Solid jacks, flatties and reefies

November 10, 2022

G’day crew, I trust you’ve all been well and have been out and about enjoying our local waterways, if you’ve been lucky enough to visit Tin Can Bay recently.

Over the past few weeks, the area has been pumping, with plenty of new faces walking through the door together with some repeat customers. We love seeing families coming back year after year and enjoying our little slice of heaven, it is truly a great part of the world.

With water temperature climbing to the 24C range at the end of September and the start of October, there were a few mangrove jack caught up in the creeks in Tin Can Bay.

Earlier in the month, one of the tagged fish from last year’s competition was recaptured in the same creek. After 302 days at sea, it had grown 9cm, coming in at 48cm. This mangrove jack was released again, which was nice to see.

I know that on my next day off, I’ll be hitting the snags, skipping some surface frogs, looking for that early morning surface bite and bombing some Lucky Craft 78XD Pointer hard-bodies into the snags to fish a little deeper.

I didn’t use too many crank baits last session, so I’m keen to give it a good go this summer. Flathead have shown up in good numbers over the past few weeks, so anyone trolling the undulating sand flats and drop-offs were well rewarded for their efforts, with plenty of good eating fish in the 45-55cm size range reported.

Teebar Ledge has also fished well lately, with good catches of cod, tuskfish, blackall and a few smaller snapper mentioned. Squid and freshly cut flesh bait have been working a treat.

For the lure fisho, 75 and 100mm vibes, small micro jigs and a variety of soft plastics also produced. Find the bait and you will find the fish. On the neap tide, a number of fishos reported that the Bluff reefs fished well also, with a variety of reef fish being caught and keeping the family fed.

Up that way, tuna have been around in good numbers from the Wide Bay Bay to up past Poona. But tuna being tuna, some days are diamonds, and some days are doughnuts. Making sure you have a few different offerings in the tackle box is always a good idea.

Local angler ‘Greg the gun’ scored a nice snapper from the inshore reefs.

Nomad Tackle’s The Ridgeback, TT Lures Hard Core and the EJ Todd Ignition are all great lures for casting and high-speed retrieves, and all offer something a little different in their profiles.

So, on the days they are being downright annoying, by having a few extra tricks up your sleeve, you can turn a slow day into one of those days you won’t forget in a hurry.

Up around Inskip Point and closer to the bar, giant trevally and queenfish were out playing and stretching a few anglers, with most reported captures coming in from our local charter guide Captain Jon from Great Sandy Straits Sports Fishing.

Lindsay Campbell with an awesome Tin Can Bay queenfish.

Live bait work very well on these great sports fish, but you know me, I’m going to tell you to throw a stick bait or large popper around instead.

It might take a few goes to work out the where and when, but once you do, it will be game on!

If you fancy a day out with Jon chasing a few Tin Can Bay monsters, give him a bell on 0407 860 807.

Offshore has produced as it normally does, with catches of snapper, pearl perch, red emperor, jewfish, amberjack, tuskfish and cod keeping punters very happy.

Jon Malard and a string puller of an amberjack.

Inshore, the snapper fishing was red hot, and everyone seemed to be catching good fish.

Snapper, jew and mixed reefies were all hitting the decks. Float baiting a pillie is always a good way to bag a feed but, in my opinion, working a few plastics through bait schools is much more fun.

The standout plastics were the Molix RT Fork Flex 5’’, 7’’ Berkley Gulp Jerk Shads and any prawn imitation plastic such as the Zerek Live Shrimp.

With shrimps, remove the weedless worm hook – put that in your tackle box for your skipping plastics – run a 7/0 TT Fishing jig head in any weight from 1/2 up to 1 1/2oz. A 7’ 20-30lb spin outfit with 20-30lb fluorocarbon leader is all you need to get the job done.