neilm
09-12-08, 03:13 PM
Went for a long weekend with my wife on the Sunshine Coast last weekend. I had agreed that this wasn’t a fishing holiday, but that I would be able to get a half day charter & maybe a couple of other sessions. Got to Noosa on the Friday morning, nice and early. I had my medium spin stick and my new you-beaut PE5-7 gear for chasing macks/tuna in the offshore charter that I had booked. Probably over the top, but I wanted to christen it. All gear arrived in one piece. The accommodation was good and close to Hastings St., so we dumped off our stuff (gotta love an early check-in) and went for a bit of a walk. We had a bit of a look along Hasting St and went round the back way along the river bank on the way back so that I could case out the place, there wasn’t a lot of activity, but I could see a few mullet & bait fish in places, so it looked quite fishy. I got my first session in that evening from about 5 til dark, I was using lures, small poppers, small hardbodies and a blade lure for nothing. There was another bloke getting small bream & rock cod on prawns, so I decided I would look at getting some bait and mix it up a bit. I did not have any SPs, as my primary targets were trevally (goldens & small GTs) and Mangrove Jacks. The next day I went to Davo’s tackle supplies – they were really nice blokes in there and very helpful. Picked up some pilchards (for the charter on Sunday – I hear about poor quality bait & tackle being supplied on some of the charters, so I tend to take my own if I don’t know or have good recommendations about the operator) and a whole mullet for cut baits.
Went down to my recommended spot – near the bridge by the Sheraton and had the place to myself. Again fished from 5pm. It was looking better this time with a bit of surface activity, chuck around poppers to try and get a strike, again nothing doing. Put down an unweighted mullet fillet, this resulted in a bream of about 30 cms. Apart from pickers it went very quiet, a big storm approached and I headed for home, but not before I had a call from the charter operator to tell me the charter was off due to inclement weather. Damn nuisance. I now had a couple of kgs of pillies to dispose of, so on the Sunday (late morning) I went up to near the mouth of the river, tried blade lures again, again for nothing, but picked up a smallish bream (25cm) on a pillie tail. On the walk on the way up there I had seen a mangrove jack in the shallows (not very big – probably around 40 cms, so quite respectable, but couldn’t get a bait of any sort at him before he slowly disappeared into the depths. Tried a couple of things but could not tempt him. During the day on Sunday, we went on a ferry trip up the river to Tewantin which was very pleasant, next time I’ll take a rod, there were bream everywhere that the ferry stopped on the round trip. At the end of the ferry trip I spied a decent size trev (50cm+) hanging just underneath the “no fishing” sign! Couldn’t tell what sort it was, but it wasn’t there when the ferry stopped running later that evening…was I considering “accidentally” dropping a lure in the water?
Sunday evening I negotiated (my wife was feeling sorry for me that my charter had been cancelled) another session down at the bridge, the evening was pretty still, the tide was a bit higher with a little more flow and I took my armoury of lures and pilchards and cast an unweighted pilchard cube as close to the oysters on the bridge pylon as I dare. It was taken immediately and after a one sided battle I lifted out what I think was a fingermark (possibly could have been a moses perch) of about 30cm, it went back then all was quiet for half an hour then another, almost identical size, and next cast another. I was quite pleased that I’d managed at least a few, but dismayed that the luring produced none, in summary I’ll do a few things next time:
Learn to use a cast net to get livies for bait. Without live bait you’re gonna struggle was the message that was oft repeated.
Stay there for longer to allow more hours on the water!
Fish both dawn and dusk. I’d gone there for R&R with my wife so I got as much fishing done as I could reasonably without overstepping the mark, and try to pick a time where the high coincides with dawn / dusk. It was all good fun, but not nearly as successful as I was hoping.
Now, where are those kingies…
Went down to my recommended spot – near the bridge by the Sheraton and had the place to myself. Again fished from 5pm. It was looking better this time with a bit of surface activity, chuck around poppers to try and get a strike, again nothing doing. Put down an unweighted mullet fillet, this resulted in a bream of about 30 cms. Apart from pickers it went very quiet, a big storm approached and I headed for home, but not before I had a call from the charter operator to tell me the charter was off due to inclement weather. Damn nuisance. I now had a couple of kgs of pillies to dispose of, so on the Sunday (late morning) I went up to near the mouth of the river, tried blade lures again, again for nothing, but picked up a smallish bream (25cm) on a pillie tail. On the walk on the way up there I had seen a mangrove jack in the shallows (not very big – probably around 40 cms, so quite respectable, but couldn’t get a bait of any sort at him before he slowly disappeared into the depths. Tried a couple of things but could not tempt him. During the day on Sunday, we went on a ferry trip up the river to Tewantin which was very pleasant, next time I’ll take a rod, there were bream everywhere that the ferry stopped on the round trip. At the end of the ferry trip I spied a decent size trev (50cm+) hanging just underneath the “no fishing” sign! Couldn’t tell what sort it was, but it wasn’t there when the ferry stopped running later that evening…was I considering “accidentally” dropping a lure in the water?
Sunday evening I negotiated (my wife was feeling sorry for me that my charter had been cancelled) another session down at the bridge, the evening was pretty still, the tide was a bit higher with a little more flow and I took my armoury of lures and pilchards and cast an unweighted pilchard cube as close to the oysters on the bridge pylon as I dare. It was taken immediately and after a one sided battle I lifted out what I think was a fingermark (possibly could have been a moses perch) of about 30cm, it went back then all was quiet for half an hour then another, almost identical size, and next cast another. I was quite pleased that I’d managed at least a few, but dismayed that the luring produced none, in summary I’ll do a few things next time:
Learn to use a cast net to get livies for bait. Without live bait you’re gonna struggle was the message that was oft repeated.
Stay there for longer to allow more hours on the water!
Fish both dawn and dusk. I’d gone there for R&R with my wife so I got as much fishing done as I could reasonably without overstepping the mark, and try to pick a time where the high coincides with dawn / dusk. It was all good fun, but not nearly as successful as I was hoping.
Now, where are those kingies…