Moreton Bay Newbie

[stevelcqld]

Hey

Well after a very very long break from fishing ( about 8 years plus and that was down south), I have got myself a 4.9m ripper tinnie so time to get back into fishing.

We live at Birkdale / throneside so looking for any advice on what bites around here and good locations to try.

I used to do a bit of saltwater fly for bream and flatties but don't have any of the old gear. So also have to get geared up, but thought it was best to ask whats around here.

I have also seen a lot of blurbs on soft plastics.. any advice..

Any advice, suggestions or ridicule would be welcome.

Cheers,

Steve

[Scalem]

Hi Steve,

I think an honest question deserves an honest answer, but do you want us to tell you which direction to head? Mate, the "blurbs" on Soft Plastics are for real, If you decide to head in that direction no doubt you should succeed with the right gear. But fly fishing is something you could teach me, I would say from posts I have seen that you will do very well with fly too....

I guess it depends on how you like to fish. Do you like to anchor and soak a bait, enjoying the relaxation and burley, or do you prefer to chase after fish with lures? Also tell us how much you are budgeting for Rod/reel which might help decide. A Reasonable SP outfit can be around $200.00, but that will vary according to opinion. I bought a $37.00 reel with 10 year warranty for the kids, but it has ended up on one of my SP rigs, and does very well catching fish. The last was a 65cm snapper so what the????

Grassie sweetlip in the shallows will be a lot of fun on fly and SP's soon if they have not already started to show up, Snapper from 4 - 11 meters, but I usually find them in around 6 or 7mtrs which is my preferred depth using up to 1/4 oz 2 or 3/0 jigheads. Flathead turn up anywhere, but the obvious places are edges of reef and sandbanks - about this time last year East of Green we were releasing fish after we had 4 each - they just kept coming.

The world's your Oyster in Moreton bay. However you want to tackle fishing is up to you

Good luck!

Scalem

[TheRealAndy]

IF you want to play with plastics, go buy a berkley dropshot or a squidgy rod and stick a cheap shimano real on it. Not worth spending mega bucks on a rod if you dont like it. Problem with SP is that is hard to catch a fish till you know how a fish behaves. Once you pick that up you are hooked and you are a SP man forever, and you can fish a lot better with bait too!

[Fish'n Junky]

Problem with SP is that is hard to catch a fish till you know how a fish behaves. Once you pick that up you are hooked and you are a SP man forever

I Second that!
I started getting into plastics over 18 months ago, and for the first 6 months or so had either no success, or caught nothing but flathead. Once i got a bit bored with the plastics, I would pull the bait out and sit there for often the same result.

Someone on here... (actually many on here) suggested that the bait be left at home to force you into using plastics properly. I did that, and alot of reading / video watching, and heaps of practise, and eventually caught my fist bream on SP. that was it for me... Hooked.
After that day I managed to be fairly consistent with the bream and flathead, but despite targeting other species, had no luck.
I took a charter earlier this year with a dedicated soft plastic guide on the sunshine coast, and managed to catch trevally, whiting and a monster flathead.
I learnt heaps from Brian Readman on that trip and since then I've targeted and caught heaps more flathead, bream and a 48cm mangrove jack. (My first)

Sorry.. rambling here.... Go the SP's and to shorten the learning curve, try an SP guide!

[stevelcqld]

Cheers for the advice, I am looking at spending upto around 250 on rod and real and am keen to try SP, as it's new to me and seems a lot of advice available, some good some bad but that's the joy of the net.

As for Saltwater Fly, thats a ripper.. Will prob get back into that but for now keen to focus on SP and yep happy to chase fish. The new boat is a 4.9 Mtr Side console alloy, casting decks 55lb auto minn kota and an 85 donk on the back so will get me around pretty well.

Any suggestions of rod / reel selection for a SP weapon up to around that 250 mark would be welcome.

Cheers,
steve

[Mossy247]

He steve, umm just my suggestion but a good little starter package around that price range would be a shimano raider (1 pce) if you can and somethig like a 2500 size reel in the shimano or what ever is your preference. I agree with the others about leaving your bait at home, I would take them both out in my tinny and barely use the SP's, prob good to run a 6lb ish braid with 12lb fluro leader, about 2 mtrs of leader and bob's your uncle.. as to techniques it takes a little time but there are plenty of video's and dvd's (you tube Big E on soft plastics) I run the same set up and I have managed to get a squire, bream, flatty and a few tailor so far, I am just learning but loving the challenge... good luck
p.s as for SP's I usually use the berkleys in the 3'' minnow grub, to the 5'' jerkshad... there is always more to learn. cheers

[stevelcqld]

Cheers for that.

Steve