Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
G’DAY crew, I hope you have all been keeping well over the past few weeks and keeping those rods bent! By all reports most of you have been out wetting a line or two and there have been plenty of stories told in the store lately. A pretty common one has been the number of squid people have been catching. Tin Can jack comp
As I said last month, the squid are here and they are in good numbers – all you need to do is get out there and toss a jig around. The staff, affectionately known as the ‘Chanfam’, have been getting out among them too and are more than willing to show you how to target these yummy critters. As you all know, our 2021 Catch and Release Mangrove Jack Competition has been running for the past two months and wrapped up at midday on February 28.Tin Can jack comp
68 anglers fished from January 2 for the comp duration. The aim was to get three legal fish to make up a bag, get on the scoreboard and upgrade from there with the next biggest fish… and wow, there were great fish caught! Competitors could fish the whole of the Great Sandy Straits, from the back end of the Tin Can Inlet, Mullens Creek, up to Urangan Pier, over to Moon Point and back down the western side of Fraser Island to Wide Bay Bar.
We had a total of 120 fish caught to make up the full bags including upgrades and there were another 65 fish recorded that didn’t make up a full bag. Then there were the fish that weren’t counted by anglers because there wasn’t an upgrade for them. That’s a lot of angry red fish if you ask me and it’s a good sign of how healthy the population is.Tin Can jack comp
Click here for tips on catching jacks in Tin Can Bay.
Results
Winner of biggest bag: Mal Kay with a total of 155.50 points
Largest fish: Hairs Hadziosmanovic, 550mm
Mystery length: John Maslen Jr, 400mm
Photo competition: Jed Lee.
Along with lucky door prizes, our total prize pool was valued at over $2,500! We would like to thank our generous sponsors – without their support this comp wouldn’t be possible. So, a big thank you to Wilson Fishing, EJ Todd, Spotters Sunglasses and BJS Custom Rods.Tin Can jack comp
Mixed in with mangrove jack were of course good catches of cod, grunter, bream and quite a few barramundi too. Most of the barra reports have come from Kauri Creek over the past couple of weeks, with fish of more than 80cm being caught. Now, if you want to improve your chances of snagging a Tin Can Bay or Great Sandy Strait barra, it will help to actively target this iconic fish. To read more about this comp, click here!
I say it all the time to customers, if you want to catch a certain species you need to ‘target’ them. This will increase your catch rate of the particular fish you’re after and decrease the by-catch. There’s no point throwing barra lures if you are targeting whiting.Tin Can jack comp
Speaking of whiting, there have been reports of good catches from the Straits, fishing the flats on a flood tide with live yabbies. Fishing on the beaches a few days before a full moon has also been producing good numbers. Again, fresh yabbies and worm fished on a light whiting rig in flooding gutters are a proven winner. Working a small clear popper across the top of the shallow gutters has also resulted in nice summer whiting and by-catch of flathead, bream and tarwhine.
Crabs have been patchy again this month, but fishos putting in the effort have been getting the rewards. We need a few big rainfalls to help flush out the creeks. In saying that, the creeks have been fishing fairly well for the past couple of months.Tin Can jack comp
Flathead have been very productive around creek mouths on a bigger run-out tide. Working 4-5’’ grub tail plastics has been a winner along with lightly weighted whitebait or a live herring.
Offshore fishing has been on fire when the weather and swells allow. Mixed bags of pelagic fish such as amberjack, spanish mackerel, longtail tuna and cobia have been keeping anglers stretched and the reef fishing has not disappointed either. Swags of big red emperor, good trout, tuskfish, parrotfish and nannygai have all been coming home for dinner. Don’t forget, if you don’t have a boat that can get you over the Wide Bay Bar, there are a number of local charter crews who operate out of Carlo Point Marina most days ending in ‘y’.
Keely Rose, Baitrunner and Double Island Point Fishing Charters to name a few offshore charters. Well, that’s enough from me this month. So, take care, get out there and explore our great part of the world – fresh or salt. Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, we now have kayaks for hire!Tin Can jack comp
The Chandlery Bait and Tackle for all your boating and fishing needs.
Cheers and tight lines.
