Imagine a trip to the Swain Reefs on a fully catered boat with excellent facilities enjoying fantastic dory fishing every single day. Well, that is exactly what we did on the Capricorn Star out of Yeppoon this year, pre-COVID lockdown. Swain Reefs trip The trip started with a glassy sea all the way on the 250km run to our destination …

It’s been a while since submitting an article to BNB, but let me tell you there are so many fun projects to enjoy and get into in retirement that you do get easily side-tracked. Life certainly isn’t boring, with plenty of bar crossing work, caravanning and family duties, so when the weather plays havoc with your fishing plans, you just …

OCCASIONALLY it’s necessary to make a bit of noise to get a job done, and that is exactly what happened with the recent upgrade of the navigation buoys in the Rous Channel. After a concerted effort with multi-agency support, the upgrade finally took place and the outcome has been considerably better than many people anticipated. The biggest problem with the …

AFTER our Swains sortie, George and I decided to head to Turkey Beach for an overnight fishing trip because we hadn’t fished that region since October last year. Weather, circumstances and other commitments kept getting in the way and unlike many other fishers, we chose not to fish the area during the COVID-19 lockdown good weather, when social distancing and …

THE snapper and pearl perch closed season for this year is now done and dusted and the overall feedback from most people is very supportive. There have been a few negative and veiled swipes at the closure conducted through the media, but they all link back to people who have a vested interest or who earn good money from being …

FOR anyone who fishes and enjoys boating, the past few months have been full of change, uncertainty, confusion and totally compounded by a severe lack of good leadership by those in charge of boating and fishing in Queensland. The state of confusion started at the commencement of COVID-19 restrictions when the boss of Maritime Safety Queensland came out hard in …

WITH all the bushfires raging around the country, this month I have chosen to skip the regular offshore report and let readers know something about the ongoing work being done by so many volunteers after the event to benefit those hit by natural disasters, and also to ask for help, either in kind or if possible, by volunteering some time. …

WELL it’s that time of year again where it is the holiday edition and rather than reflect on the year that was, let’s be more proactive because a lot of frustrated fishers will be out there looking to wet a line after the big run of northerly wind we have had.  When looking to fish the bottom for reef fish …

I’D been sitting around home admiring the broad spread of isobars on the weather map that indicated some very light wind heading our way and was keen to get offshore again. I didn’t know it was going to result in plan B. This good weather was going to coincide with a fishing booking for a group I have had out …

SNAPPER is one of those iconic species that’s on everyone’s wish list and the winter months through to late spring present the best time to be catching snapper on the offshore reefs of southeast Queensland. Tips for catching snapper offshore – Tagging studies conducted over time indicate snapper populations in Moreton Bay tend to mostly stay in the bay and …