Sinker Making Afternoon

Forum member 'Goingfishing' has opened the door to his shed once again for a bit of a meet and greet. The last time this was held we had a 'squid light' building night. It was quite successful and this time around Scott has proposed a sinker making session. There will be a basic BBQ supplied on the night along with softdrinks available for purchase. ALL monies raised on the night will go to the Townsville Fish Stocking Society donated on behalf of FishingTownsville.net. Scott has also volunteered to supply 10kg of export quality cooked prawns.

This is a family evening and partners and kids are welcome to attend. However, given the dangers of working with hot molten lead kids must be supervised at all times and remain away for the work area.

At this stage the event will take place Saturday May 8th. Sinker making will run from approximately 1pm to 4pm with the BBQ and meet and greet to follow.

To attend the evening you need to be a member of the forum and request to attend in the appropriate thread. Numbers are limited so get in quick.

Please post comments or replies in this thread http://www.fishingtownsvilleforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1131

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Calling all Fishing Clubs

I am regularly being asked by readers about information on the various fishing clubs running in the local area. I would like to set up a series of pages that will allow the various clubs to 'advertise' themselves with a bit of information, contact details and links to their own website. I will begin a list of clubs as links in a similar manner to the current boat ramp list. I would not be charging at all for the service, and simply request that the club put the information together along with a few pics, and email the details to sailfish@fishingtownsville.net. I will arrange and publish the information. To date the only club I have details on in the Baptist Church Fishing Club, so you can view that as a bit of a guide as to the sort of thing to write. So if you are a member of a club and could see this as a valuable way to reach out to a new audience then please raise this at your next meeting or email the appropriate president or person in charge.

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Flats fishing

Liam and I decided to go for a quick fish over the flats off Townsville this afternoon. The weather was perfect when we left except we could not see where we were going due to the rain! After working our way to the location using GPS and compass we starting casting at likely looking fishy spots. We were aiming at chasing coral trout and golden trevally. We kept our eye out and we did see some movement but we were always just out of range. We did manage to land a fish each and we had to leave a little early as the weather finally arrived but a good first attempt. It was interesting what the cod had in its mouth as well as the fly!

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Hopper fishing in North Queensland

Great fun!

For you trout'es out there that need a hit. I was fishing at my favorite tarpon spot and as I was retrieving my normal tarpon fly I noticed a few Tarpon jumping out of the water!. As much as I was enjoying the fishing sub surface I thought I would try my dragon fly pattern but I had forgotten to bring it!. So after a quick look at my fly selection I decided to try a hopper pattern. Amazing it worked very well! I was getting more hits, landed as many fish and it was visually better, great fun!

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Cod central

With the windy weather back again this weekend it was into the creeks for us. But that wasn't a concern, with a good Jack session 2 weeks ago we were keen to see if we could repeat our efforts. But, despite the same location, same bait, and similar tides, we managed only 1 36cm Jack for the morning. Every other good run we had turned out to be a cod, good ones none the less. Probably ended up with over half a dozed of them. All bar one gut hooked Cod were returned to the water. The funny thing is, the trip where we got a good run of Jack we didn't catch a single Cod! Typical of our fishing, just when we seem to be making progress and working things out, something changes! Still better than a day at work.

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Twin City Fish Stocking

The Twin City Fish Stocking Association put approx. 500 plus barramundi into the local water ways today! The job was well handled by the team with all members contributing to the exercise.

The team rose early and met at the local barra farm starting at about 7am to collect the fish. After about 2 hours the fish were tagged and placed into the transport containers. The fish were then moved by truck down to the release site and placed into bins, nets and boats and released on site. Well done by all members! If you have an interest in the Townsville fishery and keeping it going I would suggest a visit to the club and see if you can give a hand.

President: Terry McGeachin 47744788
Secretary Caradoc Jones: 47794350

Meetings are bi-monthly the second Monday at 7:30pm of the odd number months i.e. Jan, Mar, May etc and held at the Community Centre Rasmussen.

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Get Your Boat License

Baptist Church Fishing Club is hosting a Boat License Course commencing tomorrow night. If you don't have a boat license (or tired of watching the other half drive all the time) come and get your Boat Licence. Guaranteed to be very relaxed and great fun.

Details are:
When: Wed 14th and Thur 15th April 2010
Time: 7.00pm - 9.00pm for Theory (practical boat test times arranged to suit)
Where: BCFC Club Room (Baptist Church Hall - 38 Canterbury Rd, Kirwan)
Cost: $120 per person
Contact: bcfctownsville@gmail.com or
Phone: Dion on 4755 1403

Non Club members are WELCOME. Book your spot ASAP!

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Weekend of fishing bliss

My weekends fishing antics began Friday afternoon with Dad. We chased up some live mullet and headed of for West Point in his boat. We wanted to fish the eventing for some Fingermark. But despite everything going quite well for us, we came home empty handed. And when I say everything went well, I mean the tide was perfect, weather was just right, we had heaps of live mullet, we anchored smack bang on the mark first go and we got heaps of live squid after dark. Best we managed was a heap of under size Nannygai and I had one run from a suspected Fingermark.

Next day and it was family time. Tania and I set off with the kids in my boat just after lunch. The plan was to play around the shipping channel until dark, and then head into Horseshoe bay for the night. There was plenty of live bait around the mark, but Tania couldn't get any to go the jig. I had a follow from a big Queenfish on my first few casts of a metal slice, but that was the last we saw of him. We did later manage 3 nice doggie mackerel on the slices. But we gave up and headed for the Island before it got dark.

Next morning I was up at 4.30am with the intention of chasing some Nannygai before the sun came up. We were slowed down for a few minutes when I picked up some plastic on the prop, but it was cleared quickly and easily. On arrival at my favorite Nanny marks NOTHING was showing on the sounder! I sounded around 3 or 4 close by marks and nothing was on any of them. I didn't even drop a bait, time to go wider.

Light from the sun was starting to just poke through as I arrived on this spot. Two other boats were already anchored, but I have plenty of 'patches' here, so it was just a matter of spending the time to sound out where the fish were. It didn't take long and we were soon pulling up some nice fish. As we repeatedly drifted the mark we slowly filled the eski with fish. In all we bagged 8 Nannygai, most in the 3kg range but two good fish around the 6-7kg mark were also landed. More boats began to arrive, and we were soon surrounded by about 9 boats. All chose to anchor, but none interfered with our drift too much and all boat played a friendly game and got along well. One boat did anchor pretty close to the are we were working, but they didn't mind us drifting by pretty close. Good to see everyone able to fish an area and get along. We also managed some Trevally and a Spanish Mackerel.

Dad was not doing as well at his chosen location, so he came and replaced our drift while we went to investigate some other marks. We didn't do as well here, but managed a big Golden than was released as well as a few tuna for the kids to play around with.

We then headed to the Shark hole to try for some Spaniards. Fish were there, but getting them in was impossible. As usual, the sharks were on the fish pretty quickly. Best we could manage was one Mackerel with a bide out of the side! Oh well, close enough. Time for home.

We called into Nelly Bay for some Cold Rock and then headed home to fillet fish. Great weekend of fishing.  

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Nice work on fly!

A great day out. Richard and I decided to fish the flats and some deep water on Saturday. The tide was good to go out first and then fish the in coming tide in the afternoon. We did discovery very early that my camera was not working but Richard took a couple of shots with his phone camera. We tried the flats first but not much happening so out we went. We arrived at our destination as the tide started to go out so we needed to find a spot pretty quick. We had a couple of other boats on the area we like to fish, so we sounded around the outside of the group and found a nice spot that looked good on the sounder. After setting the anchor twice (a long way to the bottom) we started dredging. And then it happened. As we started retrieving we started hooking up, I am not sure what the other boats were up to but between us we managed 9 legal school mackeral, 8 or so trevelly, a nice fingermark (well done Richard), and a small nannagai. It was a good morning. We then moved onto the flats and started looking for the fish. After awhile we found a nice spot and Richard landed a very good legal stripy. We then started scanning and saw the target fish a small school of golden trevelly! After some stalking and a cast we landed a good size GT not the targeted species but a nice fish in the shallows, after the fight the fish had disappeared. So after a good day we returned to the ramp. Well done Richard 2 more fish for his top ten!

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Rat Barra

A quick lure toss again yesterday morning was very quiet. Only 2 rat Barra caught during the session. Time to concentrate on the good weather and blue water this weekend!

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Plastics Action

Had a flick of some lures in one of the creeks today. It really was just a quick one, finishing up by 8am. A change of tactics saw us flicking around un-weighted 7-in gulps. Proved to be quite successful too! Although we didn't even see a decent Barra, I managed a nice 40+cm Mangrove Jack and 3 decent Cod and Dad got a nice little rat Barra. Worked with a very slow twitch its a technique I will try a little more of in future.

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Dead Groper found at Rowes Bay

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Jack Attack!

Well Dad and I hit a little creek today for the Baptist Church monthly competition. And despite a slow start, we finished with a very nice bag of fish.

We started early and initially looked for live bait to fish for Barramundi. But the bait was dam hard to find. After an hour or so we had a couple of Mullet to get started with. We anchored to a snag and put out the live baits. When then put a half pillie of the second rod to keep us entertained. After an hour or so we both managed to get our Mullet 'scaled' but didn't even feel the weight of a fish. But the half pillies were working and I had a nice Mangrove Jack in the eski and some 28ish cm Bream. But all in all it was pretty quiet. So an change of location was in order.

It was not late in the morning, but we were determined to give it a go. Within a few minutes at this new location Dad was into a nice fish. A big splash beside the boat had us identifying a massive Flathead. It was soon in the net and onto the brag mat to check the size. 73cm! "Gotta let her go" I said, thinking the maximum size was 70cm. "Can you check that max size" Dad insists. "Oh, its 75cm max"...."YIPEEE"...

I was next with a lovely Bream of better than 30cm. Then the Jacks started. And over next hour or so we boated a total of 7 decent Mangrove Jack. Size was from about 38cm to 43cm. Beautiful fish on light gear in tight country. We also managed a couple more thumping bream. All fish fell to the good old lightly weighted half pillie!

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Kids love Cocoa!

Well its Easter time and the kids are into Chocolate, so it only seems fair to take them for a fish in Cocoa Creek! So we left home about 5am this morning and made a quick stop at the servo for the compulsory mozzie spray. A bumpy ride along the creek road that is now a little washed out and we were the first boat in at about 6am. We headed straight to the mouth and quickly set the pots. We then anchored up current of a likely looking snag and sent our half pillies back to the waiting fish.

The kids had a ball of a time catching Bream one after the other. Unfortunately the big ones were few and far between. But between the kids and mum we did end up with a nice bag of fish in the low 30cm range. Tania also caught a nice Flathead and 40cm Mangrove Jack. I suspect Lachlan got done a couple of times by Jacks, but he just wasn't quick enough to put the breaks on them.

Lachlan also managed a monster Muddie on rod and reel, and then we managed 2 more from the pots on the way home. We went through a block of pillies and bag of prawns in about 2 hours. Lachlan says "next time bring two blocks Dad". I think I will have to get them live baiting for Barra next!

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