Just got back from saltery bay area on the sunshine coast....
We heard that the area had been really slow for salmon, so decided to try some other fishing instead. Caught and released a few rockfish, flounder and some baby lings. Did some crabbing, did alright but nothing noteworthy... The best fishing by far was for perch. It was an absolute blast, ran into several schools of large perch, both pile perch and surf perch, sometimes schooling together. First we were using sea worms for bait, working well but they were harder to find...got a painful bite from a 10 incher too!!!! When those ran out we used oyster, couldnt keep fish off, but couldnt keep the bait on the hooks either....oysters kept falling off... took the perch back to camp and cooked them up BBQ with some lemon, salt and pepper....they were amazingly tasty. Great fight on a tiny rod too. Its too bad there was a shellfish ban in effect, there were SO MANY oysters and clams everywhere. Great place for snorkelling too, lots of shelves and reefy areas. Too bad the salmon fishing was off though...