Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
G’day crew, as always, I hope you’ve been well and keeping busy enjoying our beautiful slice of heaven.
I know my family and I have been, and we made the most of the good weather throughout the school holidays.
Fishing and boating with the kids, going for adventures in the bay, picnics and swimming until they were all wrinkly and simply having a good time.
And of course, making some great memories – that’s what living is all about.
So, what were people catching during the holidays?
The bread-and-butter species of bream, whiting and flathead were out and making themselves known.
In fact, many customers have said it was the best whiting fishing they’ve seen in quite a while.
Both locals and tourists were telling us of plentiful catches of whiting in the bay, with lots of fish in the 30-35cm sizes being caught throughout September.
Let’s hope this is a trend that continues.
Also trending were catches of flatties – land-based or from a boat, quality fish in the 60cm range were a common capture.
Up in the creeks, mangrove jack played hard to get.
However, those caught were done so on both lures and with bait.
The water temperature has played havoc with the bite.
One day it’s up to 24C and two days later it’s 19.5C.
Now that’s a sure-fire way to give them lockjaw for a couple of days.
But the days are getting a lot warmer – recently we had our first taste of some summer storms, so it won’t be long before the red fish start to make themselves known in numbers.
Our Tag A Jack mangrove jack fishing competition has been on the minds of some very keen anglers.
Normally held annually at the end of November and the beginning of December, sadly we will be taking a hiatus in 2024.
This is due to a number of reasons, but mainly because we’ve been flat out with life and the shop.
The last thing the team and I wanted to do was to run a competition that wasn’t set up properly.
But, come 2025, it will be back bigger and better than before, so watch this space!
On the bigger tides in the local creeks, there was some awesome pelagic action.
Giant trevally, queenfish, golden trevally, bigeye and the sought-after diamond trevally were all there, if you knew when to look.
I found them more productively on the first couple of hours of a run-out tide.
Shooting up the creeks and looking for small bust-ups on the surface or scanning up good bait schools is a good place to start.
I like to hunt around the moorings in the creeks, find the bait and the pelagic species won’t be too far away.
While I fish relatively light for them – 2-6lb rods and braid to match or a 4-6wt fly rod with an 8-12lb leader – the retrieve is nothing finesse.
Three or four quick rips of the rod tip, then a free fall and remaining in contact with the lure is a fairly deadly way to catch them.
Working 7-15g micro jigs is a great way to catch them too, along with small prawn plastics, 2” grub tails and small paddle tails and sizes 1 and 1/0 jig heads in 1/8-1/6oz seem good for the little creek thugs.
In saying that, some of the queenies have been about 80cm, with goldens over 60cm and up to 70cm and GTs to a few kilograms.
It’s great fun on the light gear and often overlooked as a fishing option in our locals.
So why not go light and get the bites?
Speaking of pelagic action, big queenfish have also been around in good numbers if you know where to look.
Finding a good pressure edge with some relatively deeper water is a good place to start looking, with a few of our steeper ledges holding decent fish on the right tide.
Personally, I would prefer to target extra-large queenies on fly gear, but to be honest, I’ve found them hard to get an eat from.
They seem to be a little fussy this far south, so it’s back to the conventional tackle.
I tend to run mainly baitcast gear on my boat and when targeting these fish, I’m running 20-30lb braid and 30-50lb fluorocarbon leader.
I’ve found 95-100mm vibes work exceptionally well, along with 4-5” jerk shads – such as the Molix RT Fork Flex, Rapala Crush City The Jerk and the old faithful Z-Man StreakZ 5” – rigged on a 5/0, 1/2oz or heavier jig head if needed and it’s normally game on.
Until next month, get out there and enjoy our waterways and go bend a rod or two.
The Chandlery Bait and Tackle for all your fishing and boating needs.
