Author: Top Catch

Hi all! Hope you had a fantastic weekend, especially all the dads out there who were celebrating Father’s Day on Sunday.

Not surprisingly, our weekend was spent fishing. On Saturday we did a half-day fishing charter and on Sunday we had a three quarter day charter. Weather was good on both days and we were on our way home when the wind came through in the arvies .The north-westerly wind on Saturday made for an awesome sunrise.

We had a strong current setting to the south on the weekend, which didn’t help things but we had a few little tricks up our sleeve that made it fishable.

On Saturday we fished Murphy’s Reef catching squire, pearl perch, moses perch and hussar. The most common fish caught that day were the moses perch. These fish don’t grow all that big but are great to eat.

The biggest fish on Saturday was a 2kg snapper. On Sunday we headed to the Caloundra 12 Mile and caught some squire, moses perch and tusk fish. We also caught a lot of undersize pearl perch and squire.

After a few hours we headed north to the Caloundra 9 Mile, which fished better. We caught snapper and tusk fish with the biggest snapper weighing in at 4kg.

The next few days don’t look good for offshore fishing, with strong south-easterly winds and a large swell. But by Thursday arvo things should settle and the weekend looks good. The new moon is on Thursday so fishing on the Sunshine Coast should be great for the weekend.

Don’t forget to give us a call if you want to come out on a fishing charter and head to our Facebook page to share your fishing stories: https://www.facebook.com/pages/TOP-Catch-Charters/340047046026078.

Happy hunting!

Happy father’s Day to all the dads out there from everyone here at Top Catch Charters.  We hope you all have a great day and congratulations to Royce Beale, the winner of our fathers day-dad’s best catch competition, we will see you Today.

To help spoil your dad this Father’s Day, if you haven’t already purchased him a top catch gift voucher, we thought we would share a recipe that my dad loves, a cooked meal that is a little bit special to help put a big smile on his face. This meal is incredibly quick, easy to do and the results are amazing.  We found pearl perch to be the perfect fish to use but any firm white fish fillet will do the trick

Glazed grilled fish fillets

You will need-

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons fruit chutney
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 4 firm-fleshed white fish fillets (eg. Pearl perch, snapper, tusk fish or even bream)

1.  Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, fruit chutney, honey, coriander and garlic in a small bowl.

2.  Place the fish fillets in a flat non-metallic dish and pour the oil mixture over the fish. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour

3.  Preheat the grill/bbq to high and place the fish fillet on the lightly oiled grill/bbq plate. Cook the fish fillets, brushing with the remaining marinade occasionally, for 4-6 minutes each side(depending on the thickness of the fillets).

Served with a simple green salad it is a healthy and delicious lunch or maybe add a couple of garlic prawn skewers to the plate and serve it for dinner.

Note; a while ago we had a customer aboard and he was the owner of Maleny cuisine (they make chutney’s and salad dressings). He had left me some to try and they are delightful, we are hooked-pardon the pun, his apple, fig and ginger chutney works amazingly well with this dish.

So hopefully this helps you give your dad the day he deserves and you get some enjoyment out of it as well.  We are sure he will love it.

Barwon banks-  Snapper, gold spot wrasse, pearl & moses perch, trag jew, tuskfish and fusilier

Murphy’s and the gneerings- Snapper and sweetlip

Caloundra 9nm- Pearl perch, tuskfish and sweetlip

Caloundra 12nm- Hussar, moses perch, squire and tuskfish

Caloundra wide- Snapper, tuskfish, gold spot wrasse

Noosa north reef – Snapper, pearlies, moses perch, trag jew and tuskfish

The weather forecast looks good until Sunday afternoon when a strong  southeast change arrives.

Tides for Thursday; high tide is at 3:05pm @1.39m

Congratulations to Royce Beale who was the lucky winner of our fathers day competition.  We will see you Sunday for your 3/4 day fishing trip.  To see Royce’s winning fish head over to our facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/TOP-Catch-Charters/340047046026078?ref=hl.

We’ve had an action-packed week here on the Sunshine Coast – and not just on the fishing front. The whales are starting to make their way back down the coast and we’ve been treated to a few sightings of these magnificent creatures.

We’ve also had a lot of curious dolphins hanging around the boat for a “free” meal. We’ve been privileged to see a lot of newborn dolphins cruising with their mums but they have been very camera shy. The ones swimming solo seem to be more photogenic. This pic was taken last Wednesday.

Full day fishing charters have been popular recently and the weekend saw us fishing out wide on the Barwon Banks. We caught snapper, pearl perch, tusk fish, kingfish, amberjack, mulloway, and trag jew. The current was very light and we were able to fish some deep water, which yielded great results. We got some good-sized fish in 75-90 metres and it certainly stretched the arms of some customers.

The best results for the weekend came on Saturday when Tom and the boys celebrated his 30^th. Happy Birthday mate. Tom added to his celebration when he reeled in the biggest pearly, weighing 3kg. But the biggest fish landed on the weekend went to Chris with his amberjack weighing 7.5kg. Everyone caught fish and enjoyed the day.

This is a great time of year on the Sunshine Coast and the fishing is great. Our recent spell spell of weather with cool nights and fine sunny days is sensational.

The weather looks good for the rest of the week and the making tides in the mornings should fish well. If you would like to celebrate your birthday, or some other special occasion, with Top Catch charters or just come along on a mixed charter flick us an email: bookings@topcatchcharters.com.au or give us a call on 0429 013 012.

Happy Hunting!

Over the past 2 months  while targeting snapper we have been catching a very welcome by-catch. The venus tusk fish or Choerod of on venustus, as some more educated may call them, have been happily taking our baits and much to our delight as these fish fight pretty hard, look very special and best of all they taste fantastic.  All tusk fish are members of the wrasse family and are often mistaken as a parrot fish.  To tell them apart is easy just take a look at the mouth of the fish and if they have a beak they are a parrot fish and if they have large tusk like teeth they are the tusk fish.  The most common variety of tusk fish caught off the sunshine coast is the venus.  Other varieties caught here include the blue bone, black spot and harlequin just to name a few.  The average size is around 1-2kg and we have caught them up to 5kg. The minimum legal size limit in Queensland is 30cm.