Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
April is an excellent month to chase a feed of the fish and crustaceans available from around southeast Queensland.
The air and water temperatures will begin to drop as the weather cools, and the days will get shorter.
It’s been a dry start to the year, with very little rain falling throughout February and March.
The lack of rain sees all the rivers and creeks around Brisbane very clean, with saltwater all the way to the top of each system.
There is a lot of bait around at the moment – large schools of herring, mullet and other assorted baitfish have spread from the mouths to the upper reaches.
The mouths of the larger rivers such as the Pine, Caboolture, and Brisbane and the Bribie end of Pumicestone Passage have all been holding big schools of bait.
Most of these are hardyhead and herring.
Flathead have feasted on these over the past few months, so hopefully they hang around for a while yet.
Small jewfish from 30-70cm have been following these bait schools, as have tailor, grunter and big bream.
The sizes of the flatties have been excellent, with fish averaging around 50cm.
A few better fish up to the maximum legal size of 75cm have also shown up, so make sure you’re aware of the size and bag limits before keeping fish.
I recently took my two kids for a flatty fish in the Caboolture River.
I stopped into Tackle World at Lawnton on the Saturday to get my son a new outfit for lure fishing.
The crew there sorted us out and we walked out with a bag of jig heads, some Pro Lure Clone Prawns and a great little outfit for Lukey.
We were only on the water for five minutes before Luke hooked up and landed his first flatty of 42cm.
He had a plan of ticking off a flathead and a jewfish in 2023, so he was a happy fisho to get rid of one so early in the day.
Amelia was next with a nice 52cm model.
It measured 1cm short of her personal best, so she was super happy.
Then it all turned into the Luke show.
