Fishing Tips

Lately I’ve been catching my best-quality fish suspended in deep water. They have been sitting in the thermocline at 4.5-6m. I target these fish using a variety of baits, initially starting with a soft bait of a 1/2oz-rigged soft plastic. I cast this out and count to seven to let the lure sink into the strike zone. Once the plastic …

Bramble Bay, out the front of Clontarf Beach, is my go-to area in Moreton Bay. South of Brisbane, a good place to start is Jacobs Well, as are the power lines, Rocky Point, the Saltworks, Redland Bay and the Logan River. CR: When you’re out chasing prawns, how do you find them? DA: Like when you’re fishing, having a good …

While the fish vary in colour, there’s no mistaking their pointed head – complete with concave forehead – large jaw and, in these parts, a good-sized barramundi can weigh between 10kg and 20kg and reach lengths of around a metre. With a cool million bucks up for grabs in Tourism Northern Territory’s Million Dollar Fish promotion, locals are understandably a …

It can be a case of feast or famine out there some days. The wharves are mostly carbon copies and don’t have any bottom structure to attract fish to the area. The best way to find fish is to sound around until you see bait schools or predatory fish on the sounder. This can be time consuming but there is …

At this first spot we caught about 10 fish. No big ones but it was good to see the fish were biting. After this, we headed up the dam to the start of the trees. This is where the fun really began. We found two locations where the fish were thick. I had recently bought a Humminbird Helix 12 sounder with Mega Imaging. This unit …

It is important to remember when entering the water that you are entering the fish’s world. You are the unexpected guest, not them. A lot of people fear what can be found in our Queensland waters and it is only normal in the beginning, especially being a fisher and knowing that about 20 percent of fish caught in the shallows …

A lot of the plastics cast and jigged at flathead will be engulfed, which will have your leader rubbing across the flathead’s raspy teeth. Anything under a 10lb leader will struggle to stand up to the sharp teeth of a flatty. Always check the leader after every fish, especially if the lure has gone down the flatty’s throat. A worn …

Jewfish are suckers for live baits and large flesh baits. When fishing inshore, live yellowtail scad, poddy mullet, big herring and even live whiting (legal of course) are ideal baits. A good tip is to duck outside to the close bait reefs and load up on yakkas before fishing the seaway entrance. Using the larger baits helps keep the pickers …

Flathead Flathead will show up in big numbers in the local systems this month. The colder the water temperatures get, the harder they will bite, so the next couple of months are the time to chase these tasty treats. Flathead can be caught using a number of techniques. When they are feeding aggressively, they can be quite easy to capture. …

They can certainly be found in even deeper water, such as near the Moreton Island Sandhills. Furthermore, during most winters some of the smaller fish (under 25cm) also enter the mouths of rivers and creeks. Interestingly, the fish occasionally disappear when the water gets deeper than 3.5m while drifting, and other days they start appearing at 3.5m and increase in …