Fraser 17-24th

[bugman]

I'm back.

What do you get when you cross 6 days of rain, 5 days of wind, 28 tonnes of weed and non-cooperative fish?

Answer - last week on Fraser.

I refuse to be disappointed with any fishing trip to Fraser because just being there is good enough and anything else is a bonus - but I have to say that last week really did test the friendship.

Drove up Noosa North shore on Sat morning 17th and got to Rainbow Beach at 10:00. Started raining 10:05. Rained right through to 11:30pm Thursday night - started again 11:30pm Friday night.

As for fishing - the fans were turned on most days making main beach difficult but when combined with thick weed in most places - made things down right hard.

Fished from Eurong north to Indian Head boundary on three manageable days. Tailor were good size when hooked - biggest went 54cm with most averaging around 40+. They were never "on" like previous visits where you get smashed as soon as your bait hits the water and you land 10 in 10 minutes. Best fishing was 6 in about an hour with a school moving through a gutter and if you land one or two your lucky - if not you wait for next school or move on.

Plenty of dart which were a bi-catch to tailor and whiting - every cast if your really wanted them - biggest was well over kilo.

Whiting were hard to fish for in the conditions and were very similar to Tailor. Might get two or three - 6 max - in a gutter in half and hour then had to move on. Biggest went 34cms.

Total between two guys (make that 1.5) 45+Tailor, 20 Dart, 40+whiting

Because of the rain my fishing partner was unwilling to leave the sanctity of our four walls and roof at Eurong so planned overnight trips to the Cape and Western side were shot ducks.

The much heralded attempt at the big beach jewie was also postponed.

The weed was really bad in some places and after a big blow day made some really likely looking gutters unfishable.

All in all my worst trip to Fraser but as I said I'm not bagging it because I still went but I think I'll have to plan another soon just to get my true fix.

Bugman

PS Thank god for the waders.

[davo189]

Hey Bugman,
You're not wrong about the weather - hasn't looked like serious rain for 6 mths and we head to Fraser and the Skies open for a week. Like you, we headed up on Sat 17th and drove back Sat 24th (conditions on Sat when driving back were close to cyclonic!)

We camped on the beach about 10km north of Dundubera and fished about a 6km section of beach south from our camp. Weed was a big problem especially on Sun & Mon when we found fishing almost impossible. It seemed to get better as the week went on with the bulk of the weed coming up to the top of the tide & the runout tide was much better. Due to the conditions (both weather & weed) we opted to fish the morning sessions only and NOBODY wanted to fish at night. We released a reasonable number of small tailor (<34cm) and dart <37cm although most of the dart were of quality size around the 40+cm.

On Wed morning, I managed to bag my best ever Tailor - 72cm/3.8kg (or 8+ lb on the old scale!) It was truely a marathon effort as I had recently re-spooled my 7" alvey with 6kg Platnum which was about 5lb lighter than I usually fish in the surf. I truely didn't think I would land this fish as my Snyder Glas "North Coaster" which spent most of the time bent double was all but pulled from my hands twice during the 10-15 min battle.

Final tally for the week (the fish we kept) between 3 of us under very trying conditions was as follows:

Mon 19th - 3 dart.
Tue 20th - too much weed (& too much xxxx to fish.)
Wed 21st - 6 dart, 37 Tailor.
Thur 22nd - 4 dart, 21 Tailor.
Fri 23rd - 9 dart, 7 Tailor.

Hopefully there is a photo of the big tailor waiting for me when I get home so I will try to post a copy tomorrow or later in the week.

Cheers,

Davo.

[webby]

Hi Mate, Hope you took care of the Landy you no they rust dont you should have brough her into work and got a good clean down
I bet the waders got a good canning , shame about the wx, but we had the same stuff down ere, been landlocked for 2 weeks now, will have to go to the Boat Show and invest in a bigger rig.
regards

[bugman]

Davo,

We did most of our fishing between the Maheno and Dundaburra as well. You guys weren't camped near the Zupps guys, Ipswich council guys or Toyota guys were you.

That Tailor of yours was a stand-out. I got two pigeon pairs at 54 cms but on two separate days. They were the biggest I saw and everyone around seemed to feel they were the biggest they'd seen.

I wonder if the weed was as bad north of Waddy - my father wasn't keen on the car trip and I couldn't find anyone to give a report so I guess I'll never know.

I had planned to take my boat on this trip to do offshore fishing - thank God I didn't. On the Monday there was a guy at Eurong seeking the aid of a welder because he'd broken the drawbar of the trailer for his 6.5 metre plate alloy sportsfish. He Had the $60,000 boat hanging to the back of his Cruiser by a chain!!!!. - unlucky. If he ever got to Waddy he would have never been able to use the thing anyway. I'm glad I wasn't him.

WEBBY - why didn't you tell me you could help me out with the car!!!

I'm sick of crawling under the bloody thing in my wetsuit in the mud getting shit in my eyes for about two hours. I took it to a place on Ipswich road once to do the full thing and he charged me $150 bucks and I wasn't real happy with the quality so I've never been back.

And it's a Landrover - it never rusts (except for all the steel bits).

Bugman

[Touchy - R.I.P.]

G'Day Bugman,I was thinking the other day that you may have been doing it a bit tough up there,Jeeze thats a long time to have a pair of waders on(for most of us anyway )Check your messages I sent you something about a trip or two last week.Cheers T.><> ><>.

[craigie]

G'day Bugman,

Glad to hear you made it back from a very bleak Fraser Island.
The Waders are just as vauable as the Landy when conditions turn nasty.

A mate from work was up at Fraser last week with reports of 4 days of constant drizzle. He told me two of them caught 150 Whiting for the trip up to 37 cm. Most of these fish were caught north of the Maheno. The southern end of the Island fish poorly.
The Tailor were there if you wanted to fish for them, Dart were available in numbers and quality.
The weed is still thick, especially on the run in tide.

Cheers
Craig.

[davo189]

Bugman,

No, I did see the Zupps/Ipswich/etc camps but we were a bit further north - about 10-12 km north of Dundubera. The weed was all the way up and past Waddy - we had mates that were camped at Ocean Lake (past Orchid) and they spent most of the week travelling back down to fish between Maheno & us. I heard that the pro's had cleaned up at Orchid the week before we went up there.

One thing that I omited to mention in the previous post was the number of times I was bitten off by something big when I had a fish on. Also, a number of fish came in with scuff marks on both sides - most likely sharks but the weather was too dull to see them in the gutters.

Anyway, here is a couple of pic's which I promised:
Cheers, Davo.

[davo189]

pic 2:

[davo189]

pic 3: