Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
October is an excellent month to be on the water in southeast Queensland.
Mangrove jack are getting very active and the flathead season continues around the Gold Coast and Tweed areas.
Bull sharks will be very lively in the upper reaches of creeks, harassing herring and mullet schools.
This month, flathead generally slow down in the local rivers on Brisbane’s northside. Fish are still to be caught but the numbers are down from the previous few months.
A few nice trevally and grunter should be feeding still around the middle reaches of the Pine and Caboolture rivers.
We haven’t had much rain recently, so the rivers and creeks are in good condition.
Bait schools are pushing into the upper reaches and fish will be following.
The upper reaches of these rivers tend to have a lot more structure than the lower and middle reaches.
Mangrove jack are happy to push as far upstream as they can get – as long as there’s food for them.
Visible structure above the surface will hold plenty of fish, though they do receive a lot of attention.
Snags beneath the surface that have at least 1m of water over them at low tide will hold a lot more fish. These snags are easily found with a sounder. If you don’t have a sounder, it’s still possible to find these types of snags.
Steep banks on the bends of the rivers will have fallen trees along the edge somewhere.
Occasionally, you can see where the bank has collapsed and a tree has slid into the water. These are excellent places to cast and jig some sinking lures. Plastics rigged on a weedless jig head are more suited to areas such as this.
Vibes are snag magnets and can soon become donations when casting into fallen trees – unless you know the area very well.
Mangrove jack are normally the target around snags in the upper reaches, however estuary cod, barramundi, grunter, trevally, jewfish and threadfin salmon are all species you may encounter.
