What was the fishing like in the good old days

[chief 1]

This is a question for the people who were fishing in the 70s and even earlier than that,my poppy says that you could just go down to the creek and within ten minutes you would have a feed,was it really that good back then and was it a lot better than what it is now?

[tunaticer]

Back in the 70's in the Pine River where I grew up it was easy as to get a feed. Three blood worms and a bit of 8lb mono on a short solid glass rod and some whiting hooks and in an hour you could easily take home at least a dozen big whititng from the battery grave area (Dholes rocks end of Deepwater Bend Reserve). I have caught nice jewfish around 6 or 8kgs off DWB too several times as a kid. Crabbing was dead easy too, half a dozen legal full bucks in one drop of four pots was about normal.

Tailor runs at Woody Point jetty at night would have you taking home a dozen greenbacks from sundown to about 8pm at the latest.

Sand crabbing off the Hornibrook Bridge with 8 dillies would get you a sugarbag full in half an incoming tide at night without having to use a boat!

Today I look back at those days of "moderate" catches and I think to myself if I myself made a lot of difference to the stocks of today, and you know what, I feel guilty about taking those dozen tailor now or a sugarbag of sandies instead of one or two meals for the family.

My catches were probably some of the smaller catches taken in thise places during that period as i remember looking on in disgust at others litterally filling wheel barrows with tailor and bream just because they were there. My grandfather still has that attitude to this day to take it today because you don't know if you can tomorrow. I do not fish with him anymore and I am happer to not have him reaping whatever he catches in that way.

Even in the 70's the fishing was easy at the age of 8 or so.

Jack.

[fish-n-dive]

I'm not so sure. Ive been fishing in OZ since 1969 and while the catches were a bit bigger back then it wasn't too different. Seasons come and seasons go and sometimes you catch fish and sometimes you don't.

There were definitely less people fishing back then but, I think the catches were more or less the same...................

Having said that, there were no carp in the rivers and the catch totals were not as well documented so..................8-)

[Leighton]

more or less the same...................

Having said that, there were no carp in the rivers and the catch totals were not as well documented so..................8-)[/quote]


Not as many Grinners either
As a kid I fished Noosa River. 20 years ago there seemed to be a lot more Whiting, however the entire area ( Woods Bay, The Sound, River Mouth ) has all changed and continually changing bringing in different species

[FNQCairns]

Only have early 80s to mid 90s experience in SEQ apart from fishing visits here and there since, not much difference from speaking to those who I fished with back then, sometimes seasonally better, sometimes worse, average over any 5-10 years more or less the same, same as everywhere else.

Where ever the commercials are stopped, the local fishing improves to well above long term sustainable.

cheers fnq

[chief 1]

cheers tunaticer,fish-n-dive,captain stabin and FNQCairns

[pickers]

well I grew up down at Brunswick Heads and back then in he 70's the fishing was hot , bream like you only dream of these days and I mean a 5 pound bream was just a nice one and I have a mate who has a photo of an 8 1/2 lb bream.
tailor season was off the planet and the greenbacks were true greeny's and when they were going off the breakwalls looked like two hairy grubs there were that many rods on them and everybody had a huge bag full.
a little bit of rain to colour up the river and the jew would go off.
and flathead...where do I start...heeps of them and not small , the bigest flatty to come out of the bruns river was 28lb and it was like a croc....big...mean and ugly.

hell I miss those days
pickers

[RayDeR]

G'day!

I lived in Redcliffe from 1976 to 1980 and moved in many cirlcles: church, service clubs, hotels, RSL and kept my eyes and ears open as well as fishing myself.

I am not sure fishing was any different to what it is now. The only really big numbers I saw caught were the buckets of winter whiting and, of course, the mullet netted and dragged on to Suttons Beach.

Other than that it was a few bream, whiting, tailor, flathead. Those with boats who headed to Moreton Island, etc could arrive back with mackeral , snapper etc.

The type of experience that Tunaticer talks about were the "stories" told of earlier years, even "before the war".

Ray De R.

Ray de R

[chief 1]

i wish the fishing now would be like the fishing back then

[Freeeedom]

I've been fishing since the fifties and fishing Moreton Bay and SE Qld since the early sixties. The main changes that I have seen over that period are the decline of tailor, summer whiting and flathead stocks and the changing of the species mix as the climate warms.
It was not unusual for me to slip down to Redcliffe after work and put in a couple of hours in the winter time casting pillies off the rocks or jetties and come home with 20-30 tailor, sometimes up to 2kg each. You're lucky these days to get three or four not much above legal size.
The summer whiting have been poor for a few years now and I think it's been too long to say that it's just a bad season. I know you can still make reasonable catches of them at times but they used to be much more abundant than they are now.
The fact that the flathead bag limit is only five shows how these fish have declined sharply since the 80's. It was relatively easy to target them specifically and catch 15 - 20 in a couple of hours. They were so abundant at times that I wouldn't consider keeping a fish under 40cm even though the size limit then was 30cm. Even then I didn't bother keeping the big mamas since they're not worth eating anyway.
In the 60's you never heard of estuary cod, mangrove jack, threadfins or queenfish being caught much in SE Qld - now they are commonplace.
That said, the fishing in SE Qld is still pretty good despite the population and the resulting pressure that this puts on the environment and the fish stocks. I can still go out fishing about 3 times a week and always come home with a feed. Part of this is due to experience and knowing what fish to target at various times of the year, but that doesn't count for much if the fish aren't there in the first place. Despite the fact that we sometimes think we are being strangled by regulations and green zones I think they are needed for the long term survival of the fishery in a sustainable condition. I mightn't like it but I can live with it.
Cheers Freeeedom

Oh! - I forgot - in the 'good old days' a grinner was a rare and unusual catch!

[CHAPPY]

I can remember fishing Plantation Creek in Ayr NQ IN 1950. Barra, Salmon, and many others. Ross River Townsville in the 1960's while I was in high-school and behind the golf course using American bomber drop-tanks as boats yealded Red Bream (Jack), prawns, barra, grunter, cod and huge mud-crabs.

Then 1970 the central coast of NSW for Jew, flathead, Luderick. Also in the 70's Keepet Dam at Gunedah had the carp were just starting to rear their ugly head.

The 80's Inskip Point and heaven on earth. The 90's saw BP dam and Boondooma with the bass getting bigger each year.

[Cobia Kid]

I went crabbing on the weekend with my mate and we got 2 nice bucks(muddies)
and to nice cod out of 8 pots. we were happy with that , while his dad was saying
that ifyou were getting one legal crab per pot, you were having a off day!!
Was it really THIS good??

[Noelm]

I think it is just the same as today, those that know what to do and how to do it, still get good catches, maybe not as good as "the good old days" but it is a simple fact that if you fish well and often then you will be out there when it all turns on! but if you sit back and wait for someone to tell you something is "on" or wait for the Local Newspaper to report it, you are too late, you have to be there regularly, do it properly, use the right technique and do the "hard yards" with fesh or live bait, put in the time and you will be rewared. It is so easy to blame Pros and global warming, "progress" or a dozen other things, but in our modern day, high speed/stressed lives, Fishing is often only a rare pastime and to fluke a red hot bite on your once a month Flexi day is rare indeed.

[The_Outlaw]

I agree with you on the point of the fish declining in size, and that could possibly be due to overfishing, or the pr!cks out there that take all sizes and sex's of fish and crustatia.

But at the same time, my guess is that the fishing is pretty much the same.
IE: same fish, same bait (excluding SP and lures) & the same sizes.

You know how stories go when they get older. Each time it is told, It gets longer, more dangerous/adventurous, and the fish grow 6 inch's.
EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I remember some old school/war friends of my grandfather, telling me fishtails about 5 foot bream and 8 foot flaties, yet the year before they where "nearly 4 foot bream, and flatheads as big as I am tall" coming from the old 6 foot, plus soldiers.

Although, I can confirm(due to seeing the old b/w photos myself) that dad and his old mate Les, shot and killed a nearly 29 foot salty up near atherton in 1947 and they, and their aboriginal mates loaded it on a lorry and took it to town.

[Lucky_Phill]

IMO.. I have fished the good old days.... but THESE are the good old days of tomorrow.

The definition of " good " is all a matter of perspective and interpretation.

Cheers Phill

[fleety77]

more or less the same...................

Having said that, there were no carp in the rivers and the catch totals were not as well documented so..................8-)


Not as many Grinners either
As a kid I fished Noosa River. 20 years ago there seemed to be a lot more Whiting, however the entire area ( Woods Bay, The Sound, River Mouth ) has all changed and continually changing bringing in different species[/quote]

getting old stabbin....................

[CHAPPY]

Another thing about the good old days of the 50's and 60's was you nitted your own crab pots and cast nets. Made your own rods from cane growing on the river bank or rangoon cane if you could afford it. And the fishing tackle shops were in the back of the barber shops in Townsville. Kids made their own boats from ex WW2 aircraft belly tanks or drop-tanks. Did I mention no TV? And when TV did arrive, it was from 5pm till 10 pm. only. But, that was another world, another time zone. Fishing today is just as much fun with a lot less scaling and cleaning.::)


CHAPPY

[dumbochickenhead]

I started fishing mainly at Bribie just about every weekend with the folks, had a holiday house there and 12 ft and ol faithful 15 Johnno. Would mainly fish Cooks Rocks & Redbeach, and always get a good feed everytime of whiting and Sandies ( good sized ones). Have been back to my X spots a few times not so long ago and nothing much around compared to what I can remember back as a kid. Now I am looking forward with anticipation of finding that better X spot everytime I bait a hook.
Cheers

[Little grey men]

Hey Dumbochickenhead....just gotta say, what an awesome username, that is brilliant.;D

[dumbochickenhead]

Thanks for that, but don't worry - It suits me and I use it just about everyday!

[tunaticer]

What I miss most about the good old days was room to move and a decent attitude between fishos that would let you have your area and try not to ingress on your radius once you catch a fish. Of course there were wogs back then that would step over the line but back then you could call them wogs too and settle it man to man. Politcal correctness has completely stuffed this society in so many ways.

Yes, the fishing was easier and better catches back then without a doubt. If it wasn't worthwhile then why would i still be addicted now?

Jack.

[chief 1]

cheers tunaticer,thats what my poppy said as well

[cqfreshie]

Yep ... better for sure. Both fresh and salt.

I've stated/whinged/cried before about how the waterways are nothing like they were .... ie the Dawson is now pure mud, which never settles. In the fifties and sixties it would often flood murky, and only dirty in a big flood. After a few months it would settle to a dark tanin colour. Plenty of of goldens, silvers and cats to be caught. You did not have to try too hard for barra and togas neither. The Fitzroy, while today is regarded as a "Bara haven?", was a much better fishery also.

The Cap Coast is no where near the fishery it was neither. Yes ... we see photographs of guys in their boats with big catches ... they are more the exception nowdays. When the pros have a hard time making a living, you know things are not what they were.

Cheers
Graham

[billie boy]

hey freedom 20 to 30 tailorto take home.
no wonder

[marcus d]

I started fishing redland bay 30 years ago, my dad and i would fish between snipe and garden islands. and it was nothing to get 80-100 whiting in 2-4 hrs snapper at the rocks near the old redybay caravan park. on a good winters night 20-30 taylor near the pub. might sound like over fishing to some people, but we had elderly neighbours who we always keep in fish. best 2 fish we ever caught in the bay, 1,
flathead 7.5 pound its head was as wide as a square nose shovel 2, bream 3.7pound 460mm long.

[Brazilian guy]

This is a question for the people who were fishing in the 70s and even earlier than that,my poppy says that you could just go down to the creek and within ten minutes you would have a feed,was it really that good back then and was it a lot better than what it is now?


I'm reading a book called "Hooked for life" (by Ross Cusack) . It's about fishing at old days West Australia. Very interesting for me, a brazilian who lives at other side of the world (Ross is very pompous to write, if weren't my translator...). Interesting because: we wasn't so differents , much situations what I'd read there were similar my childhood memory (at 70's), just the fishes (and some tackle) change . And we aren't so differents now. But do you know how are the best time to fishing? Today! Tomorrow I will try my luck again at my Itanhaem rocks spots. ;)

[Dave73]

Very good question.. I'm a newbie here and really enjoy this forum. Sorry for this response being a bit glum!

I've got my dads fishing books and annuals from the 70's. Reading through Anglers Omnibus from back then there are some great photos such as tinnies loaded up with mega jewies and kingfish. Probably ober 200kg of fish from one trip.

Remember the photos of the tailor runs at Fraser island, and cricket score catches laid infront of the 4wd's on the beach!
Same can be said for the winter whiting hauls.

Same book mentions that Grey Nurse sharks are aggresive to humans, and that the best way to handle a flathead (due to the barbs) is to impale a carving fork through the back of the fishes head to stop it from spiking you.

Not everything was good in the old days!

Cheers Dave

[chief 1]

My poppy gave some of them to me,it is a big carton full of annuals and other fishing mags,i'll put up a pic soon if you want,the earliest is from 1973

[chief 1]

Here are the mags,the right is just a few i picked out and the left are the rest

[Brazilian guy]

Here are the mags,the right is just a few i picked out and the left are the rest


Really, you have a lot for read. I had much old fishing mags, but the time was charging to eliminate them :'( . Now, I just have some books. I have the complete colletion of Barros Junior's "Caçando e pescando por todo Brasil". A really rare books, and they talk about the old times brazilian hunting and fishing. Man, I should lives that time... ;)

[Custaro]

My old man has some great stories from Keppel Bay. He and his mates used to fish Pelican Is (a few mile east of Emu Park) for plenty of red fish out of a bond wood boat. They were buzzin one day when one of them were able to afford a diving mask and fins to jump over and be amazed by big lippers and trout everywhere. Funny how by the next trip they all were able to scratch enough together to buy diving gear plus spear guns.

He also has a very amusing news paper article of he and his old man "Lost at Sea". They broke down around North Keppel and had to camp a couple of nights. Safely made there way home, without help, just a few days late.