Elliott Heads Trip

[Fishin_Dan]

Elliott Heads Report

Friday
Left home at 3am for the drive up to Elliott Heads. Arrived at the camp grounds nice and early after seeing a beautiful sunrise (with mist over dams) on the drive. The other half slept the whole way up, so it was a very quiet peaceful drive :o

Got up there and our mates had just woken up with their 1 year old daughter, and we grabbed the camp chairs out of the car and joined them. We had to wait for the current occupents to pack up before we could setup on our site, so I bit the bullet and cracked a beer ;D (It was after 9am, so it was ok ::) )

Finally setup the tent at about 1pm, and was nice and toasted... Somehow got the tent up in one go and all was perfect :) he he he

Spent the afternoon meeting the mates families (One crew from Redcliffe and the other crew from Rocky). At about 4pm I went with one of the fathers (Allan) to cast a few slugs/poppers around the mouth of the Elliott River to see if there were any Queenies around. With the tide just starting to come in, it should have been good, but we didn't get any bites, and it was very hard casting with the amont of wind we had. There were alot of kite surfers though...

Beer finished out the day :D

Saturday
Didn't know Allan was bringing his boat (4.8m Ally Craft Centre Console), so was very happy when it turned up, and he planned for a trip this morning out to Cochrane's Artificail Reef. We launched the boat at 6:30am with Allan driving and Russell & Brock being the other deckies. It was a long slow bumpy ride out there, and we sounded around and anchored near one of the wrecks. Threw out a pillie floater with 2 4/0 Circles throught it (and no sinker) and tied the bait jig on another rod. Allan & Russell dropped some squid down on patonester rigs, and Brock dropped down a big Squidgie Fish. Jig loaded up, and up came my first Happy Moment :( Used the pliers to get him off, and dropped it down again. It became a constant thing... Wind up Happy Moments, drop the jig down again... So I gave up on the bait jig and gave it to Allan on the other side of the boat. The floater got nailed, and I pulled up a small Squire. He went back in, and Allan caught a Leather Jacket on the bait jig by somehow getting it wrapped around the middle of it! ???

It was about here that Brock started his own little berley trail... He'd stopped fishing after about 5 minutes, and had been standing quietly up the front of the boat. Russell started to get "sympathy ill" as well, and started going a nice green colour. We constantly bagged Brock about the chocolate Up'N'Go he'd had for breakfast ;D

Towed some lures around on the way back in hoping for some mackeral, but all I got was 1 Giant Grinner!

The tally for the day was 1 x Grinner, 1 x Leather Jacket, 2 x Squire, 4 assorted reef littleys, and a bucket load of Happy Moments.

Sunday
The weather was a bit worse today due to the wind, and the ocean was a real mess. Launched at around 9am (Everyone else slept in after all the drinking the night before ::) ) and stayed in the Elliott River. Fished some nice mangrove lined area of the bank that dropped into deeper water. There were alot of hardiheads everywhere and they looked alot like the Zoom plastics I had in the Albino colour. So put one on and dropped it down. Got a few bites and eventually hooked up. After a lot of weight, and no real fight, I pulled up a Stonefish :( Again the pliers came out (The longer ones for this guy!) and he went back in. Put on a new plastic, and threw it back out.

With the king tides that were around at the time, I had to cast a fair way up stream for the plastic to get to the bottom so I could hop it back to the boat.

Allan & Russell (Brock decided not to come today! :) ) were using pillies & squid, but not getting any bites. They were also trying to cast net some of the hardiheads. Buggers stayed just out of range though...

Eventually hooked up again to a nice flatty, and got him almost to the boat (The water was extremely clear) and he gave me the lovely view of him spitting the hook right in front of me...! Finally pulled in a 38cm Bream to make up for it. A flatty of 42cm was the only other fish caught that day.

Monday
Got to pack up in a real hurry in pouring rain... There were 5 tents to pack up, and by the end of it, I was completely drenched. Finally got have a hot shower, put on dry clothes, and we headed back home. Stopped at the Sunshine Coast to visit my cousin so didn't get stuck in the traffic :)


All in all a great holiday. Not many good fish caught, but still had a ball. Would like to spend a good few days trying to get a better idea of Cochrane Artificial. From what I saw, it has a fair bit of potential. And the guy I spoke to at the ramp had caught 3 snapper of around 5kg, and a 6kg red there on the friday!!!

Anyway, it looks like it will be an annual trip, so will definately get another crack at it.



Cheers,
Dan


P.S - Left the fishing camera at home, so the only photo is one I got from another of the crew.

[StevenM]

Good report Dan. Made me laugh. The longer pliers for this one.

Cheers

Steven

[Freeeedom]

Good stuff Dan! - shame you didn't connect with a few more decent fish. You'll have to start eating the Happy Moments - or maybe a few more beers would be a better option
Cheers Freeeedom

[Fishin_Dan]

Cheers guys ;D I think the beers would be a better option than eating them :P

Although, we were winding up the bait jig that had 2 of the buggers on it and something slammed the jig! We lost half the jig, the sinker, etc, and got the top Happy Moment and half the other one... So something eats them! ;)

[2iar]

G'Day Dan,

Sorry I missed you by a day or two while up near there (Bargara). I had a look around the place on the Wednesday before you got there. I never got a chance to fish, but quite liked the look of the place (and River View). Is that where you put the boat in - the ramp looked pretty good? What was the bar like? - I noticed the warnings at the ramp, but it didn't look to bad from what I could see.

Good to see you had fun despite a limited catch. Sounds a bit familiar these days, eh?

Good luck,
Mike

[Fishin_Dan]

Yeah woulda been good mate. There was certainly enough beer for you to join in ;D

We stayed at the Caravan Park right next to the river mouth. There is a boat ramp there.... sort of... River View was the one we used. It's a decent ramp with a bit of sand on either side to pull up on. It gets a fair whack of run past it though, and there are a few rock sections just next to it. Best bit is to go into the sand, drop off the deckie, get them to back the trailer down, and drive the boat on. Just make sure they're wearing sturdy shoes of some description to protect from the nasty stoneys!!! :o

The bar apparently changes a fair bit. It was pretty much running straight out when we where there. It's pretty shallow (About 2-3m depending on tide) and at dead low is pretty scary. The waves standup pretty quick. Once you're past the waves it drops off slowly and it's a pretty clear run out then. We followed the path in red in the pic attached.


Sounds familiar..... I think that's a bit of a challenge mate ;) Better get your "Losing Shoes" on!!! ;D

[wheezer]

was up at elliot too over the school holidays for both fishing and kiteboarding, unfortunately had to leave good friday. dragged up my 425 ET for the week. was very calm beginning of trip so went out the front and threw slugs/poppers around the headlands in the hope of nailing some big queenies or macks. didn't manage to hook up to anything although had a few follows and a big hit from what looked like mackeral.

river was also extremely quiet, threw unweighted plastics around the first snaggy bend for stacks of pike, also picked up a good flatty. other than that it was dead. still a magic spot though and as always will be back same time next year.

[Fishin_Dan]

Was that first snaggy bend where you come into the river, turn left, then hook around to the right & it's mangroved lined? If so, this is where I caught some of the fish (Bream, Stonefish, Pike & Flatty).

[Canoedle]

Boo on the photos boooo. Hehe, sounds like you had a bit of fun up there m8, can't say I've heard any good reports of fishing in that area since I was a kid. There's supposed to be some good spots up river near the sugar mill etc with lots of snags and reportedly some huge trevas etc, but never seen photographic evidence of this. Hope you have better luck next trip. ;)

[wheezer]

yep that's the bend. same time last year there was a school of large queenies terrorising the baitschools up and down that stretch at high tide, unfortunately I'd left the SP's behind and although I had a few looks I couldn't get them to take a popper. Also a rather large Mackeral all on it's own up in there on the high tide as well, it had a go at a popper but didn't connect....

this year...saw none of that unfortunately...