# Australia Shark Fishing Report



## POWER FISHERMAN (Feb 3, 2009)

This is Terry Hessey's Report from Australia,

Hope you enjoy it.

Deaver

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Throughout January Ben and I had been somewhat busy through commitments which left us with a lack of bait and certainly nothing sizable. Not good considering we were still 2 baits short the night before we were scheduled to catch the barge to Moreton Island!

Thankfully there were some saviours out there! Lee Strachen came good with the rod build – a Calstar Baja Boomer with some wicked bindings, and Sean G for a couple of rays weighing in at the 8 and 6 kilo mark. While they weren’t the monsterous 14kg bait we’d found ourselves last time, they were definitely worthy of deployment for some sharks!

Unlike previous trips to Moreton, the barge for use was the newer MiCat as the older Combie Trader has recently halted operations. We left the rain filled skies of Brisbane and headed for the hour long journey to beautiful Tangalooma on Moreton Island







We were determined to try a new location on Moreton, and immediately headed straight for the location. We took it slow, enjoyed the day and rigged a couple of ray baits for deployment in the afternoon. This trip consisted of two Tiagra 80s housed on my new custom stick, and my older wilson live fibre. Both rods in the 5’6” length.

A relaxing rest and some good food was in order, so we took a seat in the ute and enjoyed a couple of peaceful hours. The ute was positioned close enough to the rods in that we could hear if a shark picked up the bait and ran, however in a slight oversight and with our attentions elsewhere we missed the weed. Oops, that’s a bit of a blunder. Ben and I quickly went to work repositioning the rods, tightening the drags and clearing weed off the lines. Wow. Talk about weed. At one stage I was seriously considering cutting the line, sliding the seemingly absurd amount of weed off the line and reattaching the two ends. This weed wasn’t a long grassy sort, rather it would clump onto the lines and finely wrap around. It had to be carefully picked off the line which took in the order of a good half an hour to complete. After we’d cleared Ben’s line and most of it off mine we repositioned the rods again closer to our original position keeping them at a location which would be fairly easy to keep the lines clean.

Mine was the first to move and it went off without a hitch. What sort of event can happen that can pose a problem to moving a couple of rods and their holders? Well I picked up Bens rod, ripped up the holders and held the rod while Ben began digging a new hole for the rod holder.

Then I heard my rod screaming.

Whilst Ben is in the middle of digging the new hole, I remember virtually shoving the rod in his face telling him to ‘HOLD THIS’ before running over to my rod. The solid run had been going for a seemingly good period of time and the hooks were set immediately. I placed the rod back in the holder, strapped myself in and began to engage this shark. Shortly after Ben came over to find me strapped in and bringing the shark in very comfortably. The shark had run down the beach and I followed it a little bit to meet the water.  I mentioned that it didn’t feel big, and we can just drag it back to the campsite. I continued bringing more line in and encountered some more weed. We both took weed off the line...

You might be able to notice some leafy weed and the clumping stuff towards the bottom of the picture.






Well in the middle of removing this weed, the slack in the line that we left to help take weed off quickly began to be pulled into the water. Ensuring no fingers or rod tips were tangled, we let the line go off into the water and I was jolted forward. What felt like a rather small shark began to steadily pull line off the reel for a good 30 seconds.






Haha. Realising we wouldn’t be simply dragging this one back through the shallows to the rest of our gear, Ben headed back up the beach to get the gear necessary for a release. What followed was a good 15 or so minutes of the shark taking line, me regaining only to lose it again before I grew tired of the situation and pushed the drag from strike all the way to full. I figured I would either start to really bring this shark in or find out its a BIG fish!






Then the showers and rain started






A few big tugs later and I started to gain line in at a steady pace. We pulled a bit more weed off the line and then got a glimpse of the shark. It was a little smaller than I had expected based on the fight, but it didn’t take much to realise why it fought so hard.

This male went 2.3m to the fork, and far out was it solid!











Also this was one of three attaching itself to this shark:






A few happy snaps were taken and this male quickly powered off back to the depths it came from. It’s nice when a release goes smoothly with absolutely no hitches. Hooks came out relatively easy (with the dehooker) and the shark powered off as soon as it hit some deeper water.

Back on the other rod another shark had picked up the smaller ray and was sneaking away! Ben quickly set about trying to dig the hooks in hard and bring the shark in. There wasn’t too much drag pulled, but there was considerable weight on the end of the line. It wasn’t until the unknown culprit was close to the drop off that I heard one thing that no one wants to hear. “I think the line broke”.  On a good note, it turns out as we pulled the line from the water that there was no breakages, however an almost empty trace, with only a tiny bit of the ray left. The ray was shredded, and there were a couple of notches and roughage 3 metres up the trace from the hooks.






All remaining pieces of ray from first two baits:






During the next day we deployed a couple of eel baits and left them to soak for the day. There were some added things to look out for on this day as we had a lot of grassy weed being pushed through, thankfully not the clumping crap we had to pick off the night before! However there were also lots of stinging blue bottles!











 It must have only been around 11am when my rod started to go off.  We got a nice 1.7 meter fork length blacktip shark.






The second line was left out and the bait got destroyed late in the day.

Second arvo/night, we deployed a couple of eel baits out. It wasn’t before long and the bait on Ben’s line had visibly been attacked. The sandbag had been busted off. The decision was made to bring the bait in for inspection, rerigging and redeployment. The bait was visibly decimated by small sharks, so a fresh bait was rigged and sent out. Again it wasn’t too long and I noticed Ben’s bait was missing its sandbag. It was left to drift in the strong current. At this stage I looked over and notice mine too had been cut, it felt like there was nothing more than bait out there so this too was left to drift down. We finished eating and went to go bring in the baits that had now no doubt washed up down the beach.

Well, Ben’s came up empty, but instead of bringing my bait back, I see this











Unfortunately, even with the drag just off freespool we never noticed this small shark was on the line and I guess it couldn’t even stay in deep enough water.

That was it for the night, with depleted bait stocks and a school of small sharks destroying baits as soon as they were dropped we called it a night.

Nevertheless, three sharks, including one good solid male bull and an enjoyable holiday to finish the uni holidays!

Sometimes it’s the mates behind the scenes that can make or break a trip. Special thanks to Lee for a great rod, Sean for some life saving baits and Angus for use of a great reel!


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## hunter 84 (Feb 3, 2009)

Nice sharks sounds like a great time i love to fish for sharks.I have caught them in the 4ft range,dont have the rigs to catch any bigger but im in the process of changing that.


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## Sunny (Feb 4, 2009)

Great report... seriously jealous of the fishing they have ... total dream to catch those puppys


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## How2fish (Feb 4, 2009)

Great report thanks for sharing !!


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## Booner Killa (Feb 4, 2009)

Great read!!! Congrats on the sharks. Love the Bull!!!


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## BornToHuntAndFish (Feb 19, 2009)

That looks like a rush.  Thx for the good post.  Always heard they have some serious shark fishing in Australia.


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