Reply With QuoteG'day mate,Originally Posted by Just_chips
That's good to hear, they are not around where I've been. Good luck with it.
Bondy
Arrived today, house is amazing, had a quick session with the young bloke (11yo Ethan) this arvo where he caught a fish a cast for two hours on pillies just past the peg at waddy (north, obviously........) No size with the biggest going 47cm, kept two and ate them fresh.
So the tailor are definately here, just need the size to increase now.
Kev
G'day mate,
That's good to hear, they are not around where I've been. Good luck with it.
Bondy
Just Got back from a week at waddy, on the way up (15th) the sand at inskip was rediculous! and so was indian head. if your towing giver her plenty of soot. some nice gutter all the way up the beach with plenty of nice dart taking pippies, plenty along the beach south of indian head. worms were plenty but lots of small stuff. again south of indian head. the hot spot for the tailor was Ocean lake with the shoulder to shoulder action that is iconic of fraser. there were plenty cought with the size dropping with the arrival of the sun in the morning. most people doing the right thing but i did see a few filleted and released that were way off size. the word was fisheries were fining $150/fish for undersized. the shoulder to shoulder action is not for me im afraid. but i did sit and watch for a bit before heading over nagala rocks for a fish in peace. the sand was like powder but got across ok. managed to get a couple of fish past the rocks of around the40cm mark plus a few 33-36 that swam to fight another day. wathumba creek was pretty quiet but a group of spear fisho's got 3 kingies just near the mouth. right place at the right time i guess.
the sand heading home was a far cry better with a clear run all the way to the barge and into rainbow. the traffic however was insane with all the holiday makers making the trek. if your heading up soon good luck and i hope you find a nice quiet spot to wet a line.
Hi BMack,
Nice effort on the trip mate.
I heard that the jew are so sensitive they can smell the whiskey on your breathe from the irish coffee in your flask. Whats your secret?, do you use breath freshener? from a spray bottle? or just mints? chews or hard mints? spearmint or peppermint? toothpaste? colgate or mackleins? do you floss?
JSY, I had a hard time of it to say the least. But you know yourself how hard it is to hook dart on your heavy surf tackle, the skill and the prowess involved, and they pull harder pound for pound. The way I look at it BMack had a hard time of it (the glass was actually half full), standing practically on top of me and couldn't even feel the dart biting!!
Anyway, I'll let you get away with that comment this time, lucky for you there weren't any decent size greenbacks around, or else I'd really be rubbing your nose in it!
Regards,
Jerker
Size is gradually increasing depending on where you fish. Average fish at Waddy have been 45 with some bigger. I finally upgraded last night to get one at 60cm.
Ocean lake is still drawing crowds but the fish are ridiculously small with many not looking to be legal but this didn't seem to deter some of the fisher folk. Local grapevine says fisheries are on the island but I haven't seen them yet.
Haven't heard too many reports from the main beach but the predicted soueasters next week will make fishing tough along there.
Made the call to the fish watch hotline the other morning to report a group at Ngkala with numerous tailor that were about 25ish, 5 or 6 Jew around 40-45 and lots of little dart.....I hope they got the grubs as I gave them detailed info including rego numbers etc.
Opening day tomorrow, making sure the beers are cold and getting ready to sit back and watch the entertainment.
Good to see someone with the balls to make the call. OH and you will be entertained.
The opening was uneventful at Waddy, plenty of things to see even though I didn't see a fish landed and only got one late that arvo on dusk. The fish seemed to have gone quiet everywhere over the last day or two. Hopefully their spending some time rooting and will return with an appetite, big sou'easterpredicted with bigger swells so this should stir things up a bit.
Kev
Hey Kev. Just got home from Fraser from a long weekend trip. Not many fish as you said but we did ok. Opening at Waddy was a non event. We went to to beach just south of Champaign pools and did ok and amongst the Taylor got smashed a couple of times. Don't know if they were big Macks or Sharks but could not hold them on 15lb mono. Took us 4 hours to battle the incoming tide and the shitty bypass track to the barge coming home but the Pajero did it with ease, Peter.
"We gave Howard the Arse now we have to fix Rudd"
"Now we have to sort Gillard" F@?k me RUDD again
Abbott and Newman what a great next few years "NOT"
Heading over Saturday for a week, will be camping around Ocean Lake area.
Driving a lifted white Prado with roof racks and roof mounted spottys.
If anyone is going at this time and is up for a fish/beers send me a message.
Will be with the wife and 4yo. Hopefully will have a decent fishing report to compile for you all.
Thanks to all for the contributions so far the info is valuable. Keep this thread going!
Did anyone see the 4by the fisheries get around in? A 2012 gxl LC200. I though we were short on money.
Tailors were MIA but saw a few large trev caught up the cape and a cobia around 15kgs hauled from the water, apart from those mini highlights, more whitings, good tucker those.
Also saw a 4by with ausfish sticker on the side of it. So who was that?
Humility is not a weather condition.
Heading up tomorrow. Getting fidgety. Can smell the salt already.
4 day trip. Will put up a report on my return.
Home at last after a two week stay. Fishing over the last week or so has been very hit and miss with the size of the fish generally increasing but the numbers tough to find. Typically the night before we are due to go home the tailor went berserk in the boat launching gutter, I suspect they will continue to improve here with the approaching moon phase, so those heading up to the top end in the next few days could be in for some better fishing. The rocks at waddy havent really produced many fish as yet either.
My best fish this year went 62cm and I didn't hear of anyone catching anything much bigger than this in our area (Orchid/Waddy). It was taken in an afternoon dusk session at the boat gutter spinning lures out beyond the range of the wader clad pillie chuckers, this fish was a one and only for this session where I saw only three fish landed in a gutter of a hundred or more anglers in an hour and a half.
Last years boat launching gutter in front of the dunes resembles a public swimming pool but shouldn't be overlooked for those wanting to have a little bit of light gear fun. We sat here yesterday afternoon with a few cold ales and my kids pulled two species of trevally (albeit small >30cm), a dozen whiting to 30cm with numerous throwbacks, 30cm tailor, bream and flatties all on beach worms with hardly a cast not getting a fish, we also watched schools of 40cm+ mullet cruise around the shallows. It could be very worthwhile to play with some small poppers on some ultralight bream gear in this gutter for some entertaining action as the whole gutter barely gets deeper than 6 foot and is fed by a small trickle at each end.
As a side note, I still struggle to understand why grown men wear waders in 25-30 degree temps with warm water, to make it even more puzzling most of the time these guys hardly even get their feet wet, particularly in the Waddy Point boat gutter, one of lifes great mysteries me thinks.....
The daily raping of the pippie population was sickening to say the least. Hundreds of people would start marching along the beach with buckets digging them up the second the tide dropped. All they are really good for is dart and most people still treat dart as a rubbish fish so I don't understand the attraction personally.
Also driver etiquette on the island this year seemed to be at an all time low. Please remember if you like to travel the tracks or beach at snails pace and take in the sights feeling every bump along the way then pull over the get the f#ck out of the way for those whose vehicles sit more comfortably sailing over the lumpy bits or require a bit more momentum to keep them going, if somebody catches up to you for any reason let them through..... Also it is much easier to reverse down a slope on a one may track than it is for the poor bugger who gets caught half way down a soft lumpy track with some clown continuing to advance uphill toward them. I was involved and saw a number of mexican standoffs this year with people on the Orchid beach approaches who refused to give way to the driver already on the track and heading downhill.
Finally, beach conditions seemed to have improved after the bit of a SE blow we had last week with what was a fairly featurless eastern beach developing some very tempting looking gutters. There are lots of small creeks dribbling from the dunes between happy valley and indian head cutting some good drop offs in places so higher tide travellers should excercise some caution, though when crossed low at the water line they are generally easily traversed. There is good hard sand close to the dunes for high tide travel up to indian head if needed. The bypass track at indian was easily navigable though plenty of people made it look tough with some entertainment usually not far away for those willing to sit and wait for the numpties to arrive. Ngkala was also not too bad but it doesn't take long for the muppets to carve it up and make it tough going. I was travelling through here almost daily in the mornings searching for fish without a problem in my 2012 Nissan Pathfinder with tyres at 18psi, my only vehicle mod is OME suspension, so really anybody should be able to get through with a bit of right boot, unfortunately the lack of right foot seemed to be the major contributing factor to those getting stuck, so don't be afraid to rev your cars a little bit folks, surprisingly they are made for it.....
Good luck to those heading up, I have a feeling that October is really going to fire this year and we could still be seeing quality catches well into November.
Kev
Just got back from a 4 day trip.
Fish are still hard to get. Got a couple each session but it was hard going. Fished the rocks at indian and waddy as well as the beach north of waddy. Best fish was a 65cm one.... we got 2 in this range, not much else to write home about. Size in general was up on a few weeks ago though. Plenty of sharks about and some coming in very close so dont go in too deep.
Saw a few spanish mack's cruising around off indian but couldnt tempt them with pillies or slugs.
The gutter jsut chips is talking about was chockers with fisherman every arvo but every time we pulled up to have a look we saw maybe one fish get caught. In saying that some blokes out in the 2nd set of waves in a tinny were aboslutely killing it.
Stopped on the way home for a flick at indian and found the msot numbers we did the whole trip, but again no size to them with a lot of throwbacks. Its been a weird season from what I've seen and heard.
Hi fellas just wondering if any of you fishos have seen any netters on the island, and if so where?
Sure did - up at the Cape. They were camping right next to us and were getting loads of whiting and tailor. Needless to say the fishing up there was pretty bad!
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