PBA Rainbow Beach Fishing Competition

Round 2 of the fishing competition between the Power Boat Anglers Club and the Bribie and Rainbow Beach fishing clubs was held in late August.

Initially there were to be two boats from the PBA taking part but with a forecast that was very hard to lock down it was decided to take just one, settling on Willpower, a 1992 268 Powercat capable of fishing four people.

The weekend started with a briefing at the Deck on Friday afternoon and, as the weather was still a bit all over the place, the PBA team decided to opt for beach fishing Saturday and leave the offshore fun for Sunday.

As it turned out, this was the wrong call with only a few whiting and the odd dart caught while watching a glass out in front of them as they fished Teewah Beach.

On Sunday morning the crew of Willpower met John and his Noosa Cat at the ramp and split up three to a boat.

The bar was flat as a tack with great conditions outside, however they spent most of the time fishing about 5 nautical miles out before heading back for the 1pm weigh-in.

 

All except for John, who’d headed in early after experiencing battery troubles.

The fishing turned out to be good with Rod and Anthony landing two snapper over 70cm, a large mack tuna, rosie jobfish, plenty of grinners and various other odd bods you get on the reef.

Warwick reported they also had six nice snapper on their boat.

The ground fished that morning was small, isolated pieces of bottom not covered by sand, which you don’t usually find all year round.

The tactic that seemed to catch most fish was float lining a pilchard, gar or yakka with a coating of nuclear green dye.

Anglers from the other clubs fished a few miles further out and, besides snapper, reported taking some good sized pearlies.

 

Pretty good fishing for close in grounds.

In the end, our guys were destined to come last in the comp due to the small number of competitors from the club.

That said, it was still a great weekend and Warwick was happy just the same as his wife Rob who won the raffle for a Wilson steel rod and other gear to the value of $350.

Next year we plan to field bigger teams in both the Bribie and Rainbow comps.

A big thanks again to the members of Rainbow Beach Fishing Club for their hospitality and for running such a great competition.

 

Gladstone – Rundle Island

It has been two years since I left working and fishing in Gladstone and I’ve been promising my mate Darrin that I’d be up with the new boat for a fish ‘soon’ for that same length of time.

The opportunity finally arose when I received an invite to a mate’s 60th.

Not knowing what the weather would be doing such a long way out, we decided that I’d bring the boat up and head outside if the weather was good or borrow a mate’s boat and go crabbing if the weather was bad.

Thankfully the forecast was good so plan A got a run.

I left Brisbane in the early evening and overnighted in Childers before hitting the road again at 4.20am Friday.

 

The trip was non eventful, but it was easy to see how the fog has since caused so many traffic incidents.

After arriving in Gladstone, we were on the water by about 8.30am, with lines down about an hour later.

The conditions were excellent, but the fishing was slow, except for those damn small wire netting or honeycomb cod that seem to be prolific out that way.

Darrin drowned a bait while I bounced plastics to catch a few legal hussar and some 42cm stripey snapper.

We were snipped off occasionally by small school mackerel but did catch a couple that were released.

 

After the bite went quiet, we headed to the north side of the island.

Again, we got snipped off but these fish seemed bigger.

I changed over to a different rig using a 42g red and white Lazer Slug with about two inches of single strand wire as a trace.

This did the trick, as on my second cast I was hooked on to a good spanish mackerel that took way more than its two regulation runs before it was gaffed and in the boat.

It weighed in just over 7kg and measured a little over a metre.

 

I hooked a few more of these and was bitten off before landing another around 80cm.

Things died off after that, so we decided to call it quits and head home.

It wasn’t the most fish we’ve caught out there but a good feed just the same.

I can’t wait to get back again, but it better not take another two years this time.

Any interested parties are invited to come along to our monthly meetings on the first Wednesday of every month at the Club Manly bowls club located at 26 Faine St, Manly from 6.30pm for a 7.00pm start.

The next meetings will be Wednesday, October 2 and Wednesday, November 6.

Until next month, safe boating.