Fish Species Guide

WHAT a fantastic time of year on the Cape! The mid-dry season – or ‘winter’ – here is magical, with mild weather and perhaps an occasional cooler night inland. So far, the ubiquitous southeast trade wind has been relatively light. At the time of writing, we hadn’t had enough ‘winter’ to really slow the barramundi bite down, and with August …

HI everyone, August at the Gold Coast brings the peak of our winter fishing season. It’s a great time to catch flathead, flounder, squire, squid, tuskfish, winter whiting, tailor, bream, jewfish and school mackerel in the Broadwater and the Nerang River. So far this winter, squid fishing have not disappointed, though the best catches have been during calm weather and …

WELL, what a great couple of trips I’ve done over the past few months. The first trip was with my friend Dave Kowitz fishing up around Weipa, the second was with my family to the tip of Cape York – our first visit in 30 years. The first trip, Dave and I headed up the Cape – easily the earliest …

FOR a few reasons, live baiting is often a technique overlooked when fishing offshore reefs for bottom-dwelling species. I am not entirely sure why – perhaps it’s because it can be difficult, frustrating and time consuming to catch live bait, but once sourced livies can be dynamite. When you consider that every single lure ever developed aims to mimic an …

Open season Well the snapper season sure kicked off with a bang! We have had two consecutive weekends of perfect weather. Although fishing has been a little quiet some great fish have been caught with many stories of the one that got away. Sunshine Coast Noosa Offshore The bar has been kind as of late which has seen more boats …

BUNDABERG OFFSHORE The reef fishing last weekend really turned it on! The standout fish was definitely the red emperor. Plenty were caught around 10kg. With the smaller tides again this weekend the deep should be on. Remember to fish with big flesh baits when fishing the deeper water. Let the smaller fish play with it then hook in once you …

Hi Everyone, hope you have all had a good week, it was great to see some fantastic weather conditions for the majority of the week on the Gold Coast seeing plenty of happy anglers hitting the water to try their luck. Good news is at the time of writing my report the good weather is set to hang around giving …

WELL, my prediction that 2021 would see a record numbers of visitors heading this way has proven to be spot on! Unprecedented numbers of vehicles have been traversing the Peninsula Development Rd and most of the major offshoots. From Cooktown all the way through to the northern peninsula area – Bamaga, Seisia and such – almost all of the various …

RAIN, wind and swell have dominated the past three weeks. Prior to that we had a bit of good weather and several nice fish were caught. My uncle Ron came for a visit and we were able to get out a few times to chase reef fish. The 32-fathom line held a good number of fish and we filled out …

AUGUST sees the end of winter and the hint of warmer times ahead. This is also the time of year when we often have low swell on the Noosa bar, which makes for safer crossings. The biggest change in July is the snapper and pearl perch closure for Queensland. If you are intending to go offshore between July 15 to …