Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Queensland Fishing Reports
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TrevKing
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Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by TrevKing » Sat Jul 11, 2015 6:22 pm

Hi Guys, just got back from my annual 10 night trip to Noosa in Queensland so heres the report, enjoy.

So, after a painfully boring 2.5 day car trip over the first few days of the holidays my family and I finally arrived at my favourite place in the world, Noosa Heads. I was a bit worried about the weather on the way up because it had been pretty rainy there for the past few weeks, but miraculously the weather was near perfect during the time we spent up there with warm temperatures, light winds most days and only a bit of rain.

Basically in Noosa theres only 5 things I do - Fish, Pool, Beach, Eat, Sleep. Upon arriving in the mid-afternoon I was faced with the decision on which one to do first, and of course, fishing won. So I walked down to 'Sheraton Bridge', one of my favourite spots to fish on the river because its nice and close to where we stay and theres plenty of structure to target.
After 10-15 minutes of flicking a Keitech 3" Easy Shiner in 'electric shad', the plastic was smashed on the pause and after a good fight on the Itchy Twitchy and 6lb braid I landed this, my first ever golden trevally.
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After a quick release, I realized how hungry I was and headed back home for the night.

I was up early the next morning was greeted with this:
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The Sheraton Bridge Area didn't look too bad either:
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But as soon as I started flicking plastics, I was faced with a problem...
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...and soon enough, I found the culprit. Bloody toadies...
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Ended up being a pretty quiet morning fishing-wise, hooked 2 decent fish flicking 2" easy shiners around the bridge pylons which felt like big bream, but both spat the hooks relatively quickly.

After breakfast I headed out to the main beach. Last year I had great success wading out off the beach using unweighted bread, catching bream, dart, whiting and gars. Unfortunately the waves were a lot bigger this year which made it near impossible to keep the bread on the hook and in the strike zone.
So I walked up to the small rock groyne that sticks out off the main beach and fished unweighted bread around the rocks instead. Small pickers were instantly stripping the bread off the hook pretty quickly, but eventually I hooked up to something a bit more substantial:
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A silver drummer, another first for me. It put up a great fight around the rocks on 1-3kg gear and spiked me pretty bad on the hand before being returned to the water.

After landing this thing:
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and some small, non-photoworthy bream I ran out of bread and headed back for lunch.

In the afternoon, my 11 year old sister wanted to catch a fish so I took her and my dad down to the Sheraton Bridge to float some unweighted bread around the pylons. We all landed plenty of bream during this session - nothing huge, but fun nonetheless.
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Wednesday morning I decided to venture out towards the main part of the river in hope of finding some bigger fish.
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Last edited by TrevKing on Sat Jul 11, 2015 6:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
2015 Goals -
-First Squid
-Trout on SP
-First Murray Cod
-Rainbow over 40cm
-Redfin over 40cm

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TrevKing
Rank: Gummy Shark
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Joined: Sat May 07, 2011 10:55 am
Location: Ballarat

Re: Noosa 2015

Post by TrevKing » Sat Jul 11, 2015 6:26 pm

I spent the first few hours of the morning flicking lures and plastics along a sandy stretch of the river known as the 'Dog Beach', but only ended up hooking (and losing) one fish on a 3" easy shiner, despite the fact that there were heaps of these in the water:
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So after giving up on the dog beach I made my way to the 'Sandbags'.
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This is a great spot because the deep current runs very close to the shore. I instantly started getting hits on my 3" easy shiner, but couldn't manage to hook up to anything. But after downsizing to a 2" easy shiner, I hooked up first cast:
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A moses perch, pretty cool looking fish. And next cast, I was on again:
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Both fish were quickly released.
Unfortunately things went a bit quiet after that, and I discovered that the spot is actually a lure graveyard – losing about 5 jigheads and plastics in quick succession. Headed back for lunch.

Returned to Sheraton Bridge in the evening and as soon as I was about to cast, baitfish started going nuts right at my feet and I saw 3 or 4 bigger fish harassing them – cale cale trevally! Cale cales were one of the fish I really wanted to catch on this trip because they’re caught fairly often in the Noosa River and they’re supposedly really fun to catch on light gear. I’ve heard them referred to as the ‘tuna of the estuary’. These weren’t overly big cale cales, probably around 50cm each, but I was still exited to see them and began flicking plastics out towards them.
To my despair, they showed no interest whatsoever in lures, even after I downsized to 2” and even 1” plastics. The bait they were feeding on were extremely small, and I simply couldn’t match the hatch well enough. It soon got dark and I ended up getting one little estuary cod on a 2” easy shiner. My phone was flat so no pics.
I also got some footage of the cale cales harassing baitfish, which I might upload later.

On Thursday I had a bit of a sleep in and went out to the main beach rock groyne in the late morning. Ended up landing a heap of bream (nothing huge) on unweighted bread before coming back for lunch.
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In the evening, I fished Sheraton Bridge again. No cale cales to be seen, but there were plenty of aggressive fish taking plastics cast parallel to the rocky bank, including little moses perch:
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and a few estuary cod.
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I stayed for a little longer after dark, and quickly hooked up to something that felt a bit bigger than the other small stuff. It snagged me up pretty quickly but I managed to get it out of the rocks – a bigger estuary cod, caught on a 3” easy shiner.
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2015 Goals -
-First Squid
-Trout on SP
-First Murray Cod
-Rainbow over 40cm
-Redfin over 40cm

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TrevKing
Rank: Gummy Shark
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Joined: Sat May 07, 2011 10:55 am
Location: Ballarat

Re: Noosa 2015

Post by TrevKing » Sat Jul 11, 2015 6:32 pm

Early Friday morning I went back to the Sand Bags area, using bigger lures in hope of catching something big. The wind was pretty strong and blowing right in my face which made fishing difficult, so I didn’t end up getting anything. On the way back, however, I found a more sheltered spot:
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…and it wasn’t long before my slow-rolled 3” easy shiner was grabbed by something. The fish had me confused for the entire fight – the initial take was quite powerful, then it was just a dead weight with occasional kicks/headshakes, then it pulled with a weird vibrating feel. Turned out to be something completely new to me, a ‘flutemouth’. Was a really cool fish to look at and swam off happily after a few pics.
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Stopped by at Sheraton Bridge for a quick flick on the way back and ended up with my first flatty for the trip, on a 2” easy shiner. Released
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That afternoon, I went back out to the main beach rock groyne for a few hours. Again I caught plenty of bream, tarwhine, and also another drummer and some dart. Most of the fish were reasonably small, but at one point I hooked something that put up a fantastic fight around the rocks. Turned out to be a PB bream – photos don’t do it justice, but it was a solid fish.
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Saturday was another sleep in and late morning rock groyne session. Won’t post pics because the rock groyne stuff is probably getting a bit repetitive by now.

In the evening, I encountered the cale cales again! And, of course, they weren’t taking lures. 

On Sunday and Monday I had a break from fishing, and spent most of my time enjoying the weather, beach and pools.

Early Tuesday morning I decided to try something a bit different – plastics off the main beach rock groyne. Put on a Tsuribaka C-tail worm and first cast, I hooked up! Unfortunately the fish spat the hooks but it gave me a confidence boost for the rest of the morning. I continued to use the c-tail worm, and got quite a few more hits, but couldn’t hook up to anything else. Ended up snagging the c-tail worm (my last one ) and the fish didn’t seem interested in any other lures. But, I saved the donut with this little bream on an atomic prong.
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Wednesday was our last day before returning to Victoria so we decided to hire a boat in the river to try some new spots. But, it ended up being the windiest day of the trip and the main parts of the river were extremely difficult to fish. We made the decision to troll hardbodies in the canals for flatties. I tied on a rapala cd7 (I don’t have many deep diving/sinking lures because the majority of my fishing with hardbodies is done in shallow water) and ended up getting 3 30-40cm flatties in 2 hours of fishing.
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That evening I decided to return to Sheraton Bridge for one last session before I had to pack and return home. I couldn’t tempt anything with plastics and hardbodies so I ended up tying on an Orange TT Blade, and first cast it got absolutely smashed! The fish peeled drag for about 5 seconds before busting me off on the rocks . The fishing went quiet again for a bit after that and it soon got dark. Just as I was about to leave I noticed a series of splashes out in the middle of the river, so I went on to the bridge and looked down into the water to see what was going on. From what I saw, there were lots of prawns floating down the river close to the surface and they were being harassed by fish underneath. I quickly tied on a ‘gladiator prawn’ soft plastic, but the fish completely ignored it. Even smaller imitations like atomic prongs got no interest. But, after tying on a 3” easy shiner I immediately began getting hits. The fish were attacking the plastic pretty aggressively but seemed to be only biting the tail. I tried letting the plastic sink all the way to the bottom before retrieving, and when I wound up the slack, there was something heavy on the end. Whatever I hooked up to didn’t fight very well, with just an occasional powerful kick. But just as I was about to see what it was, it spat the hooks 

Next cast, I let my plastic sink all the way to the bottom again, and immediately hooked up again. However, this fish was a lot smaller:
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(Apologies for **** picture, was very dark and my hands were wet)


A little flatty. I think the previous fish may have been a big flatty, wish I could have seen it though.

After catching the flatty, it started raining. Then, a few casts later, I finally hooked up to one of the fish that was harassing the prawns on the surface:
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A little bigeye trevally. I suspect that there were some much bigger fish there due to the size of some of the splashes I was seeing, but by this time it was pouring rain, my phone was nearly flat and I had to go back and pack for the drive home. 
All in all, it was a great trip and I was yet again reminded why I love Noosa so much. Can’t wait to go back next year.
2015 Goals -
-First Squid
-Trout on SP
-First Murray Cod
-Rainbow over 40cm
-Redfin over 40cm

Snapper Snatcher
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Re: Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by Snapper Snatcher » Sat Jul 11, 2015 6:41 pm

That flutemouth is something else! Great read and fish and thanks for sharing.
Fishing Victoria Species Comp:

CarlG
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Re: Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by CarlG » Sat Jul 11, 2015 6:50 pm

What a cool report...nice one man...

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Re: Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by JoshW » Sat Jul 11, 2015 7:17 pm

Good stuff mate, always nice to catch fish on holiday! Breaks up the family stuff if nothing else haha.

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Re: Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by mazman » Sat Jul 11, 2015 7:30 pm

awesome write up, might have to call on your knowledge of the area later this year when i head up to noosa. just got to convince the powers that be to let me bring some fishing gear.
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Re: Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by Rob1 » Sat Jul 11, 2015 7:42 pm

Looks like you had a great holiday. We just got back from the Gold Coast where we could fish from our back yard. While you use bread, thought I would try cheese and we smashed the bream with it. Give it a go next time your up there. You'll find cheese will stay on the hook a bit longer. Nice report. Got to love Queensland.

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Re: Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by GTSHoon » Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:21 pm

Great report mate! Looks like you had a great trip!
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Re: Noosa 2015 (Long report, lots of pics)

Post by DougieK » Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:30 pm

Fantastic report. What an astonishing fish that flutemouth is. Great variety up there, sounds like an awesome trip!
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