Wednesday
Wednesday was an almost exact re-run of Tuesday, – except I arrived slightly earlier in the run out tide. It was another bright, sunny day with a light northerly wind. The water is still fairly murky on the bottom of the tide.
I waded around the area to the south of the old oyster jetty and caught fish on the Powerbait Rippleshad in a black and gold sparkle colour, the GULP Jerkshad in Pink Shine, The GULP 2″ Shrimp in the Natural colour and the GULP 3″ Minnow in the Smelt colour. I fished everything on a 1/8th ounce, 1/0 jighead on 12lb fluorocarbon leader. I fished for about three hours and caught eight fish (all flathead), of which only two were over 40cm long.
At about 4.00 I waded back to the car and drove over the bridge to Bongaree to look at the creek drain in front of the Seaside Museum again. I fished along the drop off for an hour, gradually working my way to the south. I caught nothing.
Fishing in the middle of the day, northerly winds and not much bait around may all have been reasons for not finding many keepers. I released all the fish, as the family will shoot me if I put another flathead on the table.
Landangler's Blog 
How do you avoid problems with having too many fish in possession. The rules say five flatties in possession so five in the freezer means no more fish until you eat some. That’s unless your missus or son caught them. Just asking!
I only ever keep five from any one session and frequently take only three, if they are a good size. I confess that I have never really understood the ‘in possession’ rules. Its a complicated situation. How is ‘in possession’ defined?. If they are halfway down my digestive tract am I still in possession? My interpretation of the rules is that I am allowed to catch and keep 5 flathead, over 40cm and under 70 cm, in any one day. If we already have enough for a meal in the fridge, I do not generally freeze fish, I just release it. Since early March, I have kept a total of 15 fish from an approximate total of 200 caught. But is possible that, from time to time there are still fillets left in the fridge, when I bring home some freshly caught fish.
I love to eat fish and love fishing – so I try to play by the rules. As long as the research behind the rules is sound, I should be able to do both in a sustainable way.
I called the fisheries people and they indicated TOTAL possession. I guess that you could say that any person normally living in the house and capable of catching a fish is the owner of five of them. Seems easy to roll up to an angler and count their catch on the spot or even on the way home but a few days later seems problematic.
Anyway, I don’t catch two much less five.
Do you only target lizards or do you catch other species too?
I remember Dad and I spending the day just 300 from the bridge drowning baits many years ago and catching a few but the catch of the day was a large bird who grabbed a fish. Dad wrestled it to shore and then we tossed a towel over its head. Fish and hook retrieved and bird released. Great day!
Another question. Pumice stone passage was closed to commercial fishers 20 or so years ago. Being a Bribie fisher, have you ever seen a report on the actual empirical results of the closure? I know they have worked down south in NSW and Vic but did it work here.
Cheers.
Peter van Fleet
Peter – there is not much real research on the effect of stopping commercial fishing in the Passage. Looking back through my diaries, I am catching far more fish than I was 4 years ago, but I could just be getting better at fishing!