Species

IT has been a great start to the year and we have scored cracking weather between wet season squalls and thunderstorms. Boating during the wet can be a gamble, let alone boat camping, because you simply can’t trust weather forecasts and it can turn nasty extremely quickly. The wet certainly came late, with heavy rain and thunderstorms on Thursday Island from mid-February. That …

EXPLODING in the US, the Ned rig is basically a stand-up presentation built around a mushroom-style jig head and a buoyant soft plastic, meaning in the water the plastic is either fleeing on the retrieve or rapidly standing up in a claws-up ‘defensive’ pose or tail-up ‘feeding’ pose on the pause. On the pause, the buoyant plastic moves around naturally …

THE 2020 barramundi season opened at midday on February 1 and I was on the water ready for the abundance. The season opening coincided with good tides and after only an hour, at 12.55pm, the abundance was clear – we had the first barramundi measuring a respectable 80cm. With the neap tides building towards the quarter moon, the fishing in estuaries …

G’DAY crew! I hope you have managed to stay dry and out of the downpours we’ve had. But how good is this rain!? Good for the sea and great for the land. On the topic of rain, Tin Can Bay copped a proper washdown at the beginning of February, with several locals recording over 350mm in a two-day period and …

I HAVE been kindly invited to write an article on Stanage Bay: ‘the last frontier’ for this publication. My name is John and this is my introduction to Stanage Bay, while nobody could or would try to replace Stanage icon and sadly missed Von Ireland who used to write for this area in this magazine. My wife Karen and I …

G’DAY everyone, I am very excited about the fishing prospects in this early part of the year. I would like to explain why March is always a good month for fishing. To begin, there isn’t an angler I know that did not complain or find the last six months of 2019 and beginning of 2020 quite challenging when it came to …

WITH every river along the east coast of Australia experiencing flooding recently, catches of flathead, bream and jewfish should dominate the fishing scene this month. Fishing beaches and breakwalls will be the best method for wetting a line. As clean water begins to push back upstream, the lower reaches will produce good catches. Large pelagic species such as mackerel and …

HELAINE booked a house at Rainbow Beach for a little rest and relaxation with the family, inviting Rob Schomberg and his wife along. On the first day Rob and H decided beach fishing practice might be the go in preparation for the Power Boat Anglers’ upcoming beach fishing weekend. When it comes to fishing the deep, they are both extremely …

WE have certainly seen mixed weather across the state, from a prolonged drought to torrential downpours and catastrophic hailstorms. For anyone with a boat, offshore is all about the pelagics and getting stuck into some big mackerel and tuna. In big easterly swells, the Noosa River Bar holds waves up to 2m. Before these arrive, be sure you know how …

“HEY Ma, the rains are ‘ere”. March is the time of year to get out of your comfort zone, get messy, muddy and dirty and join the mud crab madness. Maybe that’s what Christina Aguilera was talking about when she named that big hit many years ago. Maybe she was really wanting everyone to get dirty and get out to do …