FOR Wellington Point’s AJ Amos-Maclean, a day on Moreton Bay is just as much about what lies beneath the surface as what ends up on the end of a fishing line.
While she loves chasing fish, the 61-year-old is equally happy swapping her rod for a snorkel to drift through the crystal-clear waters around the wrecks off Moreton Island.
“People get those pool noodles and a face mask and just float. It doesn’t cost much,” she said.
“But coming back, you have to be careful in a small boat.
“It can get choppy and that’s when it goes ‘bang bang’ and you can get sea sick.”
Fishing has been a lifelong passion for Ms Amos-Maclean, who heads out on Moreton Bay about once a month with her partner aboard their 4.3-metre Quintrex Fishabout.
A recent trip launched from Cleveland took them to the drop-off near Peel Island, where the water plunges to about 13 metres.
“We didn’t have much success, just a lot of rubbish,” she laughed.
“We caught a couple of pinkies (baby snapper) and the biggest puffer fish I’ve ever seen.
“It was about 30cm and as fat as a house.”
While every trip is different, she said Moreton Bay regularly produced an impressive variety of species.
“We catch a bit of everything – tuna, mullet, gummy sharks, sweetlip, mackerel, flathead and blue crabs,” she said.
“And at this time of the year, you see whales all the time. It’s pretty cool.”
Protecting the marine environment is just as important to Ms Amos-Maclean as enjoying it.
“We are always careful what we keep,” she said.
“People may not realise that the snapper they catch could be 60 years old. “They just chuck it in their eskies.”
She also tries to minimise her environmental impact by using eco-friendly tackle.
“I use hooks with sand in the middle. That way, there isn’t solid lead left at the base of the reef,” she said.
Her love of fishing began in childhood, helping her father on fishing charter boats around Kangaroo Island in South Australia.
“I was a deckhand. It was hard going, being a girl doing that sort of work,” she said.
She later worked as a cook on commercial trawlers before moving to Melbourne, where she bought her first boat at the age of 25.
The former four-metre speedboat with a 90-horsepower motor became her ticket to countless hours exploring the waters off Altona.
“I would go out from the boat ramp and be out there for hours,” she said.
Advice from members of a local fishing club helped her discover the best fishing spots.
“I learned as I went and found the best spots. It was great,” she said.
Now living in the Redlands after moving here in 2019, Ms Amos-Maclean says she’s still learning, often booking charter trips or fishing lessons whenever she travels.
A future holiday to Tasmania to learn fly fishing for brown trout is high on her wish list.
Before upgrading to a larger boat, she enjoyed launching a smaller vessel into Tingalpa Creek to set crab pots.
“You can’t do that in a big boat,” she said.
Many of her most treasured moments on the water haven’t involved catching fish at all.
Watching fevers of stingrays’ glide beneath the boat, dolphins playing nearby, and rescuing a turtle trapped in a ghost crab pot before seeing it swim free again remain some of her most memorable experiences.
For Ms Amos-Maclean, they’re reminders that some of the greatest rewards from fishing come from simply being out on the water.
