Species

TOM and I were motoring up a small side creek on the electric against a slow run-out tide. The waterway was barely a cast wide but had already produced a few feisty barramundi and a couple of bumps from big blue-lipped pikey bream. Overhead, the tops of the mangrove forest were buffeted by typical dry season trade wind but only …

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 …

OVER the past few years I’ve been on several fishing trips to Lucinda at the southern end of the Hinchinbrook Channel in a tinnie. I’ve done these trips at different times of the year to try and find out what works best. This year my brother Chris came on the trip we’d planned for the middle of August. My dad …

IT’S time to get the razor out and shave off the winter hibernation because the worst is now behind us.  I probably shouldn’t degrade the colder months this way, as there were amazing captures and weather over the past three months. I’m definitely more of a warmer water fan though. You’re not arguing over who has to get wet to …

DUST off your baitcasters and change your hooks on your favourite barramundi lures because September has finally arrived! We can wave goodbye to winter because it’s definitely time to let barra fever take over. Longer days, warmer early mornings and rising water temperature have fish such as barra and mangrove jack becoming more active and with longer bite windows. With …

THERE are lots of places to troll for snapper and your best bet is to start looking at maps with contours lines, Beacon to Beacon charts and even your sounder if it has a detailed Navionics card. To give you a few ideas of good places to start trolling for snapper, I would look at Peel Island, Mud Island, Green …

THERE have been plenty of tailor getting caught in recent weeks, both in the estuaries and along the beaches, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to run through a few tailor tips, and some of my favourite lures and techniques for catching this aggressive predator. Finding tailor The first thing we need to do is find the …

G’DAY everyone, in this month’s article I will discuss some ideas for targeting one of our hardest-fighting estuary species: trevally. The Gold Coast and Tweed Heads area harbours numerous trevally types including bluefin, diamond, brassy, golden, bigeye and giant, with the last two the most prolific. The common theme with all these trevally is they become more active on the …

WINTER has flown by and we are already almost into spring, though our winter species here on the Gold Coast will still be in full swing. Here in Queensland we have just experienced our first year of the snapper and pearl perch closure, which was in effect until August 15, meaning you could not target or keep either of these …