Beautiful day on the day... and a PB!

[Damned67]

Hi All,
To set the scene, I received a message from Blooey on Saturday asking if I wanted to join him for a day of fishing (from chasing whiting on poppers earlier on in the day, through to Jew in the evening). It killed me to turn him down, because a) I was thrilled to receive the invite and b) I haven't been fishing in a month. Sadly, I just didn't have the time to devote 12+ hours to fishing.
That said, I did have a tank of fuel that needed to be used or disposed of, so I decided a quick trip out on the bay on Sunday morning was due.
It was a relatively late start, not arriving at the ramp until a bit before 6am. I was surprised at how few trailers were at the ramp considering the weather!
And the weather was amazing. WOT run out to Harry's. Again, surprisingly, upon my arrival at Harry's there was only 6 other boats there!!! I've seen more on terrible winter mornings!
Anyway, as I was approaching Harry's at WOT, I noticed birds and bust-ups dead in front of me. Of course, killed the engine and moaned that I came out without any rods rigged up. By the time I was finishing the knot tying the Raider onto one of my rods, the tuna were literally 2-3m from the boatside. Needless to say, as soon as I was ready to cast, the fish went down.
So on I went to sound some of my marks for fish. Found some amazing shows and started drifting... I was fishing two rods, both with plastics. Dead sticking one while I worked the other, then swapping. My drift pattern kept changing and on about the 4th drift I seemed to hit the sweet spot. Picked up my 4-8kg Dropshot that had a 5" Gulp Crazylegs Jerk Shad on the end and went to jig it. Instantly, the rod tip just about hit the water, and the drag started turning. It must have had the lure in it's mouth and just sitting there?
Anyway, there were some fairly significant headshakes so I was calling it for a monster Snapper. One of my last trips out there landed a 74cm Snap on the same setup, and this fish was significantly larger. At about the 5min mark, I was almost positive I heard my rod creaking, and was sure that my 10lb leader would give way. Then at about 10 min I saw colour, and the fish was done. A comfortable 91cm, with the scales calling it 6.73kg.
Pulled stumps then, certainly wasn't going to beat that fish there, so went (unsuccessfully) chasing tuna.
Beautiful day out, and was even surprised when I saw whales (which I've personally never seen in the bay).
And please excuse my foot, the slippery bugger kept sliding off the mat.
Cheers!

[Peter4]

Well done D67...it was a cracker of a day out on Sunday - calm conditions, few boats and bait schools everywhere. The bay was full of life. Didn't see the whales but saw turtles, dolphins, dugong and sharks - not to mention schools of mac tuna and longtails everywhere...

That's a great PB jewie. I managed to 'bagout' on snapper with a 35, 35, 48 & 36. All were released and I lost a much bigger one that trashed my 12g blade!

We are so very lucky to have a spot like Moreton Bay on our doorstep!

BTW I have had a Berkley Dropshot 'creak' while pulling in a 114cm barra so it does happen!

Cheers

Pete

[Millsydude]

Great fish mate, thanks for the report. i can't say i have seen any whales in the bay either, plenty the other side of moreton but in the bay.
cheers

[Damned67]

Yeah, I've only been fishing in the bay for a few years, but I've never seen whales in there. There were at least two, maybe more, and was probably about 2 kms North of Harry's. Yesterday was just magic. The bay really was full of life.
I'm pretty happy with my PB Jewie (which is actually only the second legal I've ever caught), although I do understand it's on the 'small' side of Jewies. I'm also pretty wrapped that I landed it on 10lb FC leader and braid, despite people catching bigger jews on lighter line. For me, I'm still thrilled.

[Damned67]

And I should add, that fishing solo yesterday made landing that Jew somewhat interesting. My net was certainly way too small, so had to use my hands, while trying to a) not lose the rod and b) not bust the leader and loose the fish....
Time for a bigger net and/or gaff.

[fish'n'chippy]

i have been up the bay once a week for the past 3 weeks and have seen whales on each occasion, definitely more this week though.
you guys must have been lucky not to hit a whale in the bay on sunday.........
i went from manly to 4 beacons and i counted 12 for the day
(spoke to another couple and they said they had seen 15 on the run up from raby bay)
here's a pic i snapped of one on Sunday about 1nm south of the 4 beacons
hard to miss when they are doing this.....

[Stonkered]

Nice jewie!

I spent the morning chasing those tuna schools for 1 hookup. Thought I might have gotten my first longtail..... but it turned out to be a mac tuna. Good fun anyway, It was a big bugger.... for the Bay anyway.

I also was surprised to see so many whales.

Thanks for the report

[tropicrows]

I was out there myself for a few hours, caught no keepers but it was a top day out on the water. Likewise we saw turtles, dolphins, whales, tuna and my first stingray flying through the air. I’ve never seen a stingray jump out of the water before.
And a large block of white foam (roughly meter cubed) floating around. I radioed it into VMR thinking if a small tinny collected it during the night they might end up in the water.

[BLOOEY]

Very nice damned. A top jewie mate. Never heard of whales in the bay myself either, cool! You did better than me on the jewie front, zero jew bites and one dirty big 90+ aussie salmon. Ben

[Damned67]

Very nice damned. A top jewie mate. Never heard of whales in the bay myself either, cool! You did better than me on the jewie front, zero jew bites and one dirty big 90+ aussie salmon. Ben

That's a monster, Blooey!
I bet that would pull a Jewie backwards!
Did you get a pic? and what did you catch it on?

[BLOOEY]

Yeah biggest one i have caught. Thought it was a jew till it took to the air. No pic released straight away. Ate a rather large mullet fillet. Ben

[fisho8]

i have been up the bay once a week for the past 3 weeks and have seen whales on each occasion, definitely more this week though.
you guys must have been lucky not to hit a whale in the bay on sunday.........
i went from manly to 4 beacons and i counted 12 for the day
(spoke to another couple and they said they had seen 15 on the run up from raby bay)
here's a pic i snapped of one on Sunday about 1nm south of the 4 beacons
hard to miss when they are doing this.....

Me and the missus were over at Tangalooma resort for the weekend and and the flyer hit one on the way back to the mainland. Put a pretty deep gash in the back of it to I was sitting on the back of the flyer when we hit it and I nealry fell off the back of the boat it jumped that much. A mother and her calf come up right in front of us and the skipper had nowhere to go. Marine parks sent a chopper up with a marine bioligist to inspect the damage the flyer did to the Whale and they had said the whale would be ok. I tell you this really opened my eyes up as I do a fair bit of fishing in and around the island and over at Mud. They are everywhere of there at the moment I saw about 8 in total on the trip over and the trip back. Most of which were hanging around in the shipping channel.