Page 69 - BNB Fishing mag

Blue salmon can be sight cast on the ats.This one took a 4” Z- Grunter will still be around and love eating 3” Gulp Shrimp Man CurlyTailZ at the mouth of the Lillies. lures.
TBarra and mangrove jack still biting around Gladstone
HE last month you’re in with a chance around feeding on large of winter has ar- of scoring good num- schools of herring.
Gladstone Region
by GARY CHURCHWARD
rived and so far You can find small
in central Queensland, we’ve had only a few cold mornings when the mercury dipped below double digits.
bers.
If you have found fish schools moving up on-
With the air tempera- ture being quite stable and only a few morn- ings dropping below double digits, the water temperature has stayed consistent.
Anyone on social me- dia would have seen the amount and size of threadfin salmon get- ting around Port Alma and the Fitzroy River.
You might begin to wonder where it will stop – my guess is when they grow too big for the gear to handle.
and are struggling to get them to take a lure, finding live prawns will get a bite from them.
to the flats as the tide rises and these fish can be sight targeted with soft plastics and hard- bodies.
This has affected sev- eral species, with our typical warmer water fish like barramundi and mangrove jack still biting quite well.
If you can find a feed- ing school or sit on a school until they bite,
Gladstone Harbour has been holding better numbers as they move
Fingermark are still going strong and biting well through the har-
It wasn’t long ago a fish over a metre was great and anything over 110cm was awesome, now 110cm is stand- ard, 130cm is great and 150cm is the new tro- phy fish.
These fish are avail- able year-round and though finding schools can be the easy bit, they do tend to have lock jaw.
Blue salmon are around though not as thick as usually can be expected at this time of year but more commonly in smaller schools.
While it’s cool, grunt- er is a species to target because they tend to fish better during cool- erperiods.
While they are not feeding for as long or as hard as they do in sum- mer, if you are willing to put in the time and effort you will find a few fish.
* continued P70
Phil caught this longtail tuna on a stickbait in be- tween mack tuna when shing with Brian.
Bush ’n Beach Fishing, August 2020 – Page 69
If the air temperature increases towards the end of August, expect to see these fish start- ing to feed for longer and more aggressively.
Live bait has been the most constant pro- ducer, with live prawns the first choice if you can get them past the hordes of bream around now. www.bnb shing.com.au
Brian Scrivner found mack tuna on the outside of Curtis Island.