Mooloolaba Breaming

Author: dunebuggy

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Tuesday, 03 May 2011 19:49

Written by Stuart Whitehouse

An early morning assault on the southern canals of the Mooloolah River with Yakass member Doug (wombatx8) on a stunningly beautiful day was just what we needed to clear the brain of proverbial cobwebs. Monday, May 2nd, was unfortunately a public holiday so the morons per square metre of water ratio was through the roof but luckily, most of them were headed offshore in their stink boats and left the canals to us. Nothing seemed interested in hardbody lures this morning, all enquires were on soft plastics and captures on my old reliable (and favourite) 2" gulp shrimp in the peppered prawn variety on a 50th oz jig head. Due to a combination of recent rains and dredging the river and canals were pretty filthy and the main river had quite a bit of floating debris.

It was in the main river while working my way to the canals that I got my best hit of the morning. It was a solid fish and easily a kilo or more but. my 2 rod lengths of leader material quickly became one when it met a submerged mystery object. Bugger! In the canals I cast at an empty pontoon with my plastic hitting the desired spot bang on target, right where the face of the pontoon meets the water.

Nothing darted out from underneath and smashed the plastic so I just let it sink into the murky depths and waited. I decided there was no interest so I lifted the rod and began to retrieve the slack line only to find it suddenly shooting off to the right and wham, I was on. This fish went 25 cms to the fork. I worked my way around to the opposite site of the dead end canal with a few enquires and a couple of dropped fish where Doug and I decided that even at this time of morning (now approaching 9am) the sun had a nasty bite to it so we would work our way back to the ramp.

On the way out and travelling along the right hand side I put a quick cast into the end of a pontoon, hoping to retrieve it before getting caught up on the stern of the boat tied up there, another solid hit and I was on again but had to plunge the rod into the water to try and keep the fish and leader away from propellers and such. I successfully lead the fish to open water and had it safely in the net for Doug to photograph. This one went a cm longer at 26cms to the fork.

On the way back to the ramp I dropped a couple more fish which probably just had hold of the plastic and not the hook. Back at the boat ramp the already full car park was now overflowing with more boats arriving to launch and not many leaving. It was mayhem. I've decided it's official.... I hate public holidays and weekends. haha.