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Fly Fishing

Chasing Golden Trevalley on the Magnetic Island flats.

Relaxing!

Enjoying one of the many beautiful beaches of Magnetic Island.

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Soft Plastics off the Beach

Fished with Dad this morning. Just walked one of the beaches tossing plastics around. Turned out to be a lovely time. Initially the tide was falling quite quickly, so there was a lot of run in the water. We caught a couple of small flatties in one spot, but it didn't seem to have enough water to hold big fish. So we moved into one of the channels.

Water was racing here, so we had to up the lead on the jig head. But that proved to be the trick, and we landed several more smaller fish. Then dad hooked up to something with a slightly different fight. Turned out to be a 33cm Bream! Nice work, that one went in the bag for lunch. We continued to work the area until the tide began to slow. And this is when the fish came on better. I landed a nice 50cm Flattie, and dad a few more chunky bream. I was getting a little jealous at this stage, as I am yet to get a Bream on lure! But I was soon rewarded, and in the end I landed 2 Bream in the 30+cm range. We let go a couple of nice flathead that pushed 39cm, as well as a whole bunch of small GT.

In the end we took home 6 Bream and a flathead. Not bad for a morning on plastics! I forgot my camera, so only the dead fish pic today.

We were using mainly 65mm Squidgie fish in the pro range, and 1/6oz jig heads. We found that the attractant that comes with the pro range made a big difference, especially with the Bream. Most fish were taken within one or two casts of putting the stuff on.

Monday 29 June 2009

Spanish Fly

The weather looked good so Liam and I went for a run to the shoals. I left a message for Malcolm but as there was no reply I figured he was either away or fishing. We decided to head to the shoals area though in the back of my mind I was ready to go to Cape Cleveland if the weather did not improve. As it turned out the weather held and we met Malcolm and his Dad at the shoals. After a brief greating we set to drifting the mark. Liam went with a metal and while I was rigging up he managed a nice trevally. Same thing second drift. At this point I was getting hits and losing some gear! Ok out come the flies with wire. I tried a 15kg knotable and this last one strike! Next I thought perhaps a ganged fly would do the job, nope one hit and gone! Ok frustrated I found in Liams box a commercial wire trace, I rigged this to a 15kg knotable and then onto the fly line. Again a cast and final success! A nice 5kg spanish mackerel. While this was going on Liam bagged his limit and landed a vey nice Gt. Liam thought this fly stuff looked easy. So out came his 9wt and straight away he hooked and landed a nice trevally. Simple enough he had another go and this time hooked and dropped a trevally and then on the return of the fly to the boat a mackerel hit the fly and he lost it. Still not bad after a couple of casts! So all in all a great morning.

Bagged out on Spanish Mackerel!

My Dad arrived up from Batemans Bay late last week, so I was quite excited to see a forecast for good weather this weekend. Seabreeze had the wind dropping Saturday afternoon and Sunday. So our plan was to hit the water after lunch Saturday, and head for the shoal for the night.

We left home about 3pm Saturday afternoon, and it was still pretty windy. So I wasn't too sure we would be going far! But by the time we got bait, ice, fuel etc it was 4pm by the time we got to the ramp, and it was backing off by that stage. We first ran to the North Cardinal to try and collect some live bait, and even though there was a moderate NE chop on the water, we got there in quick time averaging about 22/23knots.

We had our tank full of bait within about an hour and decided to try reach the first shoal with enough light to chase a Mackerel. That proved to be a wrong move, as the closer shoals didn't have much on them. So with the light quickly fading we raced to the shoal I was wanting to fish. With the sun down and last light in the sky we both dropped down some live bait. Mine went off before reaching the bottom, but was quickly bitten off. Dad's was hit multiple times, but seemed to miss the hook each time. But one last hit and the hooks set. A couple of quick runs had me thinking mackerel. But with a single hook on the live bait, I didn't think we would ever see the fish. As luck would have it, the hook was in the tip of the top jaw and soon we had our first Spanish Mackerel in the eski, and a first of that species for Dad!

With almost zero light left I crossed my fingers and dropped a metal slice. It took off quickly on the drop, and I was now hooked up to something big. Didn't seem like a Mackerel, and I was almost thinking a Nannygai might have taken it. But after a lengthy fight a big Golden Trevalley came into view. I tailed the fish, got a quick pic, and let her go.

Things went pretty quiet from here. The sun was gone and we drifted live baits, dead squid and pilchards for hours. We pulled up the odd Nannygai, and lost a couple of big fish, but really, the action was very slow. About midnight we called it quits and went to bed.

Next morning we rose about 5am. The boat had swung overnight with the change in tide, so I had to re-position. But first drop of the anchor had us right back where the fish had been. Baits went down and fish were on the chew. As first light appeared we landed several fish including a couple of undersize Cobia (another first for dad) and some Nannygai. I landed the biggest Nannygai of the night, 4.5kg cleaned. But as the sun came up all we could manage was every assortment of Trevalley!



With the sun starting to appear it was time to float some pilchards. Dad continued to fish the bottom in search of the Nannygai, but I put on one of these gang hooks and flicked the pillie out. The rod was in the holder no more than about 2mins when the first fish hit. And it was a good fish too. But unfortunately part was into the fight his teeth found the trace and that was the end of that. New gang and I was quickly out again. Another hit came withing minutes, but a bight off straight away. This is the price you pay for no using wire floating pillies, but the number of hits you get is worth the lost fish! New hook and out again. This technique nailed my 4 Spanish Mackerel, biggest over 8kg, in the following 30 to 40mins! That gave us a total of 5 mackerel between us. The limit is 3 each, so I thought I had better stop and give dad a chance to land another fish!



But this stage Ward had arrived in his boat. Him and Liam were drifting, and doing quite well on metal and fly. So I decided to up anchor and give dad a go with high speed metal. Besides, the pilchards we had purchased the day before were some of the worst I have ever seen. They were soft and mushy and difficult to cast on the gang hook! Initially all dad could manage on metal was Trevalley after Treavally. And when he did finally hood a good Spanish Mackerel, it got Sharked! AND so did the next one!!! Luck was not on his side. But there were a lot of fish on the chew, and he soon hooked one that make it boat side. And it was another good fish, around the 7 or 8kg size.

So that was it for us, we had our limit by 9am and decided to head home. Despite a stiff SW breeze that we were heading directly into, we managed to maintain 20knots for the run back to the island. And from there the wind dropped completely. I opened her up and held 30+ knots all the way back to the ramp!

Looks like it was a busy morning too, boats parked all the way to the aquarium!

Saturday 27 June 2009

Bream on fly.....Nice!

Well luck had a lot to do with it but I landed a nice bream on fly today at Alva Beach. The club had planned to fish Cungula but when we arrived the water was to far away so on we went to Alva. When we arrived the tide was still running out but very near the bottom of the tide. We had 4 flyfishers and Joanna and her grandchildren. We fished for about 3 hours and managed to land flathead, trevally, gar, barracuda and a bream. The children landed some whiting on bait. We finished with a cup a tea at the park. A nice morning.
About the bream. I have been trying to catch a bream for awhile but I have not really been targeting them. I thought this weekend I would try. Cungala I thought would be a good spot with the snags and mangroves, but instead we moved to Alva Beach. I used an intermediate with a white clouser and simply floated the line down the current line. I was chasing flathead but thankfully the bream hit it instead! So this time a lucky catch, Bob did the best of the crew with 4 flathead to 47cm and a barracuda.

Friday 26 June 2009

Flyfishing this weekend

With the start of the school holidays I thought I would start with a quiet fish after work. I went to my normal tarpon hole and landed 5 nice fish and dropped 2, again using the black and pink fly. I noticed that a nice slow to no retrieve worked well on the larger fish while the normal quick retrieve worked on the smaller fish. Tomorrow the NQ Flyfishers are heading to Cungella for a morning fish. So if you see us there drop in and say hello. I plan to go out in the boat on Sunday or Monday to see if there any mackerel around.

Friday 19 June 2009

Fishing and Outdoor Expo

This weekend Townsville Sportfishing Club is hosting the Townsville Fishing and Outdoor Expo.

Details as follows...

Saturday 20th June and Sunday 21st of June 2009

Venue Location:
Townsville Turf Club Cluden

Show Hours:
Saturday 20th June 8:00am - 5:30pm
Sunday 21st June 8:00am - 3:00pm

Public Entry:
General Admission $6.00
Under 14 free

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Baptist Church Fishing Club - Comp Results June 2009

The Baptist Church Fishing Club’s annual Land Based comp was our best yet with 17 fish being weighed and an additional 25 fish being released. The Land Based comp is always a great opportunity to get to know some of our newer members and fish with people we would not usually fish with. Congratulations to all who got involved and to the winning team of Ian, Mitch, Tom, Gavin and Tony. Also a very big thank you to Jason from Pro Tackle for his excellent Tackle Night presentation on Townsville’s Land based Hotspots – we greatly appreciate your support.

Division Winners:

Senior Male: Malcolm Brown 57.4 points
Senior Female: Trisha Forman 100.4 points
Sub Junior Male: Ben Forman 32.5 points
Lure/Fly: Malcolm Brown 57.4 points
Catch & Release: Trisha Forman 33.25 points
Hard Yakka: Jocelyn Elms 25 points

Individual Results:
Senior Male

Malcolm Brown 57.4 points
Grunter (Sooty) 0.42kg 21.0pnts
Flathead (Dusky) 0.5kg 17.5pnts
Flathead (Dusky) 0.54kg 18.9pnts

Tony Elms 43.2pnts
Mangrove Jack 0.6kg 30.0pnts
Cod (Gold Spot) 0.66kg 13.2pnts

Dion Forman 35.5pnts
Bream (Silver) 0.3kg 24.0pnts
Tarpon 0.23kg 11.5pnts

Senior Female

Trisha Forman 100.4 pnts
Bream (Silver) 0.48kg 38.4pnts
Tarpon 0.29kg 14.5pnts
Tarpon 0.29kg 14.5pnts
Mangrove Jack 0.66kg 33.0pnts

Sylvia Gear 37.5pnts
Whiting 0.16kg 20.0pnts
Whiting 0.14kg 17.5pnts

Sub-Junior Male

Ben Forman 32.5pnts
Tarpon 0.42kg 21.0pnts
Tarpon 0.23kg 11.5pnts

Club Visitor

Tom Missingham 61.95 points
Flathead (Dusky) 1.14kg 39.9pnts
Flathead (Dusky) 0.63kg 22.05pnts

Saturday 13 June 2009

My first Jungle Perch

Went for a fish down at Alva today with Ward. Considering the slack tide we had a pretty good morning. I managed a half dozen fish, biggest being 50cm. Ward managed a few on fly, including a nice one at about 45cm. We also had a big of fun on some small GT that moved through the channel at one stage. But they were small!

On the way home we hit the fresh. It was cold and we didn't expect much. But I did manage one Sootie, one small Barra and my very first JP! I was most impressed. The fish was at least 35cm long. Unfortunately Ward was fishing a fair distance away, so I only got a few pics of her on the rocks.


Tuesday 9 June 2009

Weekend Report - Two in one

Going to put two reports in one. Sorry they are a bit late!

Saturday 6/6/09
This was the day of the Baptist Church Fishing Club land based competition. So no boat for me. I decided to head in a totally different direction to everyone else, and went south to Alva beach. High tide early in the morning made Flathead fishing off the beach pretty enticing.

It proved a good move, with several fish landed within only an hours fishing. Club rules stipulate a maximum of 5 fish to be weighed, and a max of 2 of the same species. So with 3 flatties of about 45cm bagged, I decided to looking for something else.

I hit some freshwater on the way home, and was very pleased to quickly get onto a few Barramundi. I ended up landing a good half dozen of these fish, but most were in the 40cm range. The biggest went 50cm and another 48cm. I also managed several Sooty Grunter.


Sunday 7/6/09
With good weather forecast I was keen get the boat in the water for Sunday. I would have liked to leave Saturday afternoon, but my wife was out for the evening. So we decided to wake the kids and head off as soon as she got home. As it turned out, this ended up being about 2am! We ran straight to the shoal in bumpy but good conditions.

On arrival the sounder lit up with what was looking to be a good school on Nannygai. This soon proved to be the case, with the first fish of about 45cm coming on board in quick time. Over the next couple of hours until sunup, I managed 11 nice fish, all about 45-50cm. I did hook up on some monster, but they all got the better of me. A couple bricked me on the rubble, but most simply pulled the hooks under pressure.

At daybreak I was unfortunately nuzzled out of my fishing spot by three other boats in the worst case of fishing etiquette I have ever seen. They simply anchored three abreast in the drift path I had been working for the previous couple of hours. And within meters of where I was. I tried to also anchor, but couldn't get to where I wanted to be. I had a go at them about 'not being able to find their own spot', but they just laughed in my face and hurled abuse back. I didn't need that, so I left.

A bit of troll in open water looking for new ground got me my first Spanish Mackerel in the boat for the season. Only a small fish of about 4kg, it was nice to knock that one off my top ten for the year.

We headed back in pretty early and gave the North Cardinal a shot with metal. I didn't have my heavy spin rod in action, so was using my sons little Symeter 2500. It only has 10lb braid on it. I was soon hooked up to a monster. I suspect it was a GT, as 30mins into the fight it didn't even see be getting tired! I was determined to land the fish, and took it pretty easy on light line. But eventually the hooks pulled, leaving a chunk of the fishes flesh on the end of the treble! That was it for our morning and we headed of home.

Tuesday 2 June 2009

Baptist Church Fishing Club - Tackle Night

This Thursday night is the Baptist Church Fishing Club tackle night. This month Jason from ProTackle will be coming along to discus Land Based Hotspots around Townsville. This is in the lead up to this weekends Land Based only competition. I know there had been a lot of discussion in the forum about Land Based fishing, so it might be a good one to come along to. The presentation starts at 7pm and takes place at the Church Hall on Canterbry Rd (across the road from Ryan Catholic College). If your not a member but would still like to come along, give Dion an email on dtforman@bigpond.com and I'm sure he'd love to see you there.