The opportunity to fish Moreton Bay came up on Tuesday and Kyle and I jumped on it as it had been August since the boat had touched the briny. Because we hadn’t been out for so long we decided to hit an old favourite spot as reports of bay fish had been scarce. The day started well with a quiet boat ramp, an easy crossing of the bay and perfect conditions upon our arrival.
I had some success with Owner Flashy Swimmers jigheads on barra at Awoonga in November and Kyle thought that the smaller version (5/0 hooks) would work on snapper. We hit the reef edge at Goat Island, the only boat there, but it was almost dead tide and, in our experience, snapper generally prefer moving water.
Undaunted Kyle threw his flashy swimmer with a squidgy prawn and rolled it gently across the channel in about 4m of water. Ten minutes into the session his lure is absolutely monstered and his cry is “Dad, we need to chase this one”! So chase we did with Kyle doing the pump and wind while I drove the electric at full bore. This fish went on some withering runs but the tell-tale headshakes told us that it was a good snapper.
Over 150m or so it gave Kyle a long but clean fight before I managed to slide the net under it – 61cm, a new bay snapper PB for Kyle beating his old PB by 4cm. He was grinning from ear to ear. A couple of happy snaps and back into the deep she went. Soon after my flashy swimmer (with a 4” paddletail) is also smashed and I land a nice 49cm snapper.
The rest of the morning saw us boat a few more fish of mixed species (gold spot cod, longtom, moses perch, pike etc) plus a couple of bust-offs by unstoppable monsters. Fishing was steady without being great. We saw dolphins and turtles and we had a pair of dugong surface right next to us in the shallows.
A good morning on the bay…
Cheers
Pete & Kyle
