# Wello Pt, Qld 7/2/09



## wongus (Feb 12, 2006)

Got to the Wello Pt ramp and found that two other akff's were already there. Andy (Click) and (Duane? ) Yaknoob. There was a howling SE blowing and I was definitely having serious doubts about fishing in those conditions. Then another yakker turned up. Steve?? (please correct me if I am wrong with names and I'll edit post). Wow, It's been awhile since we've had 3 swings out of 4 yaks and not a Hobie in sight. Steve and I decided that maybe Tinny Creek was a better option (I have never fished it) although neither Steve nor Andy (The Click) seemed too optimistic about the the creek producing. We left the Click and Yaknoob to face the conditions and started driving to Tinny... However the sheltered bay on the other side of the point beckoned us to change our minds. We decided that fishing the flooded mangroves wouldn't be a bad fall back.

Steve and I launched and crazily enough decided to head back to the windy side of the sandbar first. The logic was that with the high tide it was possible to cut across the sandbank and if the wind was too strong we could always retreat back into the sheltered bay. As I had my new revo inshore with AWTY's recommended spoonbill already rigged up, I decided to have a troll along the channel to the red marker out from King Island before heading back in. I thought Steve was following but when I looked back, it seems that we must have misunderstood each other (Sorry mate). I made it to the marker with no hits and decided to head in towards King Island. I swapped the heavier rod to my 1-3kg Dropshot trolling an SX40. Geez these are good lures as I was immediately hooking onto a procession of squire (pinky is probably more appropriate due to the size) and pike. Then my rod when ballistic and I was onto a heavy fish. Initially I thought flathead as I was only in about 10ft of water over a mostly featureless bottom. Then my prediction changed to a foul hooked ray due to the weight on the rod and blistering runs. I was pulled around the shallows with my 8lb line and the dropshot rod bent over like a piece of spaghetti. I finally sighted the fish and got a shock to see it was a SHARK!!. What more it was foul hooked on the dorsal so I had little control over the fish. Netting it was impossible and the little rod just didn't have enough grunt to control the fish to swim it into the net. It only infuriated the fish which would tear off on another blistering run. Hmm.. I wasn't going to be happy if I lost the SX40. In desperation, on the fifth time I got it near the boat, I went for a tail shot whilst my imagination ran riot about the shark whipping around and taking my hand off. It took a while to extract the lure and by this time the shark had given up the ghost. This was my first ever shark and I didn't know much about the regulations or even the type of shark it was. However, I know the smaller sharks are meant to be pretty highly rated as flake. I cautiously slid the fish into the rear tankwell... no way was it sharing my footwell as I've heard of sharks biting people long after death.

By this time the wind was really howling and I had been blown well past King Island... It was a long tedious paddle at 2.5 km/h back towards the car against the wind. Nearly back, and I saw the Click and Yaknoob. Had a quick catchup with them. However, no sign of Steve in his blue Swing although his car was still in the lot. As much as I would have loved to fish the mangroves (poppering for bream) I didn't have anywhere to stow the shark as it was definately too big for my little esky. (We'll have to plan another trip to make up mate). Got some excitement on shore from the members of the public who wanted to know all about the yak and take pictures with the shark. I got them to take some of me 


























Can anyone confirm the type of shark.. Andy reckoned it was a bull shark


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## Schmidty (Jul 28, 2008)

Black Tip reef Shark I presume


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

Jeeze Danny you did well landing him with the tooth pick rod. :shock: .....Yep its a little Black Tip Reef Shark. Pretty common in shallow reefs around Moreton Bay. Did it get airborne? They often do aerobatics when hooked. Exposed to be good eating, but I havent tried one yet.


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## sailfin (Jul 31, 2008)

Nice pics and good read mate, congrats on the Shark, top effort on that light rod.


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## theclick (Jun 25, 2007)

My bad. Looked like a bronzie from what I saw, but its deffs looks like a black tip reefy now. REALLY good catch on such light tackle ha. I might grab some of those sx40's to chase cobia


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## grinner (May 15, 2008)

wongus i would have called that a bronzie, they do some aerials sometimes, either way show it off to all the swimmers at wello before you leave hey

congrats pete


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## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Danny a good bit of fun with the noah mate, particularly as he was only fin hooked mate...agree with others on the black tip ID as well and make good eating

When you look at the shirt being wet to chest high can see you you were punching the sloppy stuff mate :lol:


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## YakCult (Nov 4, 2008)

You did a great job on that gear, Danny!
Amazing what you can do with a SX40!!  
Good read & pics mate.....


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

grinner said:


> wongus i would have called that a bronzie, they do some aerials sometimes, either way show it off to all the swimmers at wello before you leave hey
> 
> congrats pete


Pete I think you would have to be a marine biologist specialising in sharks to positively ID that fish. It's definitely in the Whaler family(Carcharhinus), but so are Bull sharks and a dozen different other species of sharks. There are a few different types that have black tips on the fins. Oddly the QLD DPI doesnt list Bronze Whalers (Carcharhinus brachyurus) as being found in QLD waters and another site says they are only found in waters south of Coffs Harbour........so we can just call it a whaler thingy with black tips. ;-) :lol:

QLD DPI list of sharks http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/extra/pdf/fi ... DGuide.pdf

Facts about Bronzie Whalers http://www.marinethemes.com/bronzewhaler.html


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## paffoh (Aug 24, 2006)

Nice fish mate, bloody SX 40's are the gun lure hey...

Could be a good place to discuss regulations on keeping sharks, whats the go in QLD or NSW?


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

paffoh said:


> Could be a good place to discuss regulations on keeping sharks, whats the go in QLD or NSW?


In QLD, White Pointers and Grey Nurses are protected species, but I cant find any bag/size limits on any other species.


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## slider65 (Feb 9, 2007)

There is nothing at the moment except the protected species but they are talking about bringing in a bag limit of 1 shark per angler in QLD later this year. And little black tips, bronze whalers and bull sharks are great eating if filleted and skinned as soon as possible.


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## sunshiner (Feb 22, 2006)

slider65 said:


> There is nothing at the moment except the protected species but they are talking about bringing in a bag limit of 1 shark per angler in QLD later this year. And little black tips, bronze whalers and bull sharks are great eating if filleted and skinned as soon as possible.


G'day slider et al

http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/cps/rde/dpi/hs.xsl/28_12570_ENA_HTML.htm

indicates new limits in Qld to many species (notably, snapper aren't listed) effective 01Mar09. New limits for sharks and rays (effective 01Jul09) are, in brief, bag limit one, max size 1.5m. All seem fair enough to me.


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## rob316 (Oct 2, 2007)

minimum shark size in qld is 50cm....with no max until march 1....anything over 1.5mtrs has a damn good chance of holding to much ...whatever it is called [ mental blank ] :twisted: and that stuff is nasty if you have some already in your system , from eating other fish , or maybe even allergic to it - still can't think of it - but you know what i mean . ;-)


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## theclick (Jun 25, 2007)

are you refering to ciguatera poisioning?


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## grinner (May 15, 2008)

no i think the spanish macs are the main cigetura candidate.

bag limit of 1 hey, the local fisho down the road goes out every second day to get his supply of flake out of the logan river and i often see a dozen on his driveway, so expect the cost of fish and chips to rise (or eat more bassa)


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## AJD (Jul 10, 2007)

Great little reef shark there Danny and well done on the light rod mate. A top catch on a day when the wind was up. They are great eating at that size - just make sure you remove any coloured meat and skin otherwise your house is likely to smell a little like iodine.


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## YakN00b (Jun 9, 2008)

That's very good going on that small rod. Mebbe I will have to give my SX40 a try again


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## rob316 (Oct 2, 2007)

mercury , thats it - mercury..  .most of the sharks have it , and as they mature it really accelerates throughout the shark....it builds in the system - especially if you have eaten any "fish" from the local shops....sometimes you can be eating high levels of mercury as well , and then if you get a good dose from a larger shark that you have caught yourself....you will be ill almost immediately....just some trivia for you ;-)


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## Biggera Yakker (Jan 25, 2007)

Looks like you had a good weekend on the brine!!!


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## melbourneandy (Apr 21, 2008)

rob316 said:


> minimum shark size in qld is 50cm....with no max until march 1....anything over 1.5mtrs has a damn good chance of holding to much ...whatever it is called [ mental blank ] :twisted: and that stuff is nasty if you have some already in your system , from eating other fish , or maybe even allergic to it - still can't think of it - but you know what i mean . ;-)


Mercury?? :?


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## Maca (Aug 29, 2008)

Hay Danny,

I gave up long before you and headed back around into the sheltered bay on the other side. I looked up and you were a dot on the horizon.

That is a nice shark. Any bigger and I reckon you would have had to say good bye to the SX40.

I had some success with the bream in the mangroves. I got one 26cm bream on a hb lure (2-3 more misses), but nothing on the poppers. I'm now keen as to try the same technique in other areas, and on the look out for some bream lures (hb's and poppers). Anyone got any recommendations?

That fish was some firsts for me:
- first legal fish on the yak (about time)
- first bream on a lure

You'll have to show me how to catch those snapper at Scarby.

Steve


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## wongus (Feb 12, 2006)

Maca,

Wello Pt is a fantastic place to fish for bream with poppers... the stretch between King Island and the boat ramp where we initially met is great for drifting and poppering.. Only trouble is that you need fine weather and then it's so tempting to go chase something bigger. Some good surface lures for bream that I've had success with include
1) River to Sea Bubble Pop
2) Ecogear PX45
3) Smith Towadi

You'll need light line (6lb or less) and only a short trace (max 1m). Apparently fluorocarbon leaders are not great for poppering because they sink but I wouldn't bother unless you're specifically targetting bream with poppers.

Here's a link to 2 of my trips to that area. The bream are not huge but fun with the visual fishing and provides a feed.
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16897&hilit=+wello
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16732&hilit=+wello

I'm always keen for a fish so let me know and I'll see if I can make it.


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## skorgard (Oct 6, 2007)

You are quite safe to grab a shark by its tail - with the exception of wobbegongs - and of course the grip is good.


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## andybear (Jan 15, 2006)

Perhaps Mercury?

Cheers Andybear  

Doh my Bad....thought I had reached the end of the replies. Gotta open my eyes


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