Great action on Moreton Island trip

G’day everyone, this month will be all about a recent camping trip I did with a few of friends and family on Moreton Island.

We headed over on June 7 for 10 days of four-wheel-driving, fishing and drinking around a fire.

Once we’d gotten off the barge, we were greeted with a strong 15-20 knot westerly that made it cold and windy while trying to set up our camp site.

With about 17 of us on the job, it didn’t take too long to get all the gazebos up and groundsheets down to form our common area and food preparation stations.

And it didn’t take too long for us to get all our fishing gear rigged up and ready.

My goal for the trip was to catch a shark straight out the front of our camp.

But the first mission of catching bait proved a lot harder than I’d thought, due to the wind and weed that was being pushed against the shore.

Day two, we opted to go over to the eastern side of the beach to get away from the wind.

 

Once we made our way through Middle Rd, we entered paradise – zero wind and next to no swell, which allowed my father and myself to get into some nice tailor.

This is what I was waiting for, a perfect bait to catch me a shark.

When it hit 2pm, we headed back to camp to find the wind had dropped and I was able to put a bait out using a 3.5m tinnie one of the crew had brought along.

So out to the drop-off I go to deploy my tailor frame.

Waiting on the beach and watching your rod is one of the most thrilling things you can do, sitting there with a couple of friends and a few beverages hoping the reel takes off.

After no more than 30 minutes, I was hooked up!

I had been fighting the shark for about 10 minutes when I felt something weird – a few seconds had passed before I realised the shark had stopped moving.

I didn’t know what had happened until I had figured out the shark must have taken me around an old navigation pole in the bay or some form of structure and, after many attempts, broke the braid.

The next day, I was determined to get revenge.

 

Big schools of sea mullet were everywhere in the surf, so out I went with the cast net to try my luck.

After many casts, I was able to get four big mullet for bait.

That afternoon, I again tried for a shark.

I was finally able to land a nice sized bronze whaler, though by the end of the trip, I had hooked a shark and sometimes two almost every afternoon, yet I wasn’t able to stop them all.

So next time I’ll be back for retribution with heavier and bigger gear to try my luck on a few big sharks off the beach.

Other than shark, we got into a good array of other fish, including dart, whiting, tarwhine, bream, flathead and tailor.

The eastern side of the island had a huge range of gutters to choose from, with many of them holding large numbers of good-sized sand whiting and big tarwhine.

Beachworms are a must when you head over to the island.

The gutters that were holding the better fish were usually closer into the beach and fairly shallow, with minimal whitewash.

 

Using light gear was great fun for catching fish in the surf – I’m not sure why but they all fight so much harder off the beaches than the estuary.

Throwing large spinners for tailor was the key to catching them in the gutters.

We didn’t have much luck on bait as we weren’t able to get out the back far enough, catching about 10 tailor a session was a great achievement.

On the 4WD side of things, the tracks were almost like highways across the island.

Most the time we were sitting in two-wheel-drive, having to go into 4WD only occasionally to get through the softer sand entering and exiting the beaches, or where two roads met and the sand was turned up from previous drivers.

As for any holiday, the days go very quickly and before we knew it, it was home time.

After an incredible 10 days of fishing, driving and sitting around the fire laughing, the trip had come to an end.

I cannot wait for the trip we’ve planned for next year.

K’gari here we come!