# Australia: 7 & 8 March 2009, Moreton Island



## POWER FISHERMAN (Aug 19, 2008)

Here is Terry's Report

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Firstly. Sorry I haven?t pushed this report out earlier. Shortly after I got back from the trip, due to a power surge my harddrive died. As a result of not backing anything up I had to buy a new harddrive and start from scratch. Thankfully none of these photos were lost, however there were some remarkable photos that have not yet been published which were lost. It?s not all doom and gloom however, as (quite a few big ones $$$ later) I was able to retrieve all the lost data through the use of a professional data recovery company. (Read: make sure you have external backups in the event that your harddrive suffers electrical or mechanical failure. Logic errors can be cheap to fix yourself, however should the harddrive have an electrical or mechanical failure it can be rather expensive as you most likely can?t fix it yourself ? unless you have a Clean 100 room and sufficient technology to handle harddrives correctly). After mid-May time region I will write up another gem of a report from our very own Brisbane River. What took place that night was one very memorable catch, which I honestly feel will trump 98-99% of the catches one can hope to get.

Right. Now for the report

Some may remember a special thanks going out to Seany G for a couple of rays in our last report. Well, Sean is an extremely keen angler who I was greatly impressed with regarding his shark fishing efforts. You can normally pick out the new anglers through their organisational skills, and the level of quality in things like trace preparation and some of the smaller tasks. Simply seeing a picture of his gear and early traces I knew he was interested in quality and getting the job done right. So with this in mind, Sean was invited to join us for an overnight trip to Moreton Island in early March.

The timing of our trip wasn?t quite to our normal requirements, but being as time restricted as we were, we just wanted to get out on the sand. So with this in mind, we snuck a late booking onto the MiCat and powered over from the port of Brisbane to beautiful Tangalooma.























































Heading along an inland track around Cowan township



















We immediately headed directly north to reach the strip of beach near Comboyuro campground. We proceeded to settle down, Sean made a couple of traces for himself, and I set up the important showcase.










The important flag:



















BP Dave is ready for the sharks!



















By this stage the sun came out to play and show off the beautiful clear water.



















It wasn?t really shown last report, but here?s some pictures of my new rod



















Shortly after we proceeded to tie the bimini twists, tie on the dee shackles and rig the baits. The baits for initial deployment were a 6kg stingray, two freshwater eels strapped together and lastly, a large pike eel. Tackle used was the typical 16/0 J style Mustad hook, two Tiagra 80s and a tiagra 50W LRSA running 80lbs line.

Ben (right) and I (left) decide on hook placement for this ray.










All the baits rigged, just need to ensure all zippies are tight and snip them all clean.





































I took the baits out and we all settled down beside the gas lantern for some yarns and some of the good tucker Sean brought with him. As an added bonus to the comfort the gas lantern provided, it also kept the sand flies off us (albeit because the sandflies all flew onto the top plate and melted/stuck themselves to the lantern).



















Throughout the night there were several small clicks and several small pulls on both Ben and Seans baits. They all felt OK and were subsequently left out there until they received more interest. Come 11-11:30pm we heard yet another quiet clicking from the rods. Sean and I discussed which it sounded like, and the decision was unanimously made as mine. Lines were checked for weed, to which only a small amount was noticed so we stayed by the rods for a short period watching... willing the rod to bend over. 

Well, another rod bent over at this stage and line started clicking off, albeit rather slowly. With Ben still resting in the ute, Sean and I picked up the cameras and hovered around the rod wanting it to click more.

What followed was a good 3-4 minutes of extremely small runs, coupled with a couple of runs which although looked solid, as soon as the decisions were made to set the hooks the run would stop. Was this fish on the whole time; or perhaps it was picking it up and dropping it? The drags were nothing more than a bee?s nut off freespool and required almost no effort to pull line off, yet the runs were very broken. Given the unconvincing nature of the runs we inevitably waited and let this continue for a few minutes before deciding to finally seriously engage the drag and initiate the fight.

Well, once the decision was made and the hooks set, I thought the shark was missed but I ran off and grabbed Ben?s harness anyway. By the time I came back, I noticed Ben was using a bit of strength just to stand up than would be normal.

He?s ON! I quickly strapped him in, picked up the camera and we continued rolling. 










Swimming with the current this shark managed to take some line off. The shark put up a nice feisty fight for about 5-10 minutes before subduing to the power of the Tiagra and coming in to shore. What we dragged out surprised us through its fighting strength given its size. A nice solid bull measuring a bit over 2 metres to the fork.




























After the hooks were removed, the shark was pushed off into deeper water as we stood and watched it swim off without a glitch. By the way ? spotlights make this a LOT easier . 



















We slowly rigged up another eel bait, and at 2:30 am I calmly rowed it out. Well, that was before I started hearing fish scattering everywhere while I?m out from the beach. Nothing like the ability to see nothing around you, while hearing baitfish get scared...

Shortly after deployment I got changed and began relaxing back beside the gas lantern when we hear the drag of the same real go off! Far out, must have been sitting there waiting for me to feed it!
I lock the drag up and quickly skull drag the shark in. Well, I hoped there was a shark on the end, I didn?t really feel it :|. 




























It was released and we settled down for the rest of the morning. 

Unfortunately no further touches were made to either bait, and during the day we inspected both baits to find one eel was covered in teeth marks (small) but still in good condition, just with many holes and scratches. The eel had one very small bite mark in it (just teeth holes).

No monsters to be found this trip, however given the timing and short nature of this trip that?s ok. We were just glad to be on the sand and enjoying a good trip away from the hustle n bustle of the city.



















Edit: But wait! Theres more! 
Hopefully tomorrow I'll get around to the video part. We have enough video to basically cover the whole trip.. in video format!


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## Ultralite (Oct 1, 2007)

very nice post! thanks for taking the time to put it all together and share it...quality pictures and beautiful scenery...


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## sailor (Oct 29, 2007)

That was a great report. Thanks for posting!


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## konz (Oct 1, 2007)

Awesome job guys!


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## surfstryker (Sep 28, 2007)

Thanx for the report. Nice bulls. Great pics.


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## Fishermon (Oct 19, 2007)

Great report. Water looks familiar......Thank you for sharing.


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## reelsmooth19 (Nov 27, 2007)

nice pic .good times big fish


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## -- Saints Domination -- (Jun 24, 2008)

awesome report


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## POWER FISHERMAN (Aug 19, 2008)

Here is the video of the trip....about 12 minutes long.

tp://www.tx-sharkfishing.com/uploads/terryh/7%20&%208%20March%20-%20Moreton%20Island.wmv


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