breaming for barra

no idea what it is, im thinking a type of grunter

I went down to the river today in search of Bream today but there wasnt any once again I found myself landing Barra and Tarpon on bream lures, I changed to a large sebile slender eel and a barra took off with it and after a massive fight left my with the head. I had no more barra lures suuitable for this light combo by sebile so i threw on an oldy and landed three really nice looking barra. deffinately a good day, bream or no bream. Now I am difinately in need of some new Sebile bream lures and Sebile Barra lures.

all thats left of my 95mm lure, about 10mm-sebile slender eel

fish number 1, decent size barra, nice and fat too



fish number 1 in comparison to my bream gear




fish number 3, very very heavy powerful barra




fish number 3 underneath



everything in perspective

after fishing with kurt hutchby I have learnt a lot. this morning  while everyone was casting off the bridge into the channel at a local fishing spot I walked in the flooded paddocks from all the rain, all the baitfish are there eating what the can find new, which meant the big fish will be close by hiding behind things, before I know it wading around in weeds and sticks and barbed wire fences pay off with a few tarpon being taken. I went home after no bara were caught. something else caught my eye while i fished with the GAWB hatchery people, all their rods were light as and their reels matched. even when I went barra fishing they had super light spin outfits. I went to barra jacks and snagged a bargain, a light 2 peice catana for 85 and a quantum triax for 30 ( way way way under priced) the team there put some braid and backing on for me and all i needed now was fish. I wanted to bream fish the river but the river didnt like that idea instead it threw 7 tarpon and 5 barra my way. Good way to christen/test new gear. I had ages left to go but I decided to just go home because the glare was killer and I was satisfied with the job my little bream lure did.


I walked right up to the tress to try and find a barra



fail shot at tarpon underwater, can slightly see it though



smaller tarpon on the crankster. im going to have to get more

new combo, nicknamed shit stirrer



tarpon on a crankster 35 mr

  

smaller barra on a crankster 35 mr

this one was a beauty to fight

day 4, learning what the barra like

It was my final day in gladstone and I got to the hatchery at 5. Kurt myself and thomas were going around to all the islands trying to land some fish. there was nothing for ages but i stood at the back of the boat and cast so everytime kurt used the electric I would stumble. The sebile splasher had many follows but no takes. we went to a different spot where we could see barra swirling but they wouldnt take the lures. kurt got some cod on a sebile magic swimmer and on an sx40 got a fllounder and a barra around a pylon, he could have run into the barra because it didnt even notice we were there. thomas cast at a barra lure and ended up landing a beautiful big pikey. I on the other hand got many bites and follows but nothing seemed to stay on the hook. no matter. we got back to the hatchery and went to the barra ponds where all the fingerlings are raised. there was a pond full of larger barra so i cast in there. the water was clear and the barra follow your lure if you use the right retrive. even though they were small, about 50cm i think, give or take, they still put on a show with jumps and kicks and runs. I ended up nailing heaps after i found the retrive for the sebile crankster 35mr. twitch the lure 1-3 times and then let it rise, on the rise the bara pound it and scream off with the lure. we got back and i had a bit of time to kill before dad finished work and drove home so i fished for bream again catching around 20 around some bridge pylons, luckily I put on the packets of 4x reinforced hooks but the bream still kept crunching them. at the end of the day I packed up and went home pretty pleased with the week and hoping to come back for a fish next holidays.




little barra



close up to show lure.. sebile crankster 35mr



little pond



big bream





day 3- meeting the shitty tinny

on day 3 I got dropped at the hatchery, put my rods in Kurts car and then connected up his boat onto the dual cab ute. it was a bit more roomy now that matty one of the workers went on holidays so everyone fit in the car nicely. we took the boat to the spillway and launched hunting for barra for atleast 3 hours My sebile Slender Eel was the first thing too hook up what seemed to be a barra, then someone hooked up on a tarpon but niether of us got the fish in which was very dissapointing. nobody got fish for ages so I put on a large plastic and put some kurt goop on it and cast that out but all that achieved was a dirty black catfish. Kurt put on a flick bait and hooked and got in a tarpon. we went back to the hatchery and unloaded everything and Kurt showed me all the stuff about feeding the fingerling and other stuff like his spinner baits and sites he gets jig heads and stuff from, it was all very interesting. it was a better afternoon, the sun was shining  bit so i gave the arina another chance and hooked up on some more bream around pylons. to memory the was about 5 bream that time and once again all on the sebile crankster 35 mr.

an area of the river we were fishing

neer where I caught the catfish

a bream taken on a sebile crankster

see what the gob of a big bream can do

some pylon where I was fishing

Day two of the gladstone trip

Today I went out to the spillway to get brude stock with the hatchery GAWB people managed by kurt hutchby. we fished in heaps of different places  but couldnt get to the spillway because of the 200ml of rain the night before. the scenery at the sites was spectacular, I did learn alot when we got back to the hatchery as kurt showed me his plastic collections and how to use what for different fish and then let me grab a few to use on some brem, along with something I know call kurt goop. Its like the attractants of the s factor stuff in squidgies but he made it up to give the barra medicines. It works alright and I have a whole tub of it to use one fish. With the goop on some prongs I got 2 bream. while I was at the hatchery I grabbed some picture of the barra in the tanks, most beautiful fish in my opinion.

just below spillway where we needed to
 go up but the water was too high

neer the dam discharge

barra in the tank

more fish

another barra pic

pretty blury but oh well

my viento, love it



the selection of lures Kurt let me give a go,
many you cant get in shops anymore



gladstone, day one

Dad and I arrived at his appartment and unloaded the gear and he dropped me off at the gladstone marina. let me tell you now it was miserable and raining. I cast lures for ages hoping to get my first fish but it was no luck, just lots of follows. the tackle shop at the marina said not to even bother but that fueled me more just to prove them wrong. and after two more hours I did.

first one, he couldnt stop jumping around

 between two pilons was a whole school of bream and I ended up catching 7 of them. sorry for the short blogs at the moment I guess its the wether ruining the fishing. I did get lots of pics though. The pikey bream ruined the trebles on my lures but none the less they were great fish.

Sebiles were ther lure of choice, cant be beet on quality and hook up rate.

alright size

very much engulfed the crankster 35 MR holo greenie

another engulfed crankster

THE SPOT

Straightened trebles and even one hook snapped off, this will cost me a bit to replace.
 oh and the left chomp marks all over the holo greenie crankster

The final Bundy Sesh

one of the rocky coves



It was early afternoon and I decided to try yet another place. I got to another beach with a large rocky spit on it. At the edge of the spit way out from the beach were little coves created by waves and were full of fish, picked the right time to remember the glasses. Just as I was looking for my target a school of bream swam past.



the wierd looking striped fish



 I put on my mini Crankster and threw it out; the lure was a holo greenie colour and got wacked every cast picking up big bream and little bream. The tide got bigger and the bream weren’t on the bight every cast now so while I lured I had a bait out and caught some very fast hitting Moses perch and a beautifully striped fish, I have fished Bundy before so I don’t know what it is, any help would be great.



my little bro and his first fish



 I got more perch on lures and bait and then some cod as well, my family came down and joined me so I headed back onto the beach to further immerse my brother in the world of fishing, he finally caught his first fish and it’s a smile I will never forget, literally from ear to ear as he reeled in a Moses perch, may be small to everyone but to him it was fantastic.

 To now gain an advantage of the each fisherman I had to walk out to my chest and then cast out my bait on my little whippy rod.



My bream, one of the many



half hitched prawn

 My only problem now was bait so I copied something I saw in a book I picked up before lunch, half hitching a prawn around the tail once it’s on the hook, and then finally the good fish came on again. Everyone walked to the other end of the beach to swim between the flags so I went along knowing there was a small creek inlet that led into an estuary, I wanted test my PR0 range of Sebile minis.

 What can I say there lure is worth its weight in gold. It absolutely carved up on the little perch and bream at the front of this creek. Along with that it took some other species, one was a glossy white in colour with crimson stripes another was a school of whiting and so one and so forth. There is no doubt about how effective this lure is.

the PR0 colour crankster hooks up yet again

Fishing the saltwater pond



little brother



I took my brother to a saltwater pond I found to let him practice casting for some of the small Moses perch that were there. He was getting very good at casting but wasn’t hooking up on any of the fish attacking the baits. While his line was out I cast around my Sebile minis and caught some little Moses perch, nothing big but just proves the lure works. After that my brother and I walked to a pile of rocks separating the beach through the middle from the road to way out into the water.



sorry there was a scale on the lense



 On the other side of the rocks there looked to be plenty of little hiding places for bream of all so I showed my brother how to fish off the rocks here and just kept helping him. I did set out my own bait once he was right because there was no chance of effectively using my lures here in the surf. I caught a decent sized bream.



my hook on snaplock



We had to be back for morning tea so we headed back and on the way found one of those beach showers so I decided to wash the rods there so when we get back they will be dry. The rig I was using for bait was a paternoster and on the loop where I put the hook, instead of a hook was a snap lock swivel, this way hooks can be changed easily and if you can’t unhook the fish you don’t have to lose the whole rig.

Unfortunately Awesome



another part of the estuary area



The family went down to the Beach and I went along to teach my brother how to fish. I had rigged up some rods ready to fish. My brother threw bread in the water on my requests and fish came over and ate it, I then cast over all of them and mustered up some gar, whiting and white bait. My brother went back to mum and dad for a swim so I walked with him from the small estuary to the surf, he went and found the rest of the family and I cast whiting out into the surf. The whiting didn’t last long because everything loves them. My brother came back and I took him to the front of the estuary, then I showed him how to cast and let him cast out some white bait which kept getting smashed, my dad and sister and mum came over so I gave them my brother to look after ad my bait rod. Now that I was free a walked and fished the rock walls with Sebile miniseries Crankster in holo greenie. The first fish was a little bream; the second fish was gloss whit with crimson stripes. I am not from Bundy so I have no idea what this fish is, any help would be great.

the Sebile Cranster Mini series Holo  Greenie

 The third fish I’m sure was a flathead, I cast the lure on a sand flat and took in about a metre of line until it got hammered, I eventually got it 3 metres from the bank and it spat the lure. The final fish was one of the striped ones and after that there was nothing at all, the bream were darting amongst rocks where my brother was fishing but he was literally just feeding them bait. It was about 5 and we were going out for dinner so we all packed up and headed back to clean up.



Mullet make great bait

It was 4am and I was in the lift heading down to the beach, with me were my light graphite combo and my light river/jetty combo. The second cast of my newly repaired net caught a crazy amount of mullet along with some other bait. With this single cast my bucket got filled right up, so obviously I can repair the net pretty good. I walked to another rocky headland and mullet after mullet kept disappearing but so did my hook, sinkers, leader and sometimes even swivels. The only times I got a hook back was if it was bent straight by whatever was hitting. Nothing even nipped the plastics though. It was bordering on the time I needed to be back for breakfast so I put on the holy grail of baits, a large whiting. Within five seconds the reel was screaming then flung back in my face, I reeled it in and discovered I had half a whiting and only one hook so whatever ate it had big teeth and sheer power compared to my light combo. At the end of all this excitement I was only able to land two small sharks and a shovel nose ray, not even close to being worthwhile compared to my loss of gear.

Cut The Line!!!



front area or little estuary



The family went to the beach and I put my fishing gear in the car. The beach had a little creek inlet that led into a little lake area full of sand flats and holes. The sand flats were full of bait fish, I tried gathering bait in my cast net but it still has massive rips in it along with most the pockets being ruined, all the baitfish were escaping. Finally I cornered a school of mullet and cast over them quickly bringing the net to the ground and caught a few. All of them got bitten off but the last one thank god hooked up but to my annoyance it was a small stingray so I got it in close enough to see it still had the barb, there was other people around so I decided it was safer just to cut the line and let it go. The net stopped catching bait so I but bread balls on a bait jig and threw it out with other bits of bread and got some other types of small fish.



dad with my rod

The fish went on a circle hook and were cast out so I could take the jig off my graphite rod and use a lure. The lure I put on was a yabbie imitation plastic. My sister and dad came over seizing my rods for their own use so I spent the rest of my time showing dad how to use the yabbie lure by twitching the rod not just slowly reeling in. after that didn’t work I put on a double curl tailed grub to suit his style of lure fishing. My sister didn’t understand what a circle hook is and kept trying to hook a fish with every bite and that bait works a hell of a lot better in water. When we got back to our apartment hotel thing I decided to spend forever and a day fixing up my cats net with the tiny bit of 10kg mono I took with me.

Clays Guide to Rock and Beach Fishing

I was in Bundy, well a hotel on Bargara’s beachfront and I haven’t done a lot of beach fishing so I decided to put down what I know on paper to help both me and whoever is reading, feel free to comment to add to the info or to correct me in any places I’m wrong. Land based saltwater fishing is a great opportunity for anglers to catch a variety of species in surreal and awesome places. The fishing can range from whitening fishing on low energy beaches to trevally on high energy beaches with sharks and even mackerel taken from rocky points and headlands. Low tides can make or break fishing and high tides could obliterate any chance of fish in certain areas. All this information falls back to the fish you want to catch, low tides can uncover the top of a rock cluster that all the bream will be hiding in or medium tide could fill a gutter and it would be chockers with whiting. High tides will virtually always increase your chances insanely of headlands and high powered surf beaches. An understanding of the target species habitats is vital for success and a lot of effort should be focussed in finding that area if you’re a true fisho. The time of the year is also important, is the water nice and tropical or cold and temperate? Tropical waters bring plankton, which baitfish feed off, which large fish want to chomp on. Fish are by no means evenly dispersed so doesn’t be one of those beach fisherman that just cast out a bait and will catch squat. Find places of shelters like rocks, mangroves, gutters. The tackle that you use should be heavier then what you would use in a more sheltered estuary or river. Baits are best live and any live baitfish will be munched on. If you can’t access live fish than buy some white bait or prawns or worm. Pipis crabs and other crustaceans are very effective in areas. Mullet is another great bait… if you after lots of sharks. The most important things for beach fishing is being able to read the beach and know your target species.



just a picture of my new viento which I will blog about
 shortly after I got for another kayaking trip with my mate