s first trip to that area with us and though it was slow fishing at times, he thought the variety of species and quality of fish was really first class.

George and I did too and are merrily chewing through our bags of fillets and will happily force ourselves to do it again on the next plan B.

Jim was pretty happy pulling pearl perch this size.

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Terrific Turkey Beach a flat-out favourite

H

I all, I hope everyone has been able to get out for a fish since the last edition of Bush ‘n Beach hit the shelves.

Over the school holidays, I was lucky enough to squeeze in a trip to one of my all-time favourite fishing destinations, Turkey Beach.

The annual boys’ trip to Turkey Beach is something I look forward to for the best part of every year.

The week leading up to our day of departure always has me buzzing with excitement.

I struggle to fall asleep at night as the memories from trips gone by come flooding back to me.

For the past two years we have been blessed with glass-out weather, and when we saw a week of five-knot variables forecast, we booked accommodation, picked up supplies including food and bait, packed the boat and hit the highway early on a Tuesday morning.

Fishing Trip

by LACHIE BAKER

This year we also had our close friends bringing their own boat up for the first time.

They were equally as excited because they had never experienced reef fishing like this before.

We had also arranged to meet another one of our mates Graham at the units where we were staying, as he had driven down from his cattle station at Rolleston early that morning.

We arrived just after 11am, unpacked, rigged up and were on the water before midday.

The plan for that afternoon was to head around the front and run down to Outer Rock off Bustard Head.

The weather was still a touch sloppy from the previous week of howling southeasterly wind, but

Right species, wrong size.

The look of devastation says it all.

the big Sea Jay Striker punched through it with ease.

We gathered some live yakkas and continued on our way.

The first afternoon is always a bit of a muck around for us, because the reef fishing is what we know best, so we were happy to boat a few solid grass sweetlip and cod.

Young Liam in the other boat managed to land a cracker grassy at 60cm, which was a new PB for him, so he was stoked.

The afternoon was getting on and we decided to start heading back but had one last stop at a mark on the way back to the headland.

I sent the first bait down to be cut off in an instant by a large trout.

I switched to a heavier setup and deployed another bait, which was nailed on the way down.

Striking hard and setting the hook, I went quite hard on the fish because this spot has been known to hold a shark or two.

I was pleasantly surprised when my first central Queensland knobby surfaced – definitely not what I had been expecting!

I popped a tag in it and sent it on its way, as the data that will potentially come back on this fish could be very interesting in terms of movement and growth in comparison to the southeast Queensland snapper.

We had to pull the pin soon after because we needed to make it back before the servo closed as we were planning on heading wide the following day and needed a full tank of fuel for the journey.

We were off to a decent start to the trip, and now it was starting to get serious.

That night we rigged up all the gear for the next day at Lamont Reef.

I don’t think any of us got much sleep, as we were all super-excited to fish a new area.

None of us had been to Lamont before but had heard good reports and sto-

This solid trout made its way into the box.

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ries of the fishing on offer.

Our alarms went off at 4am, the boat was loaded and we were in the water within half an hour.

The anticipation you feel while running through Rodds Bay and around Flora Point is like no other.

We began the 60km run out to the grounds with some chop left over from the night before and a tad more breeze than we expected.

It took about an hour and a half to get to the starting point where we began to sound around looking for bottom to drop on.

It wasn’t long before we were sending baits to the bottom.

The conditions were average due to a rain squall passing by.

Once it had gone, the weather glassed out and we started to pull really nice fish.

Graham got three nice trout, the old man pulled solid tuskies and redthroat and I landed a few cracking redthroat on top of getting blown away by some suspected big trout.

Another rain squall rolled in but instead of moving away, it stayed put.

This created extremely uncomfortable conditions to fish in and shut down the bite.

We had one final drop and Gray’s bait got slammed.

He struck and we knew straight away he was onto a big fish.

We had moved out off the edge of the reef onto deeper country, so my initial thought was ‘red’.

Unfortunately, we never got to find out because it managed to get the better of him and make it back to the bottom.

Soon the fish stopped showing on the sounder and the wind was worsening.

We were satisfied with the fish in the box but a little disheartened that we couldn’t get out wide of Lamont to chase reds.

However, both boats managed to put together a nice feed of good-quality fish.

We spent the afternoon filleting and Cryovaccing our fish.

We were all pretty wrecked after the day’s effort, and I think only one of us was able to stay awake until half time of State of Origin.

The next day we were planning to fish Dad’s old stomping ground of the Rock Cod Shoals area, as we had done very well there in the past.

The following morning we were all buzzing again because we had more confidence in fishing what we knew best.

Once again rain squalls greeted us close to the fishing grounds, stirring up a rather sloppy ocean.

I sent an IQF pilchard down on a gang of hooks, which was intercepted on the way to the bottom by a quality trout of 4kg.

A great start to the day!

The old man pulled a smaller trout and Gray

boated a quality redthroat.

We were starting to put a few fish in the box when we noticed the anchor dragging.

Close to 2m of swell was being whipped up off the rain squall, and a stiff 15 knots of southwesterly wind was enough to break one of the picks on the anchor.

We toughed it out for a bit longer until the squall passed, revealing beautifully glassed-out weather.

The fish really began to chew as well, and more redthroat and tuskies made their way into the box.

Unfortunately, our friends couldn’t stay any longer because they had to be home that night for a birthday.

They unluckily missed out on a hot bite later that afternoon where we managed to pull nice fish including a 60cm grass sweetlip taken by Dad. He decided he didn’t want any more fish to fillet that afternoon, so stuck a tag in and threw it back over the side. ☛ continued P42

A fisho’s dream

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 41

Terrific Turkey Beach a flat-out favourite ☛ from P41

A Lamont Reef redthroat emperor.

Right colour, wrong species.

A central Queensland snapper taken by the author.

The author with a first drop special.

Page 42 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

The following drop I landed a small trout of 45cm.

Without thinking too much, I unhooked it and placed it in the Esky.

After closing the lid I immediately felt bad, as we already had a great feed of fish in there.

It wouldn’t have been in the box for five seconds before I pulled it back out, tagged it and plopped it back in the drink.

The fish bolted to the bottom and I don’t blame it one bit!

A very lucky trout indeed.

Gray also landed a barramundi cod, which none of us had seen before.

We carefully unhooked it and deflated its swim bladder.

It needed a bit more persuasion to get down, so it went on the release weight and was sent back to the depths.

We were stoked to see such a rare fish.

They really are something special.

That night we filleted and Cryovacced the day’s catch.

Sadly for Gray, it was time for him to head back to the cattle station.

We sent him home with a big feed of fish because a few family members were waiting for him to return with the seafood basket.

The following morning we planned to stay in the same area as the previous day but fish a different patch of reef we hadn’t hit for a long time.

This turned out to be a great decision.

Friday morning greeted us with the conditions we had hoped to see all week.

Glassy seas made for a fast run out and we had lines in the water just after 6am.

I floated a big IQF pillie down on a set of gangs and felt a solid fish pick it up on the way to the bottom.

I clicked the overhead into gear and swung, connecting to a very big fish.

I let the PE2-5 Wilson Venom go to work dragging the fish off the bottom, which soon started to come to the surface

like a dead weight.

My call was a big trout, and I wasn’t wrong.

A beast of a trout landed on the deck of the Striker and it was a new PB for me, nudging 80cm.

I was absolutely rapt.

Before we could think about taking photos, Dad’s rod buckled in the holder and the fish looked even bigger.

It began hammering back towards the bottom but the old boy did well in keeping it from the reef.

Once he had it off the bottom, we called it for another big trout.

I had the net at the ready and was eagerly peering over the side of the boat.

The one thing I didn’t want to see was a shark, and that is exactly what came into view, trying to chomp on what was a very large coral trout.

“Farking wind!” I yelled, among some other expletives, but Dad was too slow.

The shark managed to grab hold about halfway up the fish, I used the net to push it away from the remaining half of the trout and then lifted the fish straight over the side.

We were shattered, as this trout would’ve been easily 1m long and a PB for dad.

The bit we got back was 65cm long and over 4kg, still more than enough for a feed, so none was wasted.

We soon moved away from the sharks, but they were prolific at the next spot too.

The first drop saw Dad pull a large chinaman fish, followed by another quality trout.

I soon got in on the action with another 70cm specimen, which had a very close encounter with the taxman under the boat.

There was no way I was donating one of my fish to a shark, so after boating a few more cracker tuskies and redthroat we made another move to the area we fished the previous day.

We had fun mucking around with a school of hussar on micro jigs.

They fight harder than most fish their size and are plenty of fun on light spin gear.

The old boy also pulled a juvenile red from the same school of fish, which was a cool capture on a micro jig.

We moved again but the fishing had gone almost totally dead.

This can be expected around the tide change because we have found the ‘no run, no fun’ rule definitely applies to this style of fishing.

We tried all the tricks in the book, aside from dynamite, but to no avail.

Sometimes fishing can just be slow!

We moved around and pulled the odd grassy and tusky from each spot until we decided to run back to where we started that morning.

The fishing there didn’t really fire either, so we chose to explore marks we hadn’t been to before.

This paid off in spades.

I was fishing with two rods and two different presentations in the hope of enticing a bite, and once I had it figured out I planned to stick with

whatever worked.

This proved to be slightly difficult, as both baits I sent to the bottom got hammered, one by a solid trout and the other by a cracking tusky.

Dad pulled a nice redthroat before losing another quality fish, which I believe was either a big sweetlip or trout because it disappeared back into the reef at a rate of knots.

I pulled another solid trout to round out our possession limit.

It was starting to get later in the afternoon, so we decided to have one final stop at a red mark Dad has had for the best part of 30 years.

We sounded over some promising sights and deployed large flesh baits.

It took all the patience in me to not strike at any pickers until I felt something much bigger pick the bait up and move off.

I swung hard and connected to what felt like a monster of the deep. ☛ continued P43

A trout plucked from a mark the crew hadn’t fished before.

Liam picked up a good size grassy.

Glen held a cracker grassy.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

Jay Cottrell from Gold Coast Fishing Tackle with a stonking trevally.

Clint Fannin from Wilson Fishing landed a big trout.

Exploratory sojourn to the Swains A FISHING trip to Swain Reefs had been on my bucket list for many years and was continually reinforced each time I read one of the BNB scribe’s epic trip reports.

As mentioned in last month’s editorial, I got the call up to accompany a select crew put together

by Wilson Fishing including Troy (Dicko) Dixon, Clint Fannin, a number of tackle shop owners and managers including Tim, Jay, Dave, Shaun, Danny, Liquor Legend himself John (JC) Carmody and Angove Wines man Shaun, as well as YouTube sensation Sammy

Fishing Trip

by BEN COLLINS

Hitzke (he’ll love that).

In addition, Mark Berg, his guest (who I won’t reveal because the show is still to be aired) and two camera crew (Lofty and Will) rounded out the motley bunch who would spend the next 10 days aboard Big Cat Reality Charters.

To keep us in line and put us onto the fish was skipper James ‘Jimmy’ McVeigh who has a wealth of knowledge and has spent years on the water.

His awesome crew con-

The author with one of many double hook-ups on a single Fish Trap.

sisted of Paul, Gary, Aaron and Jeff the chef, who my wife was not very happy with upon my return as I had gained about 4kg through good living and copious amounts of food.

In the weeks and days leading up to the trip, I had a spring in my step and kept in close contact with Dicko to make sure everything was good to go.

One of the pictures Dicko sent me the night before we were scheduled to depart was the fully loaded Wilson Fishing van packed to the brim with gear.

Despite having seen the pic, I was still overwhelmed by how much fishing tackle had actually been brought aboard Big Cat and littered the top deck and bottom rigging table.

We boarded the Big Cat and as Dicko and skipper James chatted, throwing ideas around about where we should go on this exploratory trip, the team started to get to know each other while rigging rods, reels and lures for the battles that would begin the following morning when we reached our first fishing destination.

I was like a kid in a lolly shop.

When it comes to being on the water, I absolutely love it and ‘touch wood’, have never been seasick, though I did pack a couple of packets of Kwells for this adventure, just in case.

While everyone got their sea legs, there was an aura of excitement as we motored through the night and anticipation became reality.

Dicko partnered me with Sean, also known as ‘Tiny’ or ‘Trots’ in Grey Ghost, which was a 4.3m Smartwave fitted with a 50hp Mercury four-stroke outboard and decked out to tackle a mix of fishing styles.

While this boat wasn’t overly big, it was basically our daytime home on the water for the next eight days.

Thankfully the weather gods were smiling on us as the only bit of wind forecast was for the initial run up and then on the last day or so on the way back.

You could not have scripted better weather, which made this adventure even more unreal.

Rods In each boat were eight or nine rod holders, which allowed each angler four rods.

Despite having more rods to choose from than most tackle shops, I managed to whittle down my selection to the allowed number.

Clint nailed a trout double – both on one jig head rigged with a Zerek Prawn.

My weapons of choice consisted of a Venom Popper 7’11” PE8 matched with a Shimano Stella 10000 (which was replaced with an ATC 10000 after a few days, but I’ll talk about that a little later); a Venom 7’ Spin 15-50lb rod and ATC 8000 reel; Venom Overhead 7’ 20-50lb and Talica reel; and a Wilson Live Fibre Overhead 7’ 15-24kg paired with a Tyrnos 20.

As for line, all reels were spooled with SureCatch Energy Braid, with the Stella and ATC 10000s carrying 80lb and the other three 50lb.

Some may think 80lb ☛ continued P44

Danny from Southport Fishing and Dive Centre.

Shaun from About Town Bait and Tackle with a chunky trout.

Terrific Turkey Beach a flat-out favourite ☛ from P42

The author’s father was lucky to get this one away from the man in a grey suit.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

For a minute I was hoping it was the big red I was after, until it started to do sharky things like big tail beats and spirals.

I pushed the drag all the way to sunset and went to work on getting it up, and was more than impressed with the new RLF19 Live Fibre from the Wilson Fishing stable.

A dirty bronze whaler of about 3m surface and was cut off upon arrival.

I was disgusted.

It wasn’t the way I wanted to end the trip but a box full of coral trout and other tasty reefies was nothing to sneeze at.

I pointed the bow of the Striker for home and threw the hammer down.

Writing articles like this allows me to reflect on trips and moments to remember, such as when Gray fell into the Esky because someone had forgotten to shut the lid, or the epic blow-ups we had after being busted off by the unstoppable beasts of the reef.

It only makes me more excited for the next trip, and hopefully it won’t be another 12 months until I get another crack at exploring the wide grounds in search of reds.

With winter in full swing, I have been capitalising on any opportunity I can get to head outside the local and chase species such as snapper and spangled emperor.

Stay tuned for next month’s article where I will hopefully have a bit of a write-up on the SEQ offshore fishing scene.

Until then, tight lines and sore arms.

Gray with a prime Esky candidate.

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 43

The motley crew.

The author landed a GT on a Zerek Zappelin lure and a Venom GT PE8 rod.

Exploratory sojourn to the Swains ☛ from P43

Redthroat emperor loved a well-presented Zerek lure.

too light, especially when chasing big GTs, but this braid seemed a lot stronger than the label indicated, and some horse fish were pulled out of precarious spots.

That said, not all fish hooked were boated!

As you’d expect, the Ven-

Tackle World Bundaberg manager Tim Mulhall scored a spanish mackerel.

Dave Hardy from Lee Long’s Tackle with a quality eating redthroat.

Page 44 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

om PE8 was used to chase GTs and for this trip that predominantly involved casting stickbaits.

Sitting in the middle of the Venom range, I found this rod pretty versatile and easy to use.

Now when I say easy to use, I don’t mean you don’t have to do any work to pull these monsters to the boat, you sure do, but its light weight for casting and slower taper for fighting a fish made it that much easier.

The PE8 has a recommended cast weight of 85-175g, though I think it would easily handle up to 200g, so you are in no way under-gunned when it comes to cast weight.

However, the beauty of this rod is it’s a little more user-friendly than the PE10 and the big boy of the range the PE12.

Obviously, it depends where you are fishing and what you are fishing for, but I felt the PE8 more than did the job it was asked to do.

And this job consisted of taking on brute GTs making violent runs back to the reef with a locked drag as the boat reversed away from the edge of the bommies trying to pull the fish into deeper water.

I also feel the 7’11” length is just about right because you have plenty of length for long casts and enough rod to fight these fish around the boat.

The Venom and Live Fibre overhead rods, both 7’, were used for trolling and also doubled as bait fishing rods with the old paternoster rig.

I actually own a Venom overhead, so it performed how I thought it would.

However, I was interested to see how the new Live Fibre would go because it is a new and improved design with better construction.

Yes, Live Fibres are now made overseas, but so is basically any other rod you buy.

The advantage is you now have a higher-spec rod that costs less.

If you are in market for an affordable offshore rod, make sure you

check these out at your local tackle shop because I think you will be impressed.

I have a couple of the old red ones but will be adding some new ones to my offshore fishing stable.

While the make-up of the new Live Fibre was a little different to the old one, it was very comfortable to use, even when hooked up to large sharks.

It also landed a number of trout and other reef species, but the sharks and a chinaman fish gave it the best test.

My final choice was the Venom 7’ Spin in 1550lb.

I admit when I first picked it up I had to double check the line class because I thought I had misread it, but no, that is correct.

This rod was matched with an ATC reel and made for an awesome light setup to use for a mix of throwing surface lures and jigging plastics off the bottom.

When I say light, I am referring to the tip, because it was soft enough to cast lightly weighted lures and plastics.

However, when push came to shove, it was impressive how much hurt you could put on a fish, ensuring it did not get back to the reef.

I guess that is where the 50lb line rating comes in, because you could really

load this road up.

Overall, this is a beast of a spin rod and is also on my ‘to-buy’ list.

Next month The adventure to the Swain Reefs continues next month with a rundown on the pick of the

lures, other gear used, fishing techniques, Big Cat Reality Charters and a bit of Karma, so stay tuned.

For more information on all the Wilson Fishing gear, head to wilsonfish ing.com

Zerek Fish Traps were deadly on the trout.

Liquor Legends managing director John Carmody boated a big trout.

Sean ‘Tiny’ Trotter, skipper of the Grey Ghost.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

K AYAKING & canoeing How not to lose the canoe off your car

A

S a manufacturer of canoes, the single greatest concern I get from my customers is how they are going to safely transport their new pride and joy home.

It’s always sort of perplexed me, mainly I guess because we do it so often, but for some people it seems to give them sleepless nights.

To be fair, making sure your new watercraft doesn’t end up embedded in someone else’s windscreen is probably a good idea, so in an effort to alleviate insomnia in new canoe owners, here are my top tips on tying down your canoe.

The first thing to consider is your roof racks.

For canoes and sit-ontop kayaks, a standard two-bar roof rack system is perfect.

For sit-inside kayaks or SOTs with lots of accessories, a set of cradles is a really good idea.

Don’t fret if you can’t afford roof racks for your boat, as a good-quality set of temporary tiedown bars or ‘soft racks’ will do the trick.

Sea to Summit makes an awesome set that I use all the time on my partner’s car.

Next, we look at orientation on the racks.

Obviously with kayak cradles the kayak will sit right way up in its mounts, however for canoes and SOT kayaks, upside down is the go.

When we turn the boat over and sit it on its gunwales, we have a flat, wide and stable surface to sit onto our roof racks.

Sitting like this, the canoe (or kayak) has the most resistance to overturning or twisting around in strong wind.

It also reduces the chance of your tiedown straps damaging or crushing your craft.

Another important consideration is checking the craft is centred over your

Canoeing

by DAN OWBRIDGE

If your canoe or kayak is 3.6m (12’) or less, a tiedown strap on each roof bar is usually enough to adequately secure it to your car. roof rack bars.

Ideally the widest point of your canoe/kayak, usually right in the centre, should be sitting centrally between the bars.

Getting the boat centred will reduce excessive load on the straps and help stop it sliding off when braking or accelerating.

The attached photo shows a canoe sitting centred over the roof bars on my Triton.

Just a quick note at this point about length of craft versus length of car.

First and foremost, it is perfectly OK to have an item on your roof that is longer than your car!

Sure, there are rules to follow and you have to be a little more careful, but it is still perfectly safe and legal.

In Queensland you can have up to 1m overhanging the front of your car and 1.3m overhanging the rear.

If you take your average hatchback length of 4.5m, this means you can comfortably transport a 5.5m (18’) canoe and still be within legal guidelines.

Check out the photo of an 18’ canoe on the roof of my Triton for comparison.

Now we have the canoe positioned correctly on the roof, we need to tie the thing down.

The best and easiest method to use is straps with camlock buckles (see photo).

These straps ensure

Camlock style of strap recommended for tiedown of canoes, kayaks and SUPs.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

adequate tension can be applied without crushing your craft.

The straps should be fitted so they pass under the roof bar on one side of your craft, both ends pass over the top and then under the roof bar on the other side before being joined and tightened.

In effect, they make a big loop with both ends passing over your boat.

Check out the close-up photo of the canoe on the roof of my Triton to get a better visual of this.

Note also that the looped strap sits right beside the edges of the gunwales where they touch the roof bars.

This is really important!

When the straps are configured like this, they prevent the loaded boat from sliding from side to side.

I see a lot of people tying down their craft and having the straps or ropes coming off at an angle to the roof bars.

Doing this allows the boat to slide and twist around under the tiedowns and eventually work its way out from under them.

Not good if you’re in the car behind!

If your canoe or kayak is 3.6m (12’) or less, a tiedown strap on each roof bar is usually enough to adequately secure it to your car.

Longer boats will require a line from the bow or stern (or both) down to the front and/or rear of your car.

If you have a bull bar or towbar, too easy, you have an instant tiedown point.

If you don’t, loops that can be closed into your bonnet/boot to provide a tiedown point are available to buy.

Having a bow or stern line helps keep long craft from twisting around in a strong wind.

It also helps share the load when a strong gust gets under your craft.

Most of these pointers apply equally for kayaks and SUPS as they do for canoes.

Kayaks carried in cradles are tied down to the racks in the same manner

and longer ones definitely need bow lines.

SUPS are really just like a flat canoe and transport really easily on a two-bar system.

Tying your boat down to your car doesn’t have to be a chore if you follow the few simple rules outlined above.

The keys are getting your craft oriented on your bars correctly and using good straps that hold your boat snugly.

A good wiggle of your boat on the racks will soon tell you whether you have it adequately fastened.

Even if your boat is quite long, good products and techniques will ensure your pride and joy gets home from the water safely.

If you have any further questions or need some guidance on a specific problem, please give me a call at One Tree Canoe to discuss.

You can find my contact details at onetreecanoe. com Happy paddling!

An 18’ canoe loaded onto the author’s Triton. Note the length v car length and overhang. Also note it’s centred over the roof racks.

Correct configuration of straps under roof bars and over the load. Note proximity to sides of the boat.

CLASSIC AUSTRALIAN-MADE CANOES

Canoes | Repairs | Hires 0424 001 646 | onetreecanoe.com Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 45

BRISBANE BOAT SHOW – August 23-25 Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre OPENING HOURS Friday and Saturday . . .10am - 8pm Sunday . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10am - 6pm

ENTRY PRICES Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$15 Children (6-17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5 Children 5 and under . . . . . . . . FREE Family (2 adults, 3 children) . . . .$35 Seniors and pensioners . . . . . . .$12 After 5pm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$5

GETTING TO THE SHOW Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre is an easy 10-minute walk from the CBD and has direct access to an efficient transport network.

For information about public transport, visit translink.com.au or call 13 12 30 By train South Brisbane Railway Station is adjacent to the Convention Centre on Grey St. The city to airport Air Train operates from the South Brisbane train station, adjacent to the Convention Centre.

By bus South Bank is serviced by two bus stations: the Cultural Centre Station on Melbourne St and the South Bank Bus-way Station corner of Colchester and Tribune Sts, South Bank.

Greg Vinall

Jo Starling

Tim Simpson

Steve Starling

Fishing masterclasses at Brisbane Boat Show included with entry

F

OR anglers who enjoy either the open waters off the coast or inland waterways, the Brisbane Boat Show promises new vessels, the latest rods, tackle, accessories and loads of technology designed to make your day on the water even more enjoyable.

Being Queensland’s most extensive boat show, open from August 23-25 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre at South Bank, the Brisbane Boat Show this year is the place to choose and buy your rod and reel combo as well as fishfinders, hard and soft lures, bait buckets, landing nets and even your next boat to go with all your new gear.

Learn how to fish like never before at the Show’s

fishing masterclasses, included with the cost of entry.

A massive 83 percent of people visiting the show express an interest in fishing.

The fishing clinics reflect that interest, with presentations ranging from inland waterway fishing to the more adventurous offshore competitions, presenting videos, photos and stories to match.

You don’t need to travel too far to land the big ones, as game fishing multi-world-record holder Tim Simpson leads this year’s fishing masterclasses, giving tremendous advice and sharing his three key tips to game fishing success.

With six world records and many tournament wins, Tim knows how to find and catch big fish.

Learning from his experience, you’ll be able to find and catch tuna, marlin and other gamefish, whether you cast a line off the Queensland coast or other hotspots in the world.

Steve ‘Starlo’ Starling re-

turns to talk about making the most of fishing in estuaries.

Tidal estuaries are the most popular recreational fishing waters in Australia.

Starlo provides extremely valuable clues on ‘reading’

our temperate and sub-tropical estuary systems, and shares a wealth of tips on improving catches, whatever estuary species you’re chasing.

Turn those sorry sagas of ☛ continued P48

The Supertank returns.

Queensland’s ultimate boat show experience featuring the industry’s latest aluminum and fibreglass boats and all the gear to go with them.

23 TO 25 AUGUST 2019 BRISBANE CONVENTION & EXHIBITION CENTRE SOUTH BANK

BrisbaneBoatShow.com.au Page 46 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

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COME AND SEE WYNNUM MARINE AT THE BRISBANE BOAT SHOW 23 - 25 AUGUST, 2019

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 47

BRISBANE BOAT SHOW – August 23-25 Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre

Marine at the Brisbane Boat Show Fishing masterclasses at Boat Suzuki HIS year, Suzuki Marine is returning with a show-stopping corporate stand offering Show included with entry all the latest outboards, tech, gadg-

T

☛ from P46

‘the one that got away’ into tales of victory with Steve’s invaluable advice.

Also on stage, Doug Burt presents the best way to land big flathead with lures.

He’ll talk about where to find those big ones, the best lures to use, whether trolling or casting, and the best stages of the tide.

Doug will also demonstrate the best tackle and will present the tricks to catching, landing and handling flathead.

He’ll also share sure-fire ways to prepare pots for catching sand and mud crabs.

Greg Vinall presents ‘FishiLeaks’, the top-secret tips from 100 of Australia’s best anglers.

Greg is an aquatic scientist, selfconfessed lure fishing nut and fishing podcast host.

In this presentation, he distils the very best secrets uncovered from hours of interviews during his podcasts into just five simple tips that will make a massive difference to your lure fishing results.

Local legend Paul Burt shares his sneaky techniques for ‘fishing the pressure points’.

Fish concentrate where water flow delivers their food.

Paul will describe how to recognise these hot spots and explains the techniques to fish them most effectively.

Jo Starling gives her insights on making family fishing trips more fun and finding fish in new water when on holidays.

Jo suggests ways on how to assess unfamiliar waters so you can easily determine where to start to maximise your fishing fun.

The Supertank also returns where Michael ‘Cookie’ Cook presents a live school of barramundi tempted to strike hookless lures, giving you a perfect view of what you need to do to catch more fish.

Learn about the best gear and techniques, while witnessing how well they work.

The show is open each day from 10am, with the fishing masterclasses running every day of the show from 11am.

Adult tickets are $15.

Concessions are available for families, kids and seniors, with individual entry just $5 after 5pm (after-5pm tickets can be bought on site at the show only – excludes family tickets).

Up-to-date details are available at brisbaneboatshow.com.au

ets, parts and accessories to really take your boating to the next level!

With exclusive ‘Suzuki on Sale’ offers for Boat Show patrons, you’ll be sure to find the perfect outboard for you, whether you’re looking to upgrade or getting on the water for the first time.

Come and check out the limitededition SS Series outboards with their edgy matte black styling and striking red graphics, as well as a full range of white outboards.

We’ll also have the brand-new Suzuki KATANA on display from our friends at Suzuki Motorcycles.

Suzuki’s outboards are known for their fuel efficiency, value and performance thanks to innovations such as Lean Burn and offset driveshaft.

To find out more about the ultimate outboard motor, visit Suzuki Marine at Stand 106, or one of our five dealers – Australian Marine Centre on Stand 309, Bayside Suzuki Marine on Stand 303, Laguna Boating Centre on Stand 115, Surf Coast Marine on Stand 210-212 and Motorsport Marine on Stand F428.

Get on board a Haines Signature boat From The Haines Group’s flagship brand, Haines Signature Boats, you’ll see a great selection of boats on display at the Australian Marine Centre stand.

The range offers everything from

affordable entry-level options for families looking for their first boat to tried-and-tested offshore fishing rigs with all the bells and whistles for serious anglers.

With six decades of boat building nous behind the brand, all built on the renowned and patented Signature Variable Deadrise Hull, there’ll surely be a model to suit your needs at the show.

Exciting offers from Seafarer Boats Seafarer Boats has a legendary reputation among boaties and fishers for their hardcore performance and practicality.

If you’re interested in climbing aboard a Seafarer, Laguna Boating Centre will have a great selection of models on their stand including the

all-new Victory 6.0.

Recently released to much fanfare and hype, the popular 6m Victory model has been transformed with a whole new above-the-water design and has been kitted out with a plethora of new options including a fully enclosed hardtop.

It also comes with a side/dive door as standard for easy access on board and is executed with premium finishes and materials.

With two boat brands, Haines Signature and Seafarer, as well as Suzuki Marine outboards under their stable, you’re sure to find something to get you out on the water this summer from marine industry icons, The Haines Group. www.suzukimarine.com.au

BRISBANE BOAT SHOW SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS Subscribe, renew or extend to Bush ‘n Beach Fishing at the 2019 Brisbane Boat Show and receive these great offers*

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 49

BRISBANE BOAT SHOW – August 23-25 Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre

Wynnum Marine looks to win again

L

AST year Wynnum Marine went all out and ended up winning ‘Best Boating Display’ at the 2018 Brisbane Boat Show, and the team is aiming to take the title again this year.

With the country’s leading brands including Stacer, Cruise Craft Boats and Yamaha Outboards, Wynnum Marine really has all your boating needs covered.

Wynnum Marine will

have almost the entire range of Cruise Craft Boats on display, from the ‘little giant’ Cruise Craft Explorer 568 right through to the flagship Explorer 720 Hardtop.

Wynnum Marine’s very own demo Cruise Craft F360M centre console will also be on display.

This rig needs to be seen to be believed and really shows what’s possible when compromise is not an option!

Cruise Craft ambassa-

Brisbane’s best-kept secret MARINE

COME AND SEE US AT THE BOAT SHOW ON STAND F428 FOR SUPER DEALS!

Now featuring 4mm bottom and 3mm side sheets!

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MARINE

Experience the Aluvan advantage

Soft, dry ride

dors Bats Fishing (Instagram @batsfishing) will also be on hand through Saturday and Sunday to talk everything fishing, so come and say hello to the boys and get some hot tips.

If you’re looking at getting into a new tinnie, or even just looking at repowering your current boat, then make sure you stop by to check out the range of Stacer aluminium boats and market-leading Yamaha Outboards.

When it comes to Stacer and Yamaha, Wynnum Marine will simply not be beaten on price.

Factory representatives will be on hand supporting the extremely experienced salespeople to ensure your next purchase is the right one.

Established in 1946,

Australian Marine Centre brings Aussie brands

A

USTRALIAN Marine Centre will be exhibiting a huge range of premium-quality boats at this year’s Brisbane Boat Show at unbeatable boat show pricing.

Stable at rest

Northside’s exclusive Suzuki dealer

MARINE

Wynnum Marine is a truly unique dealership built on the solid foundation of traditional excellence.

More than 73 years later, the company remains in the hands of the Nichols family – a family synonymous with first class marine service, development and supply of industry leading products and delivery of ethical trading practices.

‘Traditional excellence’ is a badge the Wynnum Marine team wears with pride so their customers can be confident in dealing with a company that both understands the passion for the boating lifestyle and is driven to exceed all their boating expectations. www.wynnummarine. com.au

On display will be two of the best-built, mostreliable alloy boat brands available in Australia.

Bar Crusher, whose boats are notoriously known as ‘fishing weapons’, high-tensile plate alloy boats and Aquamaster, a locally built Brisbanebased pressed tinnie.

Both boat brands deliver awesome performance and are suited to all types of Australian conditions, appealing to both the seri-

ous angler and their families.

AMC will also have the range of Haines Signature fibreglass boats on display.

The legendary Haines Signature boat brand is known for building a range of boats that are exceptional in every category from fishing to sports and cruising.

They will appeal to all anglers and families alike.

All the brands above are built by Aussies for Aussie conditions.

They are proven within our harsh environment and built strong with great resale. ☛ continued P51

MARINE MARINE

motorsportmarine.com.au Page 50 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

07 3888 0555

11 Brewers St, Burpengary QLD info@motorsportmarine.com.au www.bnbfishing.com. au

BRISBANE BOAT SHOW – August 23-25 Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre

Sea Jay Boats displays a huge range at the Show

S AMC brings Aussie brands ☛ from P50

Whether you are a firsttime boatie or a seasoned veteran, AMC will have a boat to suit you.

All AMC’s boat packages are powered by Suzuki engines.

Lean Burn technology, unique to Suzuki, sets these outboards apart from all other brands and delivers industry-leading fuel economy and reliability.

AMC is an elite Suzuki dealer and can guide you with repowering your pride and joy if you are not looking to buy a new boat package.

Suzuki supplies a range of four-stroke outboards from 2.5-350hp.

The team at AMC is

highly knowledgeable with combined marine experience of 80 years and will provide honest advice and a boat package you have been dreaming about.

As always, there will be Boat Show deals on offer across the whole range to every customer who buys a boat package or new Suzuki outboard.

Be sure to drop by and say hi to the AMC team on Stand 309.

For more information about the boats on display at the Show and pre-Boat Show sales, contact AMC on 07 3808 7333, drop by the yard at 3491 Pacific Highway, Slacks Creek or visit amcboats.com.au

EA Jay Boats is a family owned and operated business based in Queensland.

From humble beginnings in 1989, Sea Jay has grown to be one of Australia’s largest boat manufacturers, building everything from small roof-topper tinnies, open boats, console boats and runabouts right through to dedicated offshore cabin boats – the range is massive!

Sea Jay Boats stand for market-leading design, strength of build, quality of workmanship and the ability to customise a boat to suit your needs.

The factory has a proud history of employing Aussie tradespeople and has taken over 30 apprentices though to become tradies.

Proudly representing the Sea Jay Boats range at the Brisbane Boat Show is Stones Corner Marine.

From their Old Cleve-

land Rd store, this dealership sells a huge range of Sea Jay Boats from the popular roof-topper models like the Nomad and Angler to open and console boats such as the Avenger and Navigator ranges built on the Adrenalin Hull, right up to the latest generation of 3D-designed and four-stroke futureproofed Samurai Hulls used on the Vision, Velocity, Crusader, Ranger and Trojan cabin boat ranges.

NOTHING RIDES LIKE A SIGNATURE

Stones Corner Marine will be bringing a huge range of Sea Jays to the Boat Show this year.

At the time of writing, it is planned to have on display the 630 Trojan HT, 630 Vision, 550 Velocity Sports, 490 Ranger Sports, 488 Avenger Sports, 460 Ranger, 448 Avenger Sports, 428 Avenger, 428 Bay Seeker, 408 Magnum and 3.7 Nomad.

With such a great commitment, the team from Sea Jay Boats will be

there to back them up.

You’ll be able to talk directly to the designers/manufacturers throughout the show.

Ask them to point out the features of the Samurai and Adrenalin hulls, then go compare how these stack up against other brands and you will soon see why Sea Jay Boats are so well known as the best alloy boats made in Australia. w w w. s e a j a y b o a t s . com.au

Come in and check out a wide range of drive-away boat packages in stock!

See us at the Boat Show on Stand 309

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 51

BOATING & marine

Front of console seating comfortable even when burning along at 75km/h.Yamaha F200 perfectly matched to the 6.35m hull.

Massive front casting platform covered in SeaDek and features huge dry storage.

Cruise Craft 360M all class S INCE its release at the Melbourne Boat Show last year, the Cruise Craft F360M has caught the eye of plenty of keen fishos.

Unique clears can attach to side coamings to provide extra protection.

Make no mistake, this boat is built to fish with 360 degrees of fishing room, hence the name.

So when the moons finally aligned, I was able to take this fishing weapon for a quick run to see how it performed.

However, instead of a dedicated fishing trip, which is the plan for the near future, I brought my daughters and wife and went for a run in Moreton Bay. While the F360M is a completely new design from the waterline up, it retains the tried and proven hull of another model in the range.

It keeps the sleek design lines Cruise Crafts are known for, except they are a little more aggres-

Boat Review

by BEN COLLINS

sive with this dedicated fishing rig.

With an overall length of 6.35m and the ability to handle up to 200hp on the back, it is easy to see why I am calling this boat a fishing weapon, but as mentioned I had the girls with me so wanted to see how it doubled as a crossover boat.

Initial impressions were great, with plenty of room for the girls to move around the boat and easy access around the helm.

The excellent size of the front casting platform became evident as the girls sat down there while I prepared the boat for the water.

In terms of seating room, there is a seat directly in front of the centre con-

sole, which the three girls sat comfortably on while I threw the boat around for testing and photos.

The helm seat is also quite substantial, so the four of us fitted in there nicely too.

It’s also worth mentioning the innovative clear system the Cruise Craft team has designed for the centre console.

These new side clears wrap around the console so you can still walk around with ease.

There is also a zippable central window, which I really like.

The beauty of the clears is you can just undo a couple of clips and move them from sitting beside the helm and attach them to the inside edge of the boat’s sides, which dramatically improves your area of protection from wind, rain and any splash.

In this instance it was

the cool winter breeze we were protected from, which made the ride that much more comfortable for the family.

Since the conditions were pretty good (though they worsened by the end of the test), we didn’t need the clears to keep spray away because the ride was noticeable dry.

The test boat was fitted with a 200hp Yamaha four-stroke, which had plenty of punch out of the hole and revved out to a top speed of about 75km/h.

Like most Cruise Crafts, I didn’t need too much trim to really get this boat humming along because its planing plank does that for you, making it easy and a pleasure to drive.

It was very fun to drive and I think a few more runs past the cameras were done just for fun, rather than getting that nice picture.

In terms of performance and fuel usage, Yamaha has put together performance data for its 200hp, ☛ continued P53

New Targa top all fibreglass and colour customisable.

Helm was surprisingly spacious and allowed flush mounting of sizeable electronics.

Page 52 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

www.bnbfishing.com. au

Cruise Craft 360M all class ☛ from P52

175hp and 150hp engines matched to this hull.

We have printed the data for the 200hp but check out cruisecraft.com.au to see the other engines as the numbers look equally impressive and those engines would make the initial purchase price a bit cheaper.

That said, I am always a fan of having the maximum horsepower or close to it on the back, as you are better off having it and not needing it.

Standard fuel capacity for the F360M is 210 litres under the floor, which would give you a range of over 350km in

optimal conditions.

If you were looking at taking this boat a little further or having a bit more in reserve for those extended fishing trips, you can option up to a 250-litre fuel tank.

Other standard features include hydraulic steering, a self-draining floor, dual battery system with VRS and a built-in tackle box.

One noticeable option the team had added for this demo boat was a Minn Kota Riptide Ulterra electric motor on the bow.

This is the self-deploying model, which was a pleasure to use.

You can never have too much storage in an open boat.

Rod storage throughout is exemplary.

A couple of presses of a button on the remote control and it automatically deployed.

I’m sure some of you have seen the Ulterra commercial where a boat is launched without anyone in it while the electric is controlled with the remote (if not check it out on YouTube).

While I didn’t go to this extreme, the ability to use an electric motor to spot lock instead of an anchor is worth its weight in gold.

Having more control over your drift and manoeuvring the boat so you can position your lure or bait in the strike zone will guarantee you get more bites and catch more fish.

Another new feature of this boat was the Targa top, which was a solid fibreglass roof that incorporated a waterproof glove box, Fusion head unit and GME radio all within easy reach.

This new hard top had a black colour underneath and a white top, but colours are customisable so you can choose whichever you like to match the coamings or hull.

Speaking of coamings, this boat had padding all the way around its interior, which would make it more comfortable for fishing, but it was also great for the kids because it provided a soft buffer for them to lean against.

Other notable features of this fishing weapon include a 300-litre insulated

kill tank, which obviously doubles as an Esky, and an additional Esky conveniently located under the driver’s seat where you could keep food or bait.

The large underfloor kill tank, which can also be used as dry storage, means you have a clutterfree boat with a massive amount of fishing room.

You really need to see in person how big that front casting platform is because the pictures don’t do it justice.

The boat features two additional dry storage hatches for stowing gear out of the weather, which in an open boat is a must.

Overall, I think Cruise Craft has nailed it in terms of creating an Australiandesigned and built dedicated fishing machine, which on the right day is perfect for taking the family out for a fun day on the water.

For more information on the F360M, give the team at Wynnum Marine a call on 07 3396 9777, or even

better drop past and jump in this boat so you can get a true appreciation of the incredibly high-quality finish and serious amount of fishing room.

Make sure you visit cruisecraft.com.au for any extra information and performance data.

Electric motor on the bow makes targeting specific fish much easier.

Offshore-ready hull ate up the glassy conditions in Moreton Bay.

PERFORMANCE RPM

KM/H

2000

12

3000

28

3500

40

4000

49

5000

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5800

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GO FOR SOME QUALITY TIME. Time spent out on the water with your family is far too precious to risk with anything other than the absolute best in marine engineering.

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BRISBANE | Manly Harbour Marine 570 Royal Esplanade, Manly Q 4179 P: 07 3893 2199 E: info@manlyharbourmarine.com.au W: manlyharbourmarine.com.au

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BRISBANE NORTH | Brisbane Marine 306 Duffield Rd, Clontarf Q 4019 P: 07 3889 3033 E: info@brismarine.com.au W: brismarine.com.au

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 53

BOATING & marine Evinrude’s underrated iSteer and iTrim systems

E

VINRUDE’S iSteer and iTrim are underrated systems available on all G2 outboards from 115300hp including the recently launched 115H.O, 140hp and 150hp engines.

iSteer has two parts: a fully integrated hydraulic steering system (no messy cables) and a power steering assist pump with three settings that adjust automatically while under way.

The integration of hy-

Can you have it all in the one outboard?

draulic steering into the power steering swivel bracket eliminates all hook-ups and wires altogether.

This makes climbing around the transom area easier and safer.

As the speed of the boat changes, it can become more difficult to steer.

With iSteer, the power steering pump can be set to three different assistance levels in order to tailor to the conditions.

Maximum assist gives drivers the least steering

resistance while minimum assist will provide more feel from the water.

With three levels (minimum, medium and maximum), there is an appropriate level for all types of driving. iTrim automatically keeps your outboard at the optimal trim level, no matter what speed.

This feature makes boating easier and more enjoyable for both new and seasoned captains.

When under way while manoeuvring through tight turns and big offshore water, Evinrude’s iSteer and iTrim adjusts automatically to make controlling the boat effortless.

Both iSteer and iTrim do not require any aftermarket parts – it is an advantage straight from the factory.

Evinrude G2 owner Allison Blair said having iSteer makes it a dream to drive.

“There are actually three different levels, so you can pick how easy you want it to be,” she said.

“So, I’m not sure why you would ever own a boat that didn’t have power steering!”

Fellow E-TEC owner Ryan Brown said, “The power steering was a big factor for our purchase.”

“We are doing a lot of turns, we are not just doing straight lines all the time, and I wanted something my wife could drive with ease.”

For more information on the Evinrude G2 or the entire Evinrude range, visit your local dealer or evinrude.com.au Evinrude – we’ve got you covered.

Lowest Emissions Best Fuel Economy Best Torque Low Maintenance Costs 5 Year Warranty

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Page 54 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

www.bnbfishing.com. au

BOATING & marine Insights into boat insurance

B

USH ‘n Beach has brought Nautilus Marine Insurance on board to expand the fine print and provide readers with clear, easy-to-understand and helpful tips on protecting their boating assets.

The scenario More than 50 years ago the Daily Mirror in London backed the concept of a ‘build it at home’ boat – the 3.3m sailing

dingy, the Mirror.

In conjunction with the paper’s do-it-yourself expert Barry Bucknell and Jack Holt, one of the world’s most popular sailing dinghies was created as a ‘stitch and glue’ design – pre-cut panels laced together by copper wire with the joints covered in fibreglass tape and sealed.

Since then and with an explosion in the popularity of do-it-yourself activities and television

programs, along with what some colloquially call “YouTube university”, there has been an extraordinary growth in DIY projects including kit boats.

Assisted by technologies including computer numerical cutting equipment, affordable construction tools and digital explanations of the processes, the availability of do-it-yourself boat construction kits now includes aluminium

and plate alloy versions that range from around the size of that original 3.3m vessel to multi-hull designs of more than 8m in length.

And in between there are dinghies, centre consoles, half cabins, full cabins, cruisers, runabouts – you name it and it’s probably available as a kit boat.

But once you’ve invested your money and countless hours into turning your kit boat into a floating reality, where do you stand in terms of insurance?

Fortunately, marine insurance specialists like Nautilus recognise there are many qualified tradies who have the required skills and commitment to create a quality finished product from a kit.

As well, some companies manufacturing those kits can construct the hull to a certain level of finish, enabling the customer to do the final fit-out.

Others also have ar-

rangements under which an authorised person can complete the trickier parts of assembly for the kit boat constructor.

It’s also important to note there are prevailing construction standards for a range of related issues such as the specifications relating to electrics, gas, fuels and lighting.

Some elements of this work can only be undertaken by someone holding the required certification.

But once you’re across all that, there’s something more you’ll need if you are to get coverage.

The primary requirement is for the insurance application to be accompanied by a survey report attesting to the design and construction standards of the vessel.

This must come from a licensed marine surveyor.

Some kit boats are designed by naval architects, licensed marine surveyors and/or boat builders, which can add

evidentiary weight to your application.

The second feature will be an Australian Builder’s Plate, which standardises the display requirements relating to the boat’s capacities and capabilities including the maximum horsepower and number of people permitted on board.

Underpinning the insurer’s response to your insurance application is a concern about how safe and seaworthy your vessel is in terms of design and construction.

Nautilus does advise that people intending to buy and construct a boat from a pre-fabricated kit to first explore the credibility of the original design and investigate the insurability of the particular model being considered.

There is no room for assumptions.

However, provided all the right boxes are ticked, the good news is Nautilus Marine does not charge any excess premium on a professionally designed

and constructed kit boat.

As always, any special conditions and excesses should always be explained clearly in your insurance policy’s product disclosure statement.

Always check your PDS and if you have a query, ask for clarification.

If you need further information, you can contact Nautilus Marine Insurance on 1300 780 533 for any boat insurance requirements. insurance requirements.

Win a Nautilus Prize Package Nautilus will also be answering your boat insurance questions of a general nature and will be offering a great bimonthly prize to the best questions received.

The prize is a Nautilus Marine merchandising pack comprising a collapsible chiller bag, handy marine sports bag and cap.

Just email your questions to qld@nautilusin surance.com.au

Any advice contained in this article is of a general nature only and may not apply or be right for you as it does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any advice provided in this article, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 55

BOATING & marine Bias Boating now steering to online dominance with new owners at the helm

W

ITH new owners at the helm, online chandlery Bias Boating has been restructured, revitalised and is now back in operation as a marine products superstore.

And it is doing so with the addition of ‘real people’ available at the end of a telephone line to assist with any queries

about the products and how to use them properly.

It has taken several years for the new owners to acquire the brand, reshape its direction, reorganise its products lines, stocks, warehousing and distribution systems and relaunch Bias Boating as a super force in the online marine retailing space.

According to director Mr Peter Ruhle, Bias

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Boating’s online range now covers power, sail and kayaking forms of boating as well as thousands of products that have application in caravanning, camping and hiking.

“We have broken them into 26 major categories to make finding the right item a very simple process,” Mr Ruhle said.

“It also allows for easy, casual browsing through item categories.

“Our key points of difference are our product expertise and advice, which can be accessed online; fast delivery turnaround on products purchased; competitive pricing across the full range and marketing ‘super saver’ specials.

“We have also created an integrated order tracking system that allows customers to see the progress of their purchase including when it was ordered, picked, shipped and delivered.”

Bias Boating is also able to provide assistance to those customers who bought items some time ago through the previous Bias owners and who now might need assistance with issues ranging from product updates or replacements to software upgrades and new interfaces with electronic products.

“We have also introduced a 1800 number to provide technical support – that way Bias Boat-

ing’s customers will be able to talk to a real person rather than having to work through frustrating, automated, self-help computerised systems,” Mr Ruhle said.

“The staff are available to advise pre-purchase, during the purchase and post-purchase.”

Getting biasboating. com.au operational in an improved form is the first step of the transition.

“We will also be creating a Bias Club with benefits, offers and club experiences for members,” Mr Ruhle said.

“We are still defining the parameters of that and also will be guided to a large extent by the wishes of our core customers.

“We believe the key to success is understanding that when it comes to the purchase of marine products online, it requires a totally integrated experience, not just a ‘grab and post’ system.

“Therefore, we have sought to provide a local, human interface as well to remove the frustrations experienced when dealing with faceless organisations, call centres, outsourced distribution systems and people who might never have even set foot on a boat in their entire working lives.”

Access to the online Bias Boating store is via biasboating.com.au The toll-free number for advice is 1800 790 242.

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Page 56 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

VISIT YOUR LOCAL DEALER TODAY! Mr Peter Ruhle is steering Bias Boating to online super success.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

I landed this massive flathead in the Logan River by slowly drifting the banks and hopping a 2.5” Z-Man GrubZ in Glow Bone.

Jamie Hanrahan

Brandon enticed a nice squid.

Darren Rama

I caught this trout near North West Island off Gladstone on a pillie.

Matthew Stagg

Went for a fish and landed a heap of flatties, the best one going 74cm and landed on a 1-3kg bream outfit, 1000 Shimano Sedona reel, 6lb FireLine and 12lb Yamatoyo fluorocarbon.

Josh Kington 11-year-old Max Robinson with a 60cm flathead caught on a lure in the Logan River.

Claire Robinson

Hello Ben, This is my son Beau with his very first fish.

This was a proud dad moment.

The bream was the biggest for the day measuring 33cm and the bait was a hardyhead.

Beau caught the fish out of the Tweed River and was excited when I told him it could be printed in BNB Fishing.

Keep up the good work you all do.

I’ve been buying BNB for about 20 years now.

Kind regards, Joe Worn

My son Bill caught this 35cm bream among others on a recent fishing trip over the school holidays.

Pearce

To have a photo of your catch featured in Readers Forum, simply email ben@bnbfishing.com.au with a good-quality picture, your name and details or hop onto our Facebook page and send us a message.

Rhys Dean with a winter mixed bag.

■ Readers Forum ■ Readers Forum ■ Readers Forum www.bnbfishing.com. au

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 57

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 59

From predator to prey in the estuaries

H

I all, the past month of fishing has been very similar to previous months in the Mackay area.

Rudy with a great blue salmon caught on light gear – awesome fun.

Wet weather gear has been an essential component of your fishing kit as the past few weeks have seen the rain not letting up.

A few small weather windows have been taken advantage of by keen offshore anglers and they were well rewarded for

f

Jason Kidd

0457 254 740

Fishing Mackay

by JASON KIDD

their efforts, with fantastic catches of reef species.

Most reported catching fish on marks in the deeper waters of the shipping channels rather than at the reef itself.

The estuaries, on the other hand, are still providing great fishing action for those willing to brave the often wet and windy conditions.

Great catches of flathead, bream and whiting on both lures and bait have kept most estuary anglers busy.

Big schools of blue salmon are prevalent in our waters at this time of year and over the next few months as they begin spawning they will become less of a challenge to catch.

Usually they will hold in the deeper holes at the mouths of creeks or gutters and feed on bait schools.

Getting connected to them is not too difficult because they will take well-presented dead baits, live baits and hard and soft lures during this spawning period.

During a recent bluey session, by casting Z-Man curly and paddle tail soft plastics we were able to land over 20 in less than two hours.

It was absolutely awesome action, with multiple fish attacking the lures on each retrieve and getting the anglers’ heartrates right up there.

Most of the fish ranged from 60-70cm, with

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257 Banksia Rd, Stanage | 1452m2

Conveniently positioned in the centre of town, 250m from the Thirsty Sound boat ramp and a stroll to the beach across the road. This property has beautiful views over the water to enjoy.

Comfortably appointed as a holiday getaway and is currently being leased part-time as a holiday rental. The property will be sold with all existing furniture and fittings.

Preliminary designs have been completed for an open plan home with work completed to level the block setting the property up well for future development if desired.

Located a stone’s throw from the centre of town.

the odd 80cm-plus unit among them.

While the initial strike and hook-up can be a little more subtle than a barra or jack bite, once you set the hook into one of them, the fun really begins.

Long screaming runs followed by spectacular aerial jumps is how the contest starts, before they begin erratically changing direction, trying to dislodge the lure.

These fantastic fighting fish can really test an angler’s gear and abilities, often requiring two or three laps of the boat before getting the fish into view, let alone near the landing net.

Using 2000-3000 size spin reels on a 3-5kg graphite rod with 15lb braid and 30lb fluoro carbon leader enables the angler to cast small 3/8oz jig heads the distance needed to get the plastic into the strike zone.

The light rod gives the angler the perfect action with which to entice the bite but still enough stick to land them without too much trouble.

On this day the action only slowed thanks to a pod of seven or eight dolphins that had followed the schools of blue salmon up the creek.

What happened next was one of those truly awesome parts of nature that as a fisho you are privileged to witness.

The area we had been working was on the edge of the channel to the main creek and only 1-2m deep.

The blue salmon were chasing small baitfish up in the shallows, along with our lures.

Over the next hour or so the blue salmon went from predator to prey as the dolphins worked together to school up the fish and push them into shallows before launching into the school.

What we witnessed that day was incredible and not unlike watching a National Geographic show.

The dolphins would take turns lying on their sides in the shallow water, stirring and dirtying it up and confusing the salmon while another dolphin

would charge into the dirty salmon-filled water, often launching their bodies out of the water and with salmon in their teeth and many other salmon flying in all directions.

This incredible display occurred only 30-50m from our boat and was so

enthralling it resulted in all anglers on board putting down their rods and watching the show in awe.

This was one of those experiences on the water that will remain with me and the others on board forever – truly awesome!

ET was stoked with his blue salmon hooked on a Z-Man Curly TailZ.

Darren and the boys Oliver and Charlie with a good flatty.

Russel was keen to jump into the shot with Maude and her flatty.

1 Features: • 2 Bedrooms • 1 Bathroom with built in laundry 2 • Front patio with views over the water • Outdoor BBQ area • Tank water • On grid electricity supply 2 • Seamless epoxy flooring • Potential for future development Stanage is located 2.5hrs drive from Rockhampton and is renowned for its laid-back lifestyle and second to none fishing and crabbing. It is an angler’s delight!

For more information contact Darryl 0437 436 980 Page 60 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

Marius and a good bluey – one of many caught that day.

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What a beautiful Stanage snapper!

One very happy fisho.

Battleships out, big fish in H

ELLO everyone, I hope wherever you are the weather is blessing you and enabling you to have some great fishing experiences over these beautiful winter months.

Here at Stanage Bay we can be very grateful not only for the awesome weather but for some top fish and excellent progress on our new boat ramp.

By the time you’re reading this the Talisman Sabre Department of Defence exercise will be all but wrapped up so you’ll be free to come and go as normal, however the Stanage Bay road is in average condition, so drive ac-

Stanage Bay

by PEE WEE

cordingly and take it easy if you’re towing a load.

The boat ramp upgrade has had a few hold-ups due to availability of certain resources, but while slow and steady it’s taking great shape.

The new quota for jewfish is now in full swing.

Fish numbers in the Jew Hole should see a rise, giving anglers more chance of catching the big one.

Creek fishing has been productive, with excellent bream, salmon and whiting

caught in areas from Porters Creek to Alligator Bay, Flat Rock and Quail Island.

All fish are chasing prawns.

Outside the bay, anglers have been successful at Hexham Island and surrounds, reeling in great stripeys, cod, mackerel and snapper.

Trolling with lures is a popular option for bringing in huge fish.

The Percy Isles are living up to their reputation for having the best

selection of reef species, offering the whole array including beautiful red emperor.

All species are loving cuttlefish baits.

Some beautiful sweetlip and top numbers of them are getting about the outer reefs of Sail Rock, and in closer are mackerel.

The Marble Islands have given up great-quality squid within the anchorage areas at night.

Squid are pretty fun to catch and even better eating.

Crabbing in the bay has been a little hit and miss due to the cooler water.

The sizes are massive as usual but numbers

slightly lower.

Crabs are opting to reside further up the creeks.

The campgrounds are reasonably vacant, with some top spots up for grabs, and don’t forget the newer facilities located at the boat ramp for that little extra comfort during your trip.

That about covers this month’s hot spots and updates.

I hope to see you up here soon.

Please call into Stanage Bay Marine & Accommodation for all your fishing and tackle needs and of course a weigh-in and photo session with your ultimate catch.

Kaiden’s top catch.

Stanage Bay Marine oAccommodationoBaitoIce oTackle

Aparadise fisho's

Monster crabs

Awesome fishing stanagebay.com Call 07 4937 3145

IT’S NOT HARD TO SEE WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE

Hooked on

y a k c a M

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Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 61

Jesse Mobbs with a fine coral trout taken offshore from Yeppoon.

The author and daughter Brooky with a big flatty from Coorooman Creek.

Stay safe when heading wide

A

UGUST is generally one of the better weather months here on the Capricorn Coast.

Mega threadies are high on everyone’s list during the cooler months. Clint Beecheno with another 140cm fish taken while out with Paul Mundey.

Paul Mundey had a cracker trip in the Fitzroy recently, with multiple 140cm-plus fish coming aboard.

Jesse with an impressive blackspot tuskfish.

Barra are still biting in the impoundments. Matty Arnold with a solid metrey from Fairbairn Dam (Lake Maraboon) near Emerald.

Page 62 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

It’s also one of the peak months for whale activity.

Some advice for offshore fishing this month would be to head out at first light or travel in the afternoon.

Travelling at night is dangerous and best avoided; some horror stories are around about boats hitting whales.

I’m not sure if it was last year or the year before, but even the coastguard boat hit one.

Just keep it in mind when heading out to enjoy your time on the water.

Speaking of safety, how many people love going out past radio range to bag quality reefies?

There’s less pressure the further you go out.

I’ll do this trip probably twice a year and generally in winter when the weather is better and there’s less chance of storm activity.

One handy little device I now carry is a Garmin inReach satellite communicator.

I wanted some peace of mind if the VHF radio started to go scratchy.

This little hand-held instrument lets you send text messages via the satellite network.

I researched satellite phones and every which way I went you ended up with a hefty monthly fee.

I know you can’t put a price on safety but I really was after something simple because I would only require it a handful of times each year.

With the Garmin inReach you can set up your account and basically only pay when you are using it.

When the unit isn’t in use, you can log on to the Garmin page and pause your plan – how cool is that!

It’s just another piece of life-saving equipment.

Going out past radio range with no form of communication is risky.

I know fishos who strongly rely on the EPIRB to get them out of trouble, but if there’s an issue with it then you’re

Capricorn Coast

by JOHN BOON

up you know where without a paddle.

That’s enough safety chat, let’s get down to business.

What’s been happening here on the Capricorn Coast?

It’s been great to see we have had a pretty steady thready bite all the way through the colder months.

Some big girls are getting around, that’s for sure.

If you went back four or five years, a special capture would be a thready around 120cm in length.

Since the implementation of the Rockhampton net-free zone almost four years ago, the average size of king threadfin has increased dramatically.

If you catch a 120cm thready these days it is considered average.

Has everyone lost their minds!?

People are calling a 120cm king threadfin average!?

Yes sir.

A large number around this size have been caught of late.

The 120cm trophy fish of a few years ago have now been replaced by 140cm fish.

It seems to be the new benchmark.

The exciting thought is, what’s going to be average in another four or five years?

If you can find those schools of threadies, then Berkley Gulp Shrimp and soft vibes have been the number-one choice for getting results.

If you’re not a lure fisho, a live prawn would be the best option.

It seems both the Fitzroy River mouth and Port Alma are turning over similar numbers of big threadies.

Flathead have been around in good numbers and size.

Corio Bay would be the most popular place to target these fish.

The shallow drains out in the bay are the most

common areas for anglers to target big winter flatties.

Plastics like the Gulp curl tails and Z-Man GrubZ have been working best.

Targeting those drains on a falling tide as the bait gets pushed out is ideal.

Coorooman Creek has its fair share of lizards as well.

We have been pulling them from mud points with a bit of run moving past them, as these make prime ambush spots.

The barra have been pretty quiet, as expected with the cold weather.

Longer periods of stable weather present a better time to chase the chrome but such weather patterns have been few and far between.

The same principal has worked in the impoundments.

Matty Arnold has invested a fair amount of time at Lake Maraboon near Emerald.

The barra were still very active as the water temps fell.

Now into the coldest months of the year, Matty has successfully caught them all through winter.

Though the bite periods have been short, the quality of fish hitting the deck has been giant.

Average size fish from the dam have measured 105-110cm.

Lake Awoonga has also been fishing well during the stable weather cycles.

Timbered points and bays with warmer water have been the pick.

The Happy Rock Softies Grub has done most of the damage.

Squid reports have been a bit patchy but some prime winter squid have been taken around the islands.

Working shallow rubble, coral and weed beds is the better bet.

Work over areas well and move on.

This is how I seem to get better catches than just staying in one spot.

Vary the colours and size of jigs until you find what the fish want.

You can rack up numbers of squid very quickly if you work well as a team.

If you can keep one hooked squid in the water, generally it will hold the rest of the school in close proximity.

On the offshore fishing scene, reports have been a bit sporadic, with weather windows not playing nice.

Those who have managed to venture out have been rewarded with redthroat emperor from the shallow pressure points around the main reefs.

Redthroat emperor would have to be one of the easiest and tastiest fish to catch.

Even around pressured systems you should be able to rustle up a feed fairly easily.

They don’t seem too picky on baits but fresh is always best.

The good old frozen pillie or squid will do the job too.

At the end of August is another fantastic local fishing competition.

The King of the Fitzroy comp will be running on the weekend of August 24-25.

Some tickets are still available but you had better be quick because numbers are limited.

To grab tickets, just jump onto the King of the Fitzroy 2019 Facebook page and follow the link to register.

It’s my first year attending this comp and I’m keen as mustard to see what all the fuss is about.

I’ll be fishing with Luke Peisker and we are both taking one of our kids.

It should be a lot of fun and I hope we can at least get the youngsters onto some of those line burners.

Well that’s it from me this month.

I’ll be looking forward to putting the winter gear away next month and watching those water temperatures rise.

Stay safe and fish hard. www.bnbfishing.com. au

A great day offshore for Brendan, David and Nathan.

Cobia are on the move, this one caught by Peter.

Superb scenery and species around Hinchinbrook

G

’DAY everyone, we hope this finds you well.

The sun has finally decided to grace us and it’s a welcome sight indeed.

Not only for us but also the farmers who can finally begin their overdue harvesting of sugar cane.

The fields are starting to dry enough for them to get the machinery in there.

Best of luck and we hope they all get a good return.

Moving on to the fishing, this welcome sunshine has seen our waterways start to clear and the fishing improve slightly and the scenery significantly.

Hinchinbrook Island and the surrounding waterways are truly spectacular on a clear day and certainly a serene and peaceful place to wet a line.

We’ve seen a bit of a decline in the number of grunter caught and an absence of those annoying catfish, which is great.

Mangrove jack are feeding a bit better, with strip and live baits accounting for most.

The barra are still quiet, even upriver, which is certainly a follow-on from the falling temperatures,

Hinchinbook News

by TEAM CRACKAJACK

however, they are still around for those wishing to invest the time and patience, with good reports of a few nice fish still lurking around the area.

The bream are certainly feeding aggressively and making their presence known, with many taking baits meant for other target species.

Juvenile redthroat emperor and sweetlip have been boated, along with small and large-mouth nannygai, which highlights the importance of the Hinchinbrook Channel grounds as both a nursery and residence/refuge for quality fish.

Many species of trevally are still hitting lures and taking baits and they give a good account of themselves on light gear.

Squid, pilchards, mullet strips, livies and lures have all accounted for the fish caught inshore this

A nice diamond trevally hooked by Graham.

month.

Offshore has still been patchy, with the wind refusing to relent.

The trips out are few and far between and restricted to the closer grounds.

Cobia are starting to show and nannygai are still feeding, with some spanish mackerel thrown in and nice coral trout on the very rare occasion we’ve been able to reach the reef.

We are looking forward to the coming months, which should see mackerel and indeed all species numbers increase and hopefully the wind decrease, allowing for more offshore adventures.

GTs have been appearing in numbers, giving us another reason to get our fish to the top fast.

If it’s not the noahs pilfering our catch, it’s these oversized and powerful predators.

The larger units have tested our gear and the anglers’ strength and stamina.

The reef fish have fallen mostly for the standard baits of mullet, pilchard and squid as well as strip baits of mack tuna.

A few have also been taken while jigging Nomad Gypsys and Streakers in the 80g range.

Anything with some pink colour in it has been favoured.

We have given trolling

a miss this month due to the swell.

A couple of times we’ve pushed it and while fish can still be found it has been wet and uncomfortable, with a few anglers succumbing to the scourge of seasickness.

For those of us who have had to deal with this type of ailment, I’m sure we are all in agreement it is most unpleasant.

In some circles it is also a source of amusement for those who are immune and no end of ribbing takes place.

If you’re one of the unlucky ones who suffers from it and you’re planning on going to sea on a not so perfect day, please remember to take some form of medication such as Kwells or Travacalm before setting out.

It certainly won’t help you to take the meds once you’re out there and it hits.

If you’re up this way and find yourself in need of a rod repair or reel servicing, advice on your sounder or you just want to top up your lure or rod arsenal, you can’t go past the expertise and friendly assistance of ‘Nugget’ who operates the Ingham Tackle Shack.

As the name suggests, it’s located in the interest-

Two full-time local guides!

ing town of Ingham.

Nugget has always got a smile on his dial and is very knowledgeable when it comes to electronics and sounders, does an amazing job repairing rods and servicing reels and is competitively priced with all his stock.

Until next time, from all of us at Crackajack, stay safe.

May the wind stay low and the fish count high.

Rachel held a juvenile nannygai.

Judith picked up a golden trevally.

Full-day inshore or offshore charters Come on a Hinchinbrook wilderness fishing holiday and tick some of those trophy fish off your bucket list – barra, mangrove jack, coral trout, GTs, sooty grunter, spanish mackerel, black marlin, queenies, nannygai and more!

• Two boats available catering for groups of 2-8 • 3 to 7-day packages including accommodation T: 07 4777 2968 M: 0417 192 318 E: barra@crackfish.com Ross with guide Damien holding a solid GT.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE >>> CRACKFISH.COM Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 63

Camped beside the North Kennedy River near the Hann Crossing.

Breeza Waterhole is one of the hundreds of wetlands in Rinyirru National Park.

Magical Rinyirru National Park R

INYIRRU National Park is without question one of the best bush destinations on Cape York.

The park features fantastic photographic opportunities.

Corypha palms are dotted all over the Cape.

Barra for dinner!

Page 64 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

If you’re into camping, fishing, photography and generally experiencing the region’s iconic nature – this is the place!

One night spent here will give you a taste, but to really tune in and enjoy the place, you need at least a couple of nights, or weeks!

Formerly Lakefield National Park, and before that Lakefield Cattle Station, Rinyirru is Queensland’s second-largest national park at over 530,000ha.

Stretching over 100km from near Laura northward to the mangrovefringed Princess Charlotte Bay, the park encompasses a vast area of savannah woodland, dissected by two major river systems, the Normanby and North Kennedy.

The landscape is dotted with thousands of termite mounds and decorated with hundreds of billabongs and swamps.

Most of the wetlands and smaller watercourses will dry during the dry season.

Cape York by ‘BILLABONG’ BAZZ LYON

However, it is the permanent water that remains, especially in the rivers, that is the major drawcard.

Shady riverside campsites are dotted across the park, offering great fishing and the opportunity to simply relax.

Basically, rivers in the southern two-thirds of the park are fresh water.

Places marked with an * have limited or no opportunities for bankside fishing, with a boat needed to really explore and fish.

Coming from the south, the Twelve Mile Hole*, Kennedy Bend*, Old Faithful*, Dingo Plains and Mickey Fein waterholes are all cracker camping locations that offer great barra fishing.

Catfish waterhole* is a day use area only, but fantastic barramundi habitat.

Winter of course sees a slowing in barramundi appetites.

The good news is they usually start to get much hungrier around midAugust as the sun gets stronger and the days get longer.

And don’t forget the yabby pots, as the rivers here are home to very chubby cherabin, which are great as bait or tucker.

Just 3km from the Lakefield Ranger Base is the extensive Kalpowar Crossing camping area, complete with flushing toilets and cold showers.

This camping area is set high above the Normanby River on what you would think was a flood-free area.

A post marked with flood levels near the smaller amenities block reveals this is not the case!

When I was a ranger at Lakefield in a previous life, floodwaters swept into the campground in an amazing display of nature’s power.

However, this wet season just gone saw it running nearly 2m deep through the campground.

The ranger base became an island surrounded by floodwaters that extended for many kilometres – the Normanby and North Kennedy rivers joining up.

When these rivers get cranking they are absolute

powerhouses!

At Kalpowar Crossing you can walk and fish the bank downstream in places, however, for the glorious waterhole upstream you need a boat as the banks are too steep and thickly vegetated to walk and fish.

North of the ranger base it is something of a dilemma as to which way to go.

To the west is the magnificent Seven Mile Hole on the North Kennedy River*.

To the east and north are another great range of camping areas set beside fresh water: Midway*, Hanushs, Melaleuca*, Orange Plains and Top Whiphandle – all along the beautiful Normanby River.

Bottom Whiphandle a little further north again offers access to tidal waters, however it can be a bit of a challenge negotiating fallen trees.

Just before the turnoff to the Whiphandles, another track leads you to Basin Waterhole and Jam Tin Creek at the top of the tidal influence.

You can walk and fish the upstream section, though a boat is best below.

Further on, the track finishes at Browns Creek where it joins the Bizant River.

Camping is no longer allowed here, however a decent boat ramp means you can launch a boat to fish the Bizant and its tributaries for the usual range of

tantalising tropical estuary fish.

Barra, mangrove jack, both species of salmon and estuary cod are about in good numbers, as are muddies!

If you have the fuel, inclination and it is high tide, it’s also well worth going out into the bay and flicking the mangrove edges for lurking, powerhouse barramundi.

Backtracking way back to the road junction just north of Red Lily Lagoon, taking the left or western fork brings you out to the picturesque North Kennedy River.

Fishing can be done at any of the campsites downstream from the actual crossing, and a boat is an advantage and certainly necessary at many sites, with 11 available here.

Camp 20 is at the upper tidal limit and offers access to the rest of the river and great fishing and crabbing.

Beware the rock bars!

Continuing on from the Hann Crossing, you cross the impressive Nifold Plain and reach Saltwater Creek, which offers a number of campsites.

Bank fishing is available

here, though remember to always fish a safe distance back from the water because crocodiles are always about, even when you don’t see them.

The other attraction of Rinyirru is the wildlife.

As the dry season progresses, waterbirds increasingly concentrate in large numbers in swamps that still hold water and present a great spectacle.

Ducks, magpie geese, jacanas and jabiru are all a vital part of the local ecology, as are the brolgas often seen feeding on the termite mound-dotted plains.

The huge palm trees you see in many places are corypha palms.

Somehow adapted to surviving with wet feet during the wet season and baking hot, dry conditions in the dry, they also feature the largest seed head of any plant in the world – weighing up to half a tonne.

Corypha palms grow to about 35 years old, then flower and fruit for the first and last time – and then die.

Rinyirru is a fabulous stretch of country and well worth exploring!

Cherabin are abundant in the rivers throughout Rinyirru.

A cracker Rinyirru barra.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

Hot fishing on the Cape T

HE majority of visitors who head to the Cape plan their trips to coincide with the winter months from June to August.

While it’s great to get away from the cold and enjoy the mild conditions that occasionally has locals, like myself, shivering in our T-shirts, shorts and thongs every now and then, it also means our most sought-after piscatorial species such as barra and mangrove jack are more interested in ‘sleeping in’ than chasing a baitfish or three.

All that starts to change once September comes around and the air and water warm up.

What’s ironic is right when most tourists are heading back south, the fish are about to go from hibernation to hyperactivity.

With spawning season approaching, they need to eat up big to prepare for plenty of fishy lovemaking as the wet season descends.

In short, hot weather means hot fishing!

To us locals, traffic on the Peninsula Development Rd drops markedly once the September school holidays are finished.

By that time the day temperatures are generally in the mid to high-30C range and the southeasterly trade winds are starting to ease, particularly in the afternoons.

What’s more important is water temperatures have crept back up from

Fishing the Cape

by DAVE DONALD

winter lows to a more ‘barra friendly’ level in the high-20s.

By November, temps can pass the magic 30C mark.

I started working as a full-time guide on the Cape way back in 1990 and quickly became aware of the fact most of my clients were visiting during the slowest fishing times of the year.

While I rarely had complaints about the quality of the action we regularly enjoyed, I began to promote what in those days were termed the ‘shoulder’ seasons, from April to June and September until November, because the fish were so much more active during those months.

It took perhaps five years to get that message out to the regular fishers who then got on the grapevine to their mates.

Soon it was a case of booking 12 months ahead to get a spot in the peak months – a situation that still holds right throughout tropical Australia some 25 years later, even though many more guides are around these days.

So if you want to make the most of your precious fishing time, instead of planning your Cape trip during the cooler months, try deferring your travels to late-September and October.

The warmer months from September on have a positive impact on the activity of most major species including fingermark like this ripper landed by Scott.

The wet rarely starts to get serious until early December, so driving out later in the year should not be a problem.

Some years the transition from winter to summer activity is noticeable, particularly when you are on the water nearly every day.

I used to liken it to nature ‘flicking a switch’!

It was not a slow transition.

Suddenly more fish were around – and they were switched on and hungry.

That usually happened in mid-September in both the Bamaga and Weipa areas.

Coincidentally, at about the same time, crocodiles started spending less time sunning themselves on the bank; a sign that water warmth had become high enough to support their temperature-critical metabolism without a daily shore ‘sauna’ session.

One of the busiest times for local Weipa fishers comes in November when the trade winds die and there’s a mass exodus of boats to the east coast where the outer Great Barrier Reef is only 20 nautical miles off Lockhart River.

It’s a four-hour drive from one side of the Cape to the other but that’s merely a short drive for people used to spending 10 hours on the road each way just to go ‘shopping’ in Cairns.

For those who opt to spend their time in local waters, the rewards are still very good.

From barra to billfish, mangrove jack and mackerel, the place comes alive as the humidity builds and the wet season approaches.

The mornings that see you sweating at 7am generally herald a day when the fishing goes berserk.

Making sure you have yourself well covered in a combination of light clothing and sunscreen is mandatory – and don’t

Launching facilities at Portland Roads are very basic – but the edge of the Reef is just over an hour’s run away.

www.bnbfishing.com. au

forget to carry lots of cool water to keep dehydration at bay.

If barramundi is the focus of your visit, remember the season closes earlier in Gulf waters, usually in early October.

This limits the opportunity to target this species during this prime period to a couple of weeks in late September but plenty of other species can be pursued during the closure.

It’s not uncommon for charter clients to land over 40 varieties during a week’s fishing at this time of year.

Our northern winter is characterised by strong southeasterly trade winds that range from 15 to 20 knots on the better days to more than 30 when the big high-pressure systems cross the Great Australian Bight and head into the Tasman.

Camping on the eastern side of the Cape requires strong tents and guy ropes while any dogs (and children) should be secured to a large tree with a chain to prevent them blowing away!

By the beginning of September, the trade winds generally start to slacken, though 30 knotters can still turn up at short notice.

On the Gulf side, the wind pattern starts to be influenced by the increased heating of the land during the day, with the result that the wind switches to a southwesterly sea breeze most afternoons, generally dropping local temperatures a couple of degrees.

These sea breezes can cause ugly inshore conditions, so getting out at sparrow’s and heading back in the early afternoon can make the day more pleasant if you are fishing offshore.

Once the trade winds taper, usually in early to mid-November, long periods of calm weather known as the doldrums can result, but it gets bloody hot, even for longterm locals.

The heat and humidity can be stifling but can be tempered by afternoon sea breezes and thunderstorms.

It’s called the ‘build-up’ for good reason, a time that sees frayed nerves and the occasional dose of ‘mango madness’.

Getting out for a fish in the cooler parts of the day helps alleviate any negative symptoms.

Fishing the tropics in the warmer months might not be attractive to all fishers but it’s worth considering if you want to see the north at its best.

As with any trip, preparation is the key.

Keeping yourself comfortable and well protected will maximise enjoyment – and that’s really what fishing is all about!

The hotter the weather, the hotter the barra fishing! Postponing your Cape trip a couple of months can be the difference between catching none or heaps. Steve Cruse with a Weipa salty.

When the trade winds ease late in the year, quite a few locals make the long, dusty trip to the east coast to find fish like this. Steve Wust used a big Berkely plastic to lure this tiger of the reef, a red bass.

Big spaniards like this one landed by Warwick on a cast metal slice can be found year-round in the Gulf but are much more prolific from late-August until the wet arrives.

Keen fly fishers will find the warmer, calmer months to their liking. This stonker queenfish grabbed Nick’s offering and gave him a fantastic tussle.

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 65

Using your sounder to improve your results

W

HAT an exciting month it has been on the fishing front along western Cape York.

Parker landed a 54cm mangrove jack.

Weipa recently hosted its annual fishing classic and angling enthusiasts from all over converged on our tiny town to join in the festivities.

From all reports, some great catches were taken and a good time was had by all.

With the extra-low tides and long run-outs we’ve been having, the barra fishing has been red hot.

Double-figure scores and larger fish have been very common.

The shallow rubble patches and reef flats around the points off Weipa are holding good numbers of tuskfish, mangrove jack and trevally.

Those lucky enough to snag decent weather and head wide have been rewarded with great catches of fingermark, largemouth nannygai and cobia.

Spanish mackerel have started to turn up in good numbers and marlin are being caught on contour lines further out.

As a result of Weipa’s vast number of waterways, I’ve found myself relying heavily on my sounder and GPS unit to find productive fishing grounds.

Weipa Wonders

by RYAN JAMIESON

With so many different brands on the market and units that specialise in certain applications, not to mention conflicting information online, it can be a hard process choosing and learning to use the right sounder for your style of fishing.

When choosing a sounder, you first need to take into consideration the style of fishing you do most.

For example, I predominantly fish the estuaries for species such as barramundi, and every now and then I might venture out wide and chase fingermark or nannygai on wrecks or rubble in deeper water.

I choose to run a Humminbird Helix 10 G2N. This unit has down and side-imaging capabilities and can also run at a super-high-frequency (Mega Imaging) to give crisp and detailed pictures in shallow water.

This unit also has great 2D capabilities for shallow to medium-depth water.

If you are intending to do more bottom bashing or jigging in deep water, you might go with something from the Furuno range such as an FCV587, which is known as a great deep-water unit.

The next thing to take into consideration is your budget.

Humminbird, Lowrance and Garmin all offer great budget packages but when buying your sounder, check with the sales assistant as to its capabilities, because most budget models run limited frequencies in side imaging mode and give quite a poor picture.

Once you decide on the model you want, get the biggest screen you can afford, because when it comes to sounder displays, bigger really is better.

The most common question I get asked regarding sounders is what settings I use when running side and down imaging.

Apart from a few minor tweaks, which can be found online, most units are good to go out of the box.

As for settings such as sensitivity and contrast, I know with my unit I’m constantly adjusting my settings depending on the water depth, clarity and current.

I find the best way to get the initial adjustments right is to go to a place with some kind of structure and then play with your contrast and sensitivity settings until you’re happy with the image.

When looking for fish, of course you cannot rely on your sounder alone.

Tide, feeding patterns, structure and predicting fish movements all comes into play, but when fishing a large area such as the river systems around Weipa, a sounder can prove very helpful.

Utilising your sounder to confirm fish are holding in a suspected area helps cut down searching time and prevents fishing an area that simply isn’t holding fish.

I use side imaging when searching for schooled fish such as barramundi and threadfin salmon.

This method is ideal for finding areas where I think fish may be holding, such as a drop-off or break in the current.

I find it easier to control the speed of the boat by driving past the area against the tide or wind.

After I go past the area, I’ll do a few more passes on different angles because this can manipulate the image and give a better picture.

After I confirm fish are holding there, I drop my electric motor in the water and spot lock down-

stream of the fish.

Once anchored, I start working lures though the school, and after a few casts I’ll change my position to work my lure through at a few different angles.

Once I’m satisfied I’ve put in enough casts, I’ll do another pass on the location and check to see if the school has moved, then reposition the boat and repeat.

Don’t be disheartened if you finish this process empty-handed because finding the fish is one thing, but getting them to bite can be very challenging, especially if the fish on the screen look to be facing head down or settled on the bottom (sulking).

The coastline off Weipa is riddled with rocky bottoms, shelves and bommies, and at different times all will hold fish.

A great way to find new ground is to troll.

I simply use the splitscreen function on my Humminbird Helix and make my screen half GPS plotter and half 2D sonar and drive and watch.

If you find fish holding on the bottom, you can stop and fish this location or mark the position for future reference.

When revisiting a spot you have marked, it’s a good idea to scan the area around this position because it’s likely other bits of structure will be nearby.

Fish such as spanish mackerel and cobia often hold a good 50-100m off the structure.

Sounders are great fishcatching tools, yet they can also make fishing a little more frustrating.

Knowing the fish are there and not being able to convert them into a bite drives you crazy but it’s the challenge of getting that bite that makes us all go back for more.

If you have any questions about utilising your sounder to catch more fish, contact me on Instagram @jemo.in.the.cape.

See you on the Cape.

Three jewfish stacked up behind a bridge pile.

Sharks cruising around the boat after being attracted by a hooked queenfish.

Page 66 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

Jason with a cobia sounded up off a bait school.

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It took some time and a bit of local knowledge to crack the Boigu barra code

Frigate birds (also known as mackerel birds) circling indicated there were some bigger predators in the area. Out came the Rapala X-Raps, which were trolled at seven knots for this GT.

Environmental signposts in the Torres Strait

M

ARINE electronics have certainly come a long way over the years.

It would seem that with fishfinding features such as Livescope, 3D Structure Scan and 3D mapping of the seafloor using multi-beam technology (to name a few) no fish is safe from detection.

Certainly, advancements in technology have made it easier to see what is beneath the surface.

That said, I firmly believe it is even more important to pay close attention to the ‘environmental signs’ around us.

This information can tell us precisely where, when and exactly what species to target.

Having now lived in Torres Strait Island communities for 10 years, I have a deep appreciation for the islander people’s connection with the marine environment.

The seasons, tides, currents, moon phases, stars and weather patterns have guided the Torres Strait Islanders’ navigation, fishing, hunting and gardening practices for thousands of years.

A lot can be learnt from ‘island life’.

I’ve found the islanders’ knowledge not only interesting but valuable to my

Cape York & Torres Strait

by MATT POTTER

own fishing and boating adventures.

The people know precisely where and when certain fish species including unicorn leatherjacket (saibei), mackerel (dubui) and garfish (zaber) are found in larger numbers.

They know when sardines (tup) will move out to sea to spawn, crayfish (kayar) will exit the local reefs to begin their spawning march to the Gulf of Papua and when squid (bidai) can be easily caught from the shore and jetties.

I was fortunate to live next to Saibai Island elder Jeffa Waia for several years on Thursday Island and felt privileged that he shared some of this knowledge with me.

He would often call me outside to point out these ‘environmental signposts’.

Larger numbers of rainbow birds (biru biru) signalled the start of turtle mating season and the arrival of swarms of dragonflies indicated the dreaded 25-knot southeasterly trade winds (sager) would shortly kick in.

Knowledge like this is passed on to younger generations through stories,

Crab pots tend to get smashed by crocs and reef sharks in the Torres Strait but crabs are abundant and can be speared or scooped with a landing net like this haul of solid bucks. Tide timing is crucial if you want a feed.

The author scored some big prawns from the swamps of Boigu Island.

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songs and island dance.

The elders feel a sense of duty to ensure this information isn’t lost and you only need to watch the younger generations, some kids as young as five or six years old, stalking the shallows of the traditional fish traps on the eastern islands with their bamboo spears to get an appreciation for the way of life and strong seafaring culture in these parts.

The Torres Strait Islands, which span 4800sq km, vary from coral cays to volcanic peaks, granite hills and even mangrove swamps formed from sediments running off from Papua New Guinea.

The people who live on them adjust their fishing practices according to the different environments.

Timing is crucial.

Just 30 minutes can mean the difference between easily spearing a bucket load of mud crabs with the incoming tide or catching nothing as you’re simply too late and they have pushed far up into the thick mangroves.

Sharing your catch is customary and nothing is wasted.

Back tracking to 2008 when my wife and I were teaching on Boigu Island just 4km from PNG, I remember watching enormous congregations of pelicans (awai) fly over the island from PNG in September.

I was told by the students in my class this was a sign that indicated to the local families the swamps had dried out enough for barramundi to be easily speared and large endeavour prawns netted.

As that is why the pelicans had arrived.

I was fortunate enough to be invited by a local teacher aide to tag along on a couple of ‘swamp hunts’.

Each family had their own section of swamp marked by wooden stakes and whatever was in that area belonged to the family (or clan group).

As I walked (or perhaps marched) through the shallow murky waters, with the thought of crocodiles definitely on my mind, I was called back

by an elder who yelled: “Stop! You move too fast bala Matt! Scare everything!”

I remember thinking, ‘I can’t see anything’, but sure enough the signs were there.

A ripple, a splash, a patch of stirred-up water, a great egret hunting the shallows, the webbed prints of recently feeding ducks on the muddy edge and even the change in smell of the mud.

I took a step back and watched in awe as barramundi after barramundi was speared in murky waters, which I must admit I would have never known were there.

Later on, the cast nets were filled with some of the biggest endeavour prawns I’d seen.

I was fortunate to have the locals share more of their knowledge with me over the two years I lived there.

This saw me start to land blue salmon, fingermark, grunter, big muddies and barra regularly from the island’s surrounding creeks.

I was particularly interested in chasing barra and learnt where they would sit during certain tides and periods of the day.

I recorded what lures worked well in the varying water colours and certainly paid more attention to how the tides, wind, water temperature/sunlight and lunar patterns all affected my quarry.

Loving flicking lures, I soon found as the water cooled I was catching the better fish on hard-bodies (Barra Classic +12), particularly those with a noisy rattle trolled slowly.

Sometimes it would take a few passes to get the hook-up and I feel I often annoyed them into taking the lure.

While I’m sure the avid lure fisho would happily keep peppering the snags, I also noted that when the fish had completely shut down and were sulking in the deeper junctions it was time to change tactics and slowly float down a live mullet to entice a lazy fish.

This was usually more common on neap tides with far less tidal movement.

It often paid to adjust tactics according to the tidal movement and both baits and artificial lures

were highly effective at specific times.

These initial lessons from life on Boigu Island hunting big barra without a sounder or GPS have stuck with me over the years through all my Torres Strait and Cape York fishing adventures.

No matter where you fish, I encourage you to try to move stealthily, watch the water, understand the behavioural patterns of the target species and pay close attention to all the environmental signs.

This can often mean the difference between a great session and coming home empty-handed… regardless of your electronics setup.

Follow the Fishing Missions- Northern Australia Facebook page to see more of our remote Torres Strait and Cape York adventures.

It pays to take more notice of the species of bird and what bait they are feeding on. The species of seabird can give you information on what fish are present and what lure to tie on to match the hatch.

Fish such as queenfish, barra and salmon will use sandbanks to entrap baitfish with the incoming tide.

Understanding fish behaviour during certain times of the tide will help you come up with a plan to target fish at all stages of the tide.

The eastern Torres Strait Islands of Mer, Erub and Ugar have used fish traps for many generations. They took significant labour to build and weigh 0.5 tonnes per metre. They have a radius between 50-150m and work best during the nocturnal spring tides of the northwest monsoon season. As the tide recedes, the fish congregate in the middle of the trap and can be easily speared or picked up.

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 67

C ARAVANNING & adventure Towing the van to the tip of Cape York

W

HAT an a ma zi ng month we’ve

had.

Jardine River Ferry crossing.

The tip!

Twin Falls.

Fruit Bat Falls.

Page 68 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

This month we travelled to Cape York and ‘the tip’, the most northern point of the Australian continent.

When you hear people talk about the Cape, a lot of discussion revolves around the four-wheeldriving opportunities on the famous Telegraph Track and Gunshot, which is just a crazy vertical drop into a creek.

Though the Tele Track is an amazing 4WD track, the Cape has many other things to offer, and using the Peninsula Development Rd you can access a lot of these areas with a pretty standard 4WD. It also allowed us to tow our off-road caravan with tinnie on top of the LandCruiser, with just the odd corrugation and washout along the way.

What I am trying to say is don’t let the reputation of the Tele Track deter you from coming up and seeing one of my favourite places in Australia.

As you are heading up to the Cape you will pass many national parks such as Lakefield and Bathurst Head.

Some of the places that really stuck in our minds were Eliot Falls, Fruit Bat Falls and Twin Falls.

These are fantastic swimming holes about 50km south of the Jardine River.

You can camp at the national park campgrounds adjacent to Eliot and Twin falls, but no camping is offered at Fruit Bat Falls.

You still need to be very self-sufficient, with only long-drop toilet amenities.

These falls really are little oases because by this stage of the trip you really do have red dirt in all the nooks and crannies.

It is wonderful to enjoy a nice cool swim and just take in the sheer beauty.

We ended up spending a couple of days around the falls, just chilling out and really enjoying life.

To get up to the very tip you have to cross the Jardine River by ferry, which costs $130 return and seems a little steep considering the river is only about 50m wide, but this fee also provides you with a permit to access traditionally owned land and designated free camping areas.

I must say, some of the scenery where you can camp directly on the beach overlooking the water is pretty amazing.

But again, you must be

Caravanning

by TODD EVELEIGH

fully self-contained in these areas because there are no amenities.

While we were up the top, we decided to stay at Alau Beach Campgrounds.

This was a great decision because it was very central to many of the locations at the tip and we used it as a for day trips and sightseeing.

Alau (Umagico) is one of the first places you come into heading towards Bamaga.

The park was very clean and the staff helpful and friendly.

They had just installed a new swimming pool and were waiting for council approval before guests could enjoy it.

Lots of friendly dogs were floating around, which might sound a bit off-putting but we are dog people so enjoyed it.

The dogs were very friendly and guarded our caravan and gear at night like we were their new adopted family.

Not only do you wake to amazing ocean views, but we also arose one morning to about 10 wild brumbies walking around our campsite.

With our daughter being a horse nut, she loved seeing a newly born foal learning to walk and run and literally just finding its feet for the first time.

It was very cool!

From Alau, we did a little fishing trip from Inginoo around to Mutee Head.

We micro jigged and caught a heap of little trevally and queenfish as well as hooking better fish that I presume were larger fingermark and black jewfish.

Unfortunately the sharks became quite fierce, so we decided to move on and have a flick up the Jardine River where we caught barras and a nice mangrove jack for dinner.

I hooked a few saratoga but unfortunately the Houdinis all managed to throw the hooks!

We also went out to Punsand Bay Resort for pizza night (Wednesday) and the pizzas were really yummy.

A beer to wash them down and a swim in the cold pool overlooking the water was a fantastic way to spend an evening.

We made a trip out to the very tip and on the way you pass a tent setup called The Croc Tent, which sells great Cape

York merchandise.

We wanted some Cape York shirts to remind us of the trip and to wear in the obligatory tip photo.

The tent has a wide range of merchandise to celebrate the moment you made it to the tip.

When you get to the carpark at the tip you immediately start walking up a rocky hill.

Once at the top you begin walking out towards the headland and the tip.

We were greeted by spectacular views and amazing scenery.

A beautiful beach is to the west, rocky islands to the north and some scattered little rocky islands to the east.

The water is turquoise blue and it’s wonderful to just take it all in.

Once you get to the northern tip, you’ll find the famous sign where you can get a photo.

Believe it or not, when we were there we had the whole place to ourselves, so I had to set the iPhone up on a rock with a timer to take a photo of us all.

A great place to check out after 5pm on a Sunday is Loyalty Beach where you get two good size pieces of fish and chips for $15.

You can sit watching the sunset over the water with a nice cold beer.

The place has such a laidback atmosphere you’d think you were in Fiji or somewhere like that.

We are home schooling the kids and lots of

wartime plane wrecks are scattered around the Cape, so it was great to spend a day driving around and checking them out to do some hands-on history.

I managed to get in another fish by myself in the Jackey Jackey system, having a great session on the last of the run-out catching nice barra and tarpon.

As I had been to the Cape before with the lads (detailed in a previous BNB article), going with the family had a completely different and I must say much more relaxed feel.

We really enjoyed the time swimming in the waterfalls, the wartime history, meeting people, seeing the most northern point of the continent and just getting to immerse ourselves in the whole experience.

It was such an amazing holiday!

Even though people talk about Cape York, the hardcore fishing and 4WDing on offer, and the region being one of our last frontiers, it is still very accessible with a reasonably standard 4WD, off-road caravan and tinnie on top.

Take your time and take in all the other things the Cape has to offer.

Don’t get me wrong, we still did a bit of hardcore fishing and 4WDing, and driving out over the Five Beaches Track at Somerset for the day and 4WDing into some of the waterfalls just added to the experience.

Don’t be scared off – get up there and have a look.

A Douglas DC-3 plane wreck.

Wild horses at Alau Beach Campground.

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C AMPING & outdoors

Nice one Steve, the author loves it.

The author with his new board.

Getting back to basics on the beach

H

I all, many times through life our priorities change but the love of the great outdoors almost certainly remains entrenched deep in your being.

Taking my own interests into consideration, you would most likely find me more at home with my 10’6” Gary Howard Breambo 5W/Alvey 55B light surf combo than my past days of carbon blanks and high-tech spinning reels.

I feel absolutely at home bare foot, in board shorts and with a wading bag over my shoulder scanning the beaches for gutters and likely fish-holding spots.

Like many, I enjoy the concept of four-wheeldriving our southeast Queensland beaches where we camp, fish and surf and simply enjoy this type of outdoors lifestyle and relish a simplistic return to nature.

I’m sometimes bewildered by the latest technology used in boats, the advances in side-imaging sounders and the space-age materials used in fishing rod and reel construction.

Outdoors

by PAUL ‘CHIEF’ GRAVESON

Surf fishing provides a pleasant return to the basic principles of enjoying the surf and understanding the ever-changing sandbanks, swell and the conditions of weather and tides.

At this time in our lives my wife and I are finalising a few details before embarking on a 12-month adventure around Australia to partake in all the above.

With this adventure in mind, I decided to buy another kneeboard to add to my quiver and use on our extended journey.

When it comes to surfboards, these days many shapers rely on high-tech computers to produce profiles and shape blanks.

With simplicity in mind, it’s so nice to get back to basics and work with a craftsman who hand shapes a board from scratch and uses his hand tools and ideas to produce such a board.

Steve Walkinshaw is a

Where it all began.

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long-time Sunshine Coast local and seasoned exponent of surfing kneeboards.

He took his love of the sport into the shaping bay and I was lucky enough to try one of his creations on one of our Noosa beach breaks.

A fellow Noosa kneelo had allowed me to try his board and by 6pm I was discussing with Steve what I would like him to shape and produce for me.

Steve is a one-man show and he designs, shapes and glasses all his boards personally, operating under the name of SAW Surf Designs.

He is one of those grassroots surfers who loves the ocean and the surfing lifestyle.

I thought the steps involved in the process of making my new board would provide an interesting article and something a little different to normal.

Many boards today are manufactured out of a polyurethane (PU) foam and finished with fibreglass resin.

The PU blanks have a wooden stringer glued into the blank to provide extra strength.

In my case I’d surfed one of Steve’s polystyrene (EPS) blanks finished with epoxy resin.

The EPS foam doesn’t have a wooden stringer, so it depends on the epoxy to provide the strength needed to endure the punishment it receives in the surf.

The main benefit of this combination is the overall light weight and extra flotation provided with this form of construction.

First step in the process of a shaper building your board is a series of questions concerning your surfing style, height, weight and the type of waves you wish to surf.

This will give the shaper an idea of length, volume and finished plane shape, and from here the shaper will produce a formula for a customised board.

In my case we discussed producing a 5’10” kneeboard measuring 24” at its widest point, 2.5” at its thickest and with four fins in a pin-tail design.

Steve provided the photographic steps involved in my board’s manufacture to demonstrate the process from beginning to end.

Our first picture shows the PSE blank cut into the pin-tail plane shape and its overall length and width.

At this stage, consideration has already been given to where the widest point of the board sits.

This can affect the turning ability of the board.

The rocker is the next important factor that not only allows the surfer to take the drop on steep wave faces, but it also affects the speed of the board in a straight line.

The most basic way to explain rocker is the banana shape of the board or the curvature from nose to tail.

Finding the right recipe is part of the board developing its own characteristics.

Steve will start to work at the thickness of the board and look at areas of volume in the tail and nose and where it’s needed for flotation.

He needs to also work the board’s bottom surface, tweaking ideas concerning water flow by introducing the vee, concaves and channels that help direct flow to the fins.

Fin placement is critical to the board’s performance.

The shaper will look at the rails and finish sanding the blank until all his or her knowledge and skill has been placed into the board.

It’s safe to say the same science involved is just as

important to boat builders with their high-performance hull design.

Artistic design and colour are applied and finally the board is glassed, sanded and polished.

The result has its day of reckoning as you paddle out and take the drop on that first wave.

In the ‘70s, kneeboarding regularly graced the pages of all the wellknown surfing publications and had a strong following, but numbers dwindled to a small group of disciples who kept the flag waving around our Australian coastline.

It’s great to see a few young blokes and girls making waves and breathing new life into the sport.

In fact, the kneeboard world titles in 2020 are being held next door in Dunedin, New Zealand from February 29 to March 7.

Thanks to Steve from SAW Surf Designs for sharing the pictures of my board’s progression and being such a talented shaper.

Steve has a Facebook page and is the man to see if you’re looking for the best fun you can have on your knees.

The late-July swell may be the last we see for a while, so enjoy yourselves and don’t forget to make use of the winter conditions for a touch of beach fishing.

Cheers, Chief.

First step in length, width and profile (rough cut).

Vee, channels and rails completed.

Marking of fin placement.

A splash of colour and the epoxy finish.

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 69

C AMPING & outdoors Inskip Point camping escape – part two

C

ARRYING on where I left off last month at Inskip Point, after five or six days of squidding and crabbing my two sons Troy and Gavin were getting sick of doing the same thing.

Pumpkin loaf cooking in the camp oven.

Cooking a nice lot of crab.

John in front of the fish caught in half a day.

So we checked the pots, got some good mud and sand crabs and I ran the boys and crabs home before returning to Inskip with more firewood.

The weather was looking like coming good and my mate Dave Kowitz had not turned up yet.

I was talking to John and Di who were camped next to me and I asked John if he would like a trip offshore with me in my 5m tinnie.

I said we would fish gentleman’s hours and I would drive into Rainbow Beach in the early morning, check the ocean conditions and if it looked calm buy some ice and pillies from the tackle shop at Rainbow.

As it turned out, we were on the water by 8am and I logged on with the coast guard and crossed a calm Fishermans Gutter, heading out about 13km.

The troubles is I do not fish off Double Island Point that much anymore and have a few marks on individual spots, so cannot remember where I fished and caught fish last time I was there.

On my first hang, John’s first bait to the bottom saw him hooked up.

He pulled up a legal large-mouth nannygai and

Camping Trip

by CRAIG TOMKINSON

it was the biggest reef fish John had caught in a long time.

He was pumped and said we should go home right now.

We caught a few more mixed reef fish including pearl perch but they went quiet, so we shifted closer to DI where we found that all my spots had been invaded by what I call variegated sweetlip (little baitfish), coming up two at a time.

After a few hours of being out on the water in oily calm conditions we headed home with a nice feed of reef fish.

I cleaned the fish and gave half to John and Di. They said it was the best fish they had eaten in years.

Over the next couple of days I checked my four pots and caught a few cracker mud and sand crabs.

I would come back to the camp, boil up some of my home-grown pumpkin, chop firewood and light the fire in my fire drum, then go down to the beach and clean my crabs, putting a pot of salt water on the fire to boil.

Once boiling, I cooked the crab, then with the same fire boiled my shower water.

Taking that off the fire, I’d put my camp oven on the fire drum to warm

while I had a hot shower.

Once dressed, I would mix up some ingredients and make a double batch of pumpkin scone mix.

By now the camp oven was at the right temperature to cook in and the fire had burnt down to good coals.

With a trivet in the bottom of the camp oven I still needed a baking dish, so took the handle off my frying pan and laid alfoil in the bottom of the pan.

The frying pan was just the right size to fit in the camp oven and sit on the trivet off the bottom.

I added the pumpkin scone mix into the frying pan (it was going to be more of a pumpkin loaf than scones), put the lid on the camp oven and sat the oven on a bit of mesh over the fire drum with a few scoops of hot coals on the lid.

I checked it after 10 minutes, and then after another 10 to 15 minutes it was ready.

Using a pair of multi grips to take the frying pan out of the camp oven, I took half over to John and Di for their afternoon smoko and they were stoked.

My mate Dave turned up a few days later and we soon got into our camping mojo.

We’d get up before daylight, have a coffee, cook

bacon and eggs, check the pots, go squidding for a few hours, come back, cook the crabs and have a shower.

Or if the weather was good, we’d get up, have bacon and eggs and go fishing offshore.

One day we slipped out the front it was blowing a screaming southwesterly, so we fished Mudlo Reef and got a great feed of mixed reef fish including moses perch and grass sweetlip.

While there, Shaddy turned up in his 5m half cabin and said he got some spotted mackerel north of the bar on the bait grounds.

The next day it was oily calm, so we crossed the bar on the northern fishermans gutter right in close to Fraser Island.

We slipped out a few kilometres and found pro boats anchored up and pulling in spotty mackerel one after the other.

I anchored well out of casting range and started berleying with chopped-

up pillies.

We had mackerel everywhere under the boat in seconds of the berley hitting the water.

Floating out whole and half pillies, we caught our bag in no time and headed home.

Dave and I had another nine or so days at Inskip and got offshore once more to catch a nice feed of reef fish, but on the way home it was run-out tide on a 2m swell, making the waves break on the shallow banks of the bar.

The waves in Fishermans Gutter were standing up and breaking white water was all over the sand bars.

It was the scariest ride in the tinnie we’ve had but the 5m Quintrex King did a great job and the mighty 60hp four-stroke Yamaha never missed a beat.

The next day we pulled the camp down and headed home.

‘Til next month, be safe on the water.

Sand and mud crabs from Tin Can Bay.

Seven years perfecting the solar setup H

On that trip alone it cost me another $400 in unleaded fuel.

The next year after talking to experts who said my batteries were not good enough I borrowed two new 120A AGM batteries off my mate and set I started out years ago up camp at Penny again.

After a week I noticed with just two 120W foldout 12V panels hooked to- the batteries were not gether to make 240W and staying charged, even with the panels sitting in one PWR controller.

For storage I had three the sun for seven to eight 70A four-wheel-drive bat- hours.

I got talking to another teries, as I was told that camper who advised I would be heaps.

During my first camp at move the controller from Pennefather River every- the back of the panel to thing was going great un- right up near the batteries.

That made sense because til I noticed the batteries were not getting charged I was getting too much enough, so for the next voltage drop from the contwo weeks I had to run troller to the batteries.

I could do this because my 1.5kVA generator with my 16A battery charger I had all my 6mm tinned plugged into and charging cables with Anderson the three batteries for four plugs on the ends.

That made a big differto six hours a day just to ence but I still had to run keep the freezer going.

By the way, my main the generator for four to freezer is about 25 years six hours a day to charge the batteries. old.

That trip cost $500 for It’s a 100-litre 75mm insulated Trailblaza single unleaded fuel.

I starting thinking the compressor that burns 7A of power when running, solar panels were not big with no digital display and or good enough, even nothing much to go pear though experts told me they would be heaps. shaped.

Page 70 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

I all, after playing around with solar equipment for camping for about seven years, I have a good understanding of what you need for allweather base camp-style camping.

Anyway, I started reading fishing forums to get an idea of what other people were doing, and began trying different panels.

One bloke had just bought two 240W, 60V second-hand house solar panels to set up an offgrid solar arrangement on a camping shed on his bush block where he hunted deer.

He had bought two Victron 75/15 MPPT controllers online, a heap of 6mm twin-core wire and three 120A AGM batteries.

He hooked it all up and was getting up to 30A of power in good winter sun.

I thought that was unreal, as I was only getting about 8A from brand-new panels in hot sun up north.

So I got online and bought two Victron 75/15 MPPT controllers off a mob on the Gold Coast and a heap of Anderson plugs from Jaycar, along with 40m of 6mm tinned marine wire because I camp on the beach and it doesn’t corrode as much.

It took me a few weeks to track down a second-hand 240W, 60V house panel a mate had but couldn’t find another one, so had to buy a 180W, 30V model.

So far I had spent nearly $500 and still needed new batteries.

Luckily my mate could get them at cost, so this time I bought four 120A AGM batteries that cost $940.

So for $1440 I was away.

The only downside to this whole setup is it weighs about 160kg.

However, contrast that with a new 2kVA Honda generator, leads, lights, two 20A battery chargers and two or three 20-litre jerry cans of fuel and you’d be at around 130kg.

I should get six or more years out of my batteries and six years of running

the generator would cost about the same in fuel and oil as it would to buy new batteries.

Next time I will buy lithium batteries as they will add up to about 40kg, not 123kg.

In national parks where you can’t run a generator, I’m ahead as I have a super-quiet camp.

Anyway, after soldering all the 6mm cables and Anderson plugs together and hooking it up at home to see if it worked, finally we headed to Penny for our month-long fishing trip.

I hooked it up to the fully loaded 100-litre Trailblaza on freeze and over the next

Old house solar panels work great but still have to be at the right angle to the sun.

three to four weeks all I did, once a day, was shift the panels to keep them facing the sun.

The setup was making up to 25A most days out of 12-year-old house solar panels and the batteries were on float by 1pm.

Other campers were having trouble with their solar gear not working and coming and looking at my setup, which they said was unreal.

This year’s camping trip to Inskip Point didn’t feature the best weather.

However, despite pouring rain overnight and no sun until 9-10am the next morning, my setup still

made 20-23A of power.

My van was in the shade and my higher-voltage house panels were 2040m away and still had plenty of volts to run the controllers because they were in great sunshine.

About 95 percent of other campers had to run their generators for four to six hours a day because their solar was just not good enough or was mounted on the roof of their van in the shade.

I’m glad it only took me seven years to get that sorted.

‘Til next month, safe travels.

Craig Tomkinson

Panels in front of the author’s camp. These two panels ran a 100-litre Trailblaza freezer on freeze (-15C) and lights for three weeks in cloudy and rainy weather.

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Mild weather means monster barra

W

HAT great weather we are experiencing for this time of year.

Hopefully it will continue and we can enjoy a mild end to winter.

This is great weather for landing a Lake Monduran monster.

Monduran Dam

by LES GANE

With the cool nights and relatively warm days, the conditions at Monduran have been excellent, and even the wind has lost that chill factor.

We have not seen a rapid drop in temperature over the past month and this has kept the water quite warm and in turn the barra have been eager

Luke knows where the barra lurk in Monduran.

Casey fly fished Lake Monduran for bass.

Simon was happy with his visit to Mondy.

One of many metre-plus barra for Casey.

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to come out and play.

The Monduran barra are feeding hard in expectation of ‘winter’ and hitting the decks of keen anglers in the know who are prepared to put in the hard yards.

Not only are the conditions good for snagging a few fish, it is really pleasant on the water.

With lighter wind and very warm daytime temperatures, it is a pleasure to cruise this pristine body of water.

At the moment there is no need to get out super early because a lot of barra have been landed around midday to midafternoon.

If you are really keen to catch that metre-plus specimen, a night session would be worth the effort.

Make your way to the back of a shallow bay, somewhere close to the ramp, and listen for feeding fish.

The feeding sound of barramundi is unmistakeable.

The night can be totally silent, and then the fish begin ‘boofing’ frequently, making them easy to locate.

Generally I hit the water on dusk and stay out to about 9.30pm before coming home if I haven’t seen or heard any action.

If you’re looking for a

few spots to try your luck, it’s hard to pass up B Bay. The south arm down the back around the shallow islands and bays and the north arm of B Bay have all been producing good fish.

North arm is vast, with many prime spots, but I have hooked really nice fish by just drifting through the timber in this shallow arm and stopping at places that catch my eye.

One other place I will mention is the section accessed by coming out from the boat ramp and turning right across to the buoys and into the bay just down from the cabins.

It is warmer than most areas of the lake because it gets the first sunlight, and being quite narrow holds its warmer temperature.

It is absolutely awesome to see the barra being landed ranging from 40110cm, with some bigger fish hooked but not boated.

Some of these gigantic fish could very easily be close to setting a new record for the lake.

Not only are these barra long but their girths are over a metre too.

These barra are well fed and in great health living in pristine Lake Monduran.

Don’t forget that barra living in such great conditions will also be active throughout winter, so winter fishing for barra is definitely an option and last year several metreplus fish had been caught throughout the colder months.

Different tactics, a lure that is not the everyday style, and thinking outside the square contributes to your chances of catching that sought-after barramundi.

Though winter is here, we are not feeling it like we should with temperatures in the double figures at night and daytime temperatures in the midtwenties.

Not only is Gin Gin’s climate one of the best in the world but it has many great fishing spots both fresh and salt within one hour.

Along with the many spots to fish are many species of fish to catch.

When you drive along the Bruce Highway and get halfway between everywhere, you are in Gin Gin. Our website barratack le.com.au is having a tremendous sale for the month of August, so grab yourself a bargain and get out and enjoy the pleasures of fishing.

Don’t forget to keep your Stocked Impoundment Permit up to date to ensure great fishing in all our dams for years to come.

Any questions, give me a call on 0427 880 826.

Cheers and happy angling!

You can catch a monster fishing the structure.

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g, Dennis Harold with hiss world record 44.62kg, 134cm long, 107cm girth barra caught from his kayak at Lake Monduran in 2010.

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www.barratackle.com.au Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 71

Warm winter days bring the flats to life

W

I N T E R weather is now in full swing – about time!

Jeremy Zerk with a great Australian bass from the flats of Boondooma.

It’s been unseasonably warm this year and the fish have been sitting deeper than usual.

With the cold finally here the edge bite is heating up and you’ll need to pull yourself away from the campfire for that crisp run up the dam to your first fishing spot.

It has been a great month for fishing our inland impoundments, especially Boondooma Dam and Lake Barambah, with reports from all over the dams of awesome catches of native fish.

Lake Boondooma Early mornings on Boondooma have been crisp and very still and the best place to start your day is flicking lures on the edge.

Jeremy and Jaquie held some cracking fish from a recent charter on Boondooma.

y Guided b g f o rd n a L t t a M

Freshwater Impoundments

by MATTHEW LANGFORD

Here, you’ve got a few options.

The first is throwing jerkbaits.

The secret is to choose a jerkbait in a bright colour that is 60-70mm long and suspends when paused on the retrieve.

My favourite is the Nories Laydown Minnow.

The best method is to cast the lure to the edge and slowly roll your jerkbait down.

Twitch the lure a couple of times when you’re down to swimming depth and repeat this process continuously.

Twitch the lure regularly and make sure you add lots of pauses between.

Bass have been cruising shallow and close to the edge and smashing any small jerkbait presented as mentioned.

Always make sure you’re ready for the bite because the bass absolutely hammer these baits.

It’s a fun way to fish but you must be patient and move through a few spots if you’re not having much luck early on.

Option two is finding a good steep rocky edge with some laydown timber on it.

These edges have produced great fish.

Both the Boyne and Stuart arms have edges like this and it’s worth taking the time to fish them well with lipless crankbaits and spinnerbaits.

It’s a good idea to do this as early as you can because the fish tend to become very wary as the sun comes out.

Another great option when the sun is well up and the day is starting to warm is the main basin.

The basin is holding good schools of big bass.

The best spots to check are the Junction through to Pelican Point, Leisegangs Ledge and the Barbers Pole.

Cast 1/4-3/8oz blades and let them sink to the bottom.

Use a slow, hopping retrieve and let the lure sink back to the bottom through the retrieve.

Also, don’t go past tailspinners, with 12g the best.

Cast these lures out and let them sink.

Use a slow lift and pause retrieve all the way to the boat and the fish will usually hit the lure when it’s sinking back to the bottom.

Trollers are getting good yellowbelly in the arms using deep-diving hardbodies.

Troll in close to the timber and rocks in the Boyne arm.

Bait fishers, your best chance is to fish the trees in the arms in 6-9m of water with live shrimp, worms and yabbies.

Lake Barambah Barambah (BjelkePetersen Dam) has gone a little quiet of late but that’s not unusual for this time of year.

Good fish can still be caught if you’re persistent and hit the right areas.

Unlike Boondooma, the bass and yellowbelly have been caught well out on the deeper flats.

Look for flats in the main basin at a depth of 5-8m.

Once you locate a school in this depth, the best lure to throw is the Ecogear ZX40 blade.

This little lure is very versatile and can be fished by jigging vertically or

casting it and hopping back to the boat.

Small hops are the secret because the fish have been quite tentative during the day.

Yellowbelly can still be targeted but you’ll need to hit areas with cover.

Look for rocky edges, submerged trees or a mixture of both.

Jig blades, tailspinners and ice jigs around any trees or structure or cast spinnerbaits into the pockets around the edges of trees and you’re very likely to catch a few.

Trollers are still hooking fish but it can be a little slow at this time of year.

Beware that the trees in the back of the dam are no longer an option because the water is very shallow and you will ground the boat.

The best options for trolling are around the main lake points.

Deep-diving hard-bodies and blades are a good option.

Fishing charters Don’t forget you can book a fishing charter with me on BP and Boondooma dams.

If you’d like a great day out and all the info and knowledge to catch bass and yellowbelly in our two great dams, make sure you give me a call on 0408 658 592.

Until next month, tight lines and bent rods.

This yellowbelly came on a Nories tailspinner cast into the shallows.

Australian Freshwater Fishing Charters 0408 658 592 | australianfreshwaterfishing.com Page 72 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

Quality yellowbelly are getting around BP.

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Teddy and dad Myles with cracking bass caught on an Untapped Fishing Expedition.

The legends landed awesome golden perch.

Having a ball on Lake Borumba I ’VE had one hell of a month fishing Lake Borumba with multiple clients.

At this time of year we experience some of the best fishing you can experience at the lake.

The bass move into the deep water to school, just as they would in saltwater estuaries.

But because they can’t get to salt water, all they do is school up.

The main basin has been the best place to target these fish,

Teddy with his trophy size bass.

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DAM LEVELS CURRENT AS OF 15/7/2019

DAMS

Freshwater Luring

by CALLUM MUNRO

in anything from 7.5-15m of water.

As you drive up the lake, look for big points or flats and this is where they’ll be holding.

The best baits for this time of year are heavy lures such as 1/2oz blades, Berkley Gulps rigged on 5/8oz jig heads and Smak Ice Jigs.

The key is to always keep the lure right on the bottom because this is where the fish will be.

I’ll give you a run-down on a charter I did mid-July where we caught 48 fish for the session.

I took father and son Myles and Teddy Conroy out to Lake Borumba after picking them up from Noosa.

This is part of the service I provide at Untapped Fishing Expeditions.

The boys were blown away by the scenery on the drive out to the dam and we even stopped into the Imbil Bakery for a jam doughnut.

When we arrived at the lake, we headed up the dam looking over various spots with my Humminbird sounder.

It took us about 20 minutes to find the fish schooling big time.

The first lures I gave the boys to use were Smak Ice Jigs.

These lures are fish-catching machines, especially at this time of year.

It was quite funny as the boys dropped their lures and Myles’s lure didn’t actually get to the bottom before being smashed.

He was thinking ‘how easy is this?’

This fish was only small but still a great way to get started.

The fish slowed after that but it was great to see the boys on the board.

We headed up the dam a little further looking over a few flats and points before finding a decent school of fish in the junction of the timber.

The boys continued using Smak Ice Jigs, getting used to how the lure worked, and they managed to catch a few more fish.

These fish were pretty decent, measuring around the 40cm mark.

This school soon started to go a bit quiet, so we hopped up for a move.

It was only 2pm by this stage and this is when the fishing started to get really good.

We found a point the main creek channel wrapped around and it was the perfect depth of 7.5-9m.

We used the same lures and

it was a fish a drop for half an hour.

The boys went from 10 fish on the board to 30 fish in no time at all.

Teddy even hooked an absolute cracker that went 50cm.

It was a huge fish and you should have seen the smile on his face – it was absolutely priceless.

The boys were pumped and we still had ages to go.

We cast a few blades around and managed quite a few more fish but nowhere near as many as the Smak Ice Jigs.

These fish slowed right down after landing around 20 fish out of them, so we headed to another spot not too far away.

As soon as we sounded over the spot, all you could see was bulk bass.

It was pretty much a repeat of before, with the boys landing another 18 fish including about 10 golden perch.

I haven’t caught that many of them in a long time, so it was awesome to experience.

Lake Borumba is one of the best places in southeast Queensland to fish through winter, so if you’re in the area and wanting to fish the lake, jump over to untappedfishing. com.au or call 0412 887 651.

Don’t miss this chance to have the session of a lifetime.

You will learn so much about this amazing fishery.

Until next month, tight lines!

PERCENTAGE

FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL Atkinson 5 5 5 5 5 5 Awoonga 84 82 80 79 78 76 Bjelke-Petersen * 10 8 8 8 7 6 Boondooma * 37 35 34 32 31 30 Borumba * 96 94 95 95 95 96 Burdekin Falls * 114 104 105 100 100 99 Callide * 56 54 52 50 48 47 Cania * 79 77 75 74 72 71 Coolmunda * 18 14 12 10 9 8 Dyer/Bill Gunn * 4 9 4 4 3 3 Eungella * 101 100 99 100 100 101 Fairbairn * 13 12 17 21 20 19 Glenlyon * 16 12 12 9 9 9 Hinze 94 94 93 94 93 93 Julius 100 99 99 96 93 90 Kinchant * 85 87 86 86 87 86 Leslie * 8 7 7 7 7 6 Macdonald 98 96 103 102 102 103 Maroon * 82 79 79 78 76 75 Monduran/Fred Haigh * 85 82 81 80 78 77 Moogerah * 71 68 66 63 60 57 North Pine/Samsonvale * 73 73 72 71 69 69 Peter Faust/Proserpine * 81 81 81 81 80 79 Somerset * 75 76 75 77 76 78 Teemburra * 101 101 100 100 100 101 Tinaroo* 102 100 102 100 97 95 Toonumbar 79 75 73 71 67 61 Wivenhoe * 63 60 59 58 56 55 Wuruma * 94 89 88 87 86 85 Wyaralong 90 92 92 91 90 89 For updates on dams, visit sunwater.com.au or seqwater.com.au *This symbol indicates that a Stocked Impoundment Permit is required to fish these dams.

www.livelyluresonline.com.au www.bnbfishing.com. au

Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 73

The temporary TSR angler access sign. This sign should now have been replaced with a permanent metal version.

r u $12 o y Get e It’s your turn to act i n a e b B I BN Only

The author’s brother Greg Dare from Sydney on a day trip down the Dumaresq River.

DELIVERED

F it wasn’t for a keen local fishing inspector from NSW by the name of Adam Barnes, I would not have been able to write the following.

Call 07 3286 1833 or go to bnbfishing.com.au #bnbbeanie

Angler access How many times have you been given the good oil on a fishing spot on a river only to find the location now locked!?

Nine times out of 10 it’s a Travelling Stock Reserve, which you should be able to access to fish.

Your job This is where you the angler comes on board and works to keep your access to freshwater streams and rivers open either side of the Great Dividing Range.

Right now in NSW through the Department of Primary Industries new signs have been made to mark fishing locations on TSRs on NSW land reserves and crown land sites.

What you have to do is write down the TSRs you access with the number of the reserve and name along with the shire and

GLENLYON DAM TOURIST PARK A great place to fish!

Glenlyon Dam

by BRIAN DARE

GPS co-ordinates if possible.

Then make contact with the local fishing inspector in the district you fish.

Ask if he/she could pass the information on to the Albury office.

The office in Albury will double check the location and information, then enact a sign denoting ‘Angler Access’ at the TSR you frequent to fish.

This has only just started to take place in the northern New England region.

Many thanks to a very proactive regional fishing inspector who has his finger on the pulse.

The sign bears a blue background with white writing.

The sign pictured alongside this article was photographed on May 30 on the gate of Yellowgully Reserve over from Reedy Creek Estate and Moorabinda Station, however, it has been pulled down and a new, permanent metal sign will take its place.

And if it’s pulled down, it will go back up.

It’s time to use cameras at these locations.

The signs are sanctioned by law and are there by an authority enabling all recreational anglers to fish the locations under the guidelines of NSW fishing regulations.

Well there you have it!

This is a very important project for all anglers in NSW along with fishing club members.

Because it’s dry as a chip right now, why not take a drive through your local area looking for TSR signs?

Either photograph the signs or record the location of the sign – even those reserves that are locked, as they should be open to passive recreational use.

In my region, which covers as far south as Tamworth, west to Moree and east to Lismore over 400 TSRs give access to rivers and streams.

A further 800 TSRs give access to go bird watching, horse riding, nature walking, push bike riding and seed collecting, not to

mention providing access for projects to be undertaken by local groups.

These are all passive forms of recreation, yet all are being locked out.

What is not understood by our state politicians who have been elected to represent us is we use these reserves on weekends and for holidays as a means of relaxation on long weekends to wind down.

We don’t all get to travel to the coastal regions due to cost and time!

That’s why we use these very important locations.

So, phone 1300 550 474 and select ‘general inquiries’ or email anglerac cess@dpi.nsw.gov.au and inform the Albury office of NSW Fisheries of your information.

As a recreational angler in NSW you have paid to fish.

Your money is being used by the state government.

Get a result or ask why we are paying this fee to be locked out from these locations that are being stealthily shut down.

This could also take place in Queensland but time will tell…

s 0OWERED AND 5NPOWERED 3ITES s .O $OMESTIC 0ETS OR 'ENERATORS s +IOSK s )CE s 'AS s 0ETROL s !MENITIES "LOCKS AND ,AUNDRY s ""1S s (IRE "OATS s %&40/3 s &ISHING 0ERMITS

14 CABINS bookings necessary

GLENLYON DAM TOURIST PARK via STANTHORPE 4380 Contact Debbie or Brian Dare for more information or for bookings

Ph: 02 6737 5266 E: glenlyondamtouristp@bigpond.com Page 74 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

Errol Pearce from Pittsworth with a 103cm Murray cod hooked on a white spinnerbait.

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Tuition with Bill Corten – successful offshore fisherman and commercial skipper

WANTED – LATE MODEL USED BOATS. Cash or consignment. When you buy a used boat from Karee Marine you know it has been through our workshop and checked over. A RWC is given with each boat sold. We have a fully insured undercover showroom so your boat will not be left out. Call Trevor at Karee Marine today on 07 3875 1600.

September Edition Copy Deadline – Advertisements must arrive NO later than August 12, 2019

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Bar crossing courses: • Hands-on experience crossing ossing sing coastal bars safely • Direct supervision p masterin mastering all bar crossing skills • Fine-tuning of skills in bbreaking swells wells an and white water • On-water training in the safety of a Cruise Craft Explorer 685 filled with upright buoyancy to naval architects’ specifications • Overcome your fears and learn vital skills as part of an onwater course

Offshore ffshor shore fishing fi ng co courses: •C Comprising mprising sing a nnight of theoryy and a ffull day’ss practical training raining on ooffshore reefs • Finding reefs • Locating different fish species • Bait rigging • Shallow and deep reef fishing techniques • Using a full range of rods and reels • Sounder and GPS instruction • Offshore anchoring • And much more

Contact Bill Corten T: 07 3286 3647 M: 0447 233 247 0447 ( a f f a i r ) E: reel_affair@yahoo.com Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019 – Page 75

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Page 76 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2019

www.bnbfishing.com. au

UNBEATABLE 150hp FourStroke

The Mercury 150hp FourStroke is the largest displacement and lowest weight outboard in its class.

The perfect partner for powering trailer boats.

UNEXPECTEDLY COMPACT MERCURY

206kg

HONDA

YAMAHA

217kg

223kg

SUZUKI

232kg

THE MERCURY 150HP FOURSTROKE COMES IN AT AN INCREDIBLY LIGHT 206KG* MAKING IT THE LIGHTEST IN ITS HORSEPOWER CLASS.

*Based on Mercury’s 150hp (L) model. Information based on all manufacturers’ claimed horsepower and weight figures.

Contact or visit us for more information.

CONTACT YOUR LOCAL MERCURY DEALERSHIP TODAY!

AIRLIE BEACH Whitsunday Outboard Centre 17 William Murray Dr, Cannonvale Q 4802 P: 07 4946 7286 E: woc@whitsundayoutboardcentre.com.au W: whitsundayoutboardcentre.com.au

BRISBANE EAST Manly Harbour Marine 570 Royal Esplanade, Manly Q 4179 P: 07 3893 2199 E: info@manlyharbourmarine.com.au W: manlyharbourmarine.com.au

BOWEN Reef Side Marine 34 Don St, Bowen, Q, 4805 P: 07 4786 2944 E: enquiries@reefsidemarine.com.au W: reefsidemarine.com.au

GOLD COAST Onshore Marine Horizon Shores Marina, Woongoolba Q 4207 P: 07 5546 2480 E: onshoremarine@ozemail.com.au W: onshoremarine.com.au

BRISBANE Coorparoo Marine 57 Cavendish Rd, Coorparoo Q 4151 P: 07 3397 4141 E: info@coorparoomarine.com.au W: coorparoomarine.com.au

BRISBANE NORTH Brisbane Marine 306 Duffield Rd, Clontarf Q 4019 P: 07 3889 3033 E: info@brismarine.com.au W: brismarine.com.au

CAIRNS Aussie Marine 5 Hannam St, Bungalow Q 4870 P: 07 4033 8800 E: sales@aussiemarine.com.au W: aussiemarine.com.au

IPSWICH Ipswich Marine Centre 45 Huxham St, Raceview Q 4305 P: 07 3294 3944 E: enquiries@ipswichmarine.com.au W: ipswichmarine.com.au

BRISBANE Karee Marine 1776 Ipswich Motorway, Rocklea Q 4106 P: 07 3875 1600 E: sales@kareemarine.com.au W: kareemarine.com.au

BRISBANE NORTH Holt Marine 25 Queens Rd, Everton Hills, Q, 4053 P: 07 3353 1928 E: info@holtmarine.com.au W: holtmarine.com.au

CAPALABA Mike’s Marine 9 Smith Street, Capalaba, Q 4157 P: 07 3390 3418 E: admin@mikesmarine.com.au W: mikesmarine.com.au

YEPPOON Sea Breeze Marine 150 Scenic Hwy, Yeppoon, Q, 4703 P: 07 4933 6366 E: info@seabreezemarine.com.au W: seabreezemarine.com.au

NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO BUY!!

Mclay 591 XL Sportsman

FROM JUST

226/week*

$

Mercury 150hp 4-stroke

• Extended fishing deck • Live bait tank • Deck wash • Offshore safety gear • Dual-axle trailer • QLD regos

Mclay 441 Fortress TS

$27,500 SPECIAL!

Mercury 60hp 4-stroke

Mclay 611 Crossover HT

McLay 651 Crossover HT

BOAT SHOW Mercury 200hp 4-stroke DEAL

BOAT SHOW Mercury 150hp 4-stroke DEAL

• 5mm bottom • Drum winch • Electic toilet • Bunk extensions • Bolster seats • Rear lounge and more

• Plate alloy • bait board • Live bait tank • Deck wash • Electric winch • Duel batteries • 190-litre fuel tank

Mclay 491 Fortress TS

Stessco Renegade 440

$36,000

$25,500

SPECIAL!

Mercury 75hp Big Tiller

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• Full plate construction • 45-litre fuel tank • Alloy rod holders • Live bait tank

• Full plate construction • 80-litre fuel tank • Alloy cast deck • 4mm plate bottom

Stessco Gulf Runner 490

Stessco Gulf Runner 550

Mercury 90hp 4-stroke

• Front cast deck • Live bait tank • Full pod transom • Painted • Stessco trailer • QLD regos

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$24,500

Mercury 135hp 4-stroke

SPECIAL!

Mercury 60hp 4-stroke

• 4mm bottom • 4mm checker plate floor • Alloy cast deck and hatch • QLD regos

• Bait board • Live bait tank • Redco dual-axle trailer • Front cast deck • QLD regos plus more

UNBEATABLE UNBEATABLE

115HP CRUISE SPEED 115HP FUEL CRUISE EFFICIENCY SPEED FUEL EFFICIENCY MERCURY’S NEW 115HP VS. CURRENT FOURSTROKE AND OPTIMAX VS. CURRENT FOURSTROKE AND OPTIM FOURSTROKE g/kWh

MERCURY MERCURY 75-115HP 75-115HP FOURSTROKE RANGE FOURSTROKE RANGE

• Live bait tank • Live well • Front and rear cast decks • Dunbier braked trailer • QLD regos

Stessco Platinum TS 440

340

340

330

330

320

320

310

310

300

g/kWh

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Mercury 60hp 4-stroke

DELIVERS UP TO 14% BETTER CRUISE SPEED ECONOMY

300

290

290

280

280

270

270

260

260

PREVIOUS MERCURY FOURSTROKE 1.7L

BSFC dyno testing; data is an average of 60%-80% rated MERCURY PREVIOUS NEW MERCURY engine speed based NEW OPTIMAX MERCURY MERCURY OPTIMAX on standardMERCU ICOMIA emissions test.

FOURSTROKE 115hp 1.7L 2.1L 115hp 115hp 2.1L 11

* Mercury Finance terms and conditions apply. Photos for illustration purposes only.

Can’t make the yard? Shop online! For quality new and used boats! www.kareemarine.com.au

1776 Ipswich Motorway, Rocklea | Call 07 3875 1600