Keen fisherman Gavin Mottillo was starting work for the day at his flooring business when one of his jobs got cancelled.
So, he decided to drop tools and go fishing.
“One of the blokes I work with who’s a good mate of mine said ‘let’s go out on the boat’ and try and get some [mangrove] jacks,” he said.
That decision proved a masterstroke as Mr Mottillo hooked onto a monster 118cm barramundi in the Logan River.
“One of the biggest adrenaline rushes you can get, it definitely got my heart going,” he said.
Barramundi prefer the saltier waterways and only venture this far along the Logan River during heavy rains, so Mr Mottillo was staggered to stumble upon this one.
“It puzzles me that a big barra like that is in the Logan River and never really hooked onto it before,” he said.
He managed to reel in the fish after a 20-minute hustle while sitting down because of how heavy it was.
“It was a lot more energetic than a bull shark, once it ran, it ran, you couldn’t do anything about it,” he said.
Mr Mottillo believes the fish was close to being pregnant and released it soon after taking the hook out – and capturing photographic evidence.
He credits his good mate, Anthony Coughan from Fishing Fun Gold Coast, for his skills in steering the motor and keeping him in the game.
“He was on the electric motor the whole time and if it wasn’t for him and his footwork, I probably wouldn’t have got it, being so close to all the structures around where we were,” Mr Mottillo said.
They launched from Carbrook fishing ramp near the Carbook Bait and Tackle, hoping to catch some mangrove jack, so when the barramundi got on the line Mr Coughan was speechless.
He described the fish as “a unicorn” of southeast Queensland. Fluke or not, it was caught with a soft plastic lure coated in a sax scent.
“It was a once in a lifetime fish and a fish that many anglers, including myself, have been after for a long time in southeast Queensland.”
Mr Coughan was keen to point out that this time of the year is a closed season for barrumundi.
The closed season runs from early October to late January.
During this time, barramundi cannot be intentionally targeted.
Heritage Park local Des Kenyon, the owner of the online tackle store Reel-Em-in Fishing Gear, said the number of sightings have grown around Jacobs Well and believes there could be more in the Logan River as a result.
“It’s something that you never caught years ago but they are slowly starting to move down the coast, I think,” he said.
“They are becoming more common because all the dams up north all flooded and washed them into the ocean.
“They’re putting more and more stock fish into the dams further down the coast, and obviously more barra are going down to the ocean.”
