Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
G’day crew, I hope you have all been well and are now back to normal after the holiday rush – wasn’t the town busy!
I say it all the time but it’s so good to see new faces getting around for the holiday season and enjoying our little slice of paradise.
What’s even better is catching up with revisiting holiday makers who keep coming back to Tin Can Bay year after year – we are very blessed to live here.
Throughout the holidays, we received great reports from both locals and holiday makers that mud crabs were running in good numbers and quality.
Kauri Creek was littered with pots and for good reason – it was producing well from all reports – as was Teebar and the upper reaches of the inlet towards Mullens Creek.
Carlo Creek and the mangrove line running up to Pelican Bay was reported to be holding good crabs too.
There were also some nice sand crabs caught in the channel on the build-up to bigger tides.
Whiting have been around in decent numbers over the past few weeks, with the flats around Poona and Tinnanbar being great hunting grounds.
Live yabbies and our locally caught beachworms work best being fished on a flood tide.
Definitely great places to go back to during the next flood tide to try for a few on the surface.
Working lures such as Bassday Sugapen, Atomic Hardz K9 Walker and Nomad Dartwing across the surface can be explosive fun when the fish are on and feeding.
I prefer to downsize the trebles on the Sugapen to a smaller hook – such as the Vanfook DT-44B.
And when the fish are short striking, I will run a set of twin-assist hooks on the back hook point – the Atomic Trick BitZ work very well for me.
If you haven’t tried to catch whiting on surface lures before, you need to give it a go – it’s so much fun!
The bigger fish in the school tend to muscle the smaller fish out of the way to eat your offering.
But the key is to have a steady constant retrieve – about walking pace I’d say – and when you see the fish following your lure, do not stop winding.
