Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
Well, the fishing this month has been good to say the least, with most trips turning up some very nice fish.
Unfortunately, sprinkled in there we’ve had a couple of tough days where the fish just would not play the game.
So, I suppose that’s why we have the old saying: “That’s why it’s called fishing, not catching.”
You can prepare and have the best plans organised, but the fish decide they’re just not interested.
I did take note of one thing on the days we found it very tough.
The mornings started slowly and the better parts of the tide we wanted to be fishing were later in the day.
Unfortunately, at about 9-10am on all of the tough days, a north northwesterly wind blew close to 15 knots – shutting the fishing down.
I know that a northerly wind will make it a little tougher – due to what I feel is the slow drop in pressure that happens as the northerly wind moves in – however this shut them down in a way I hadn’t expected.
So maybe when you check your weather forecast through winter, be aware that if we get that northerly, it may continue to shut things down… but only time will tell.
We’ve been catching some nice squire, though nothing huge.
But squire are good table fish if you want to take home a feed, and it’s a great sign for winter.
When we found patches of flathead, they were in very good numbers, so it looks as though we’re going to have a cracker of a season.
Also, the humble bream will be turning up, and hopefully their numbers will improve, as they do most years.
A combination of bait and lures at the right times have worked quite well on these species for us.
On average however, lures have definitely been producing the better quality fish.
Of the trips we’ve done this month, one that stood out was taking a few people who work together out on a charter to do a little bait and lure fishing.
Two of them hadn’t fished much at all before and two had.
We met at the boat ramp at 7.30am and headed out for a nice day on the water.
We pulled up to the first spot and I put the berley and a couple of bait out.
I had two fishos down the back looking after those and then I proceeded to show the two at the front of the boat how to cast a few lures about for a flathead.
It didn’t take very long at all.
I think Mason was on with his fifth cast.
And he was on to his first fish on a lure – a 61cm flathead!
To say he was very happy would be an understatement.
We sat this initial area for a while.
