Top tips to catch fish in Tin Can Bay

G’day crew – happy new year and hello 2025, let’s hope it’s a good one for everyone. fish

I hope you had a lovely Christmas and were able to spend a bunch of time with the people who mean the most to you over the break.

Now, I missed the January issue because we were so flat out with the shop – there wasn’t time to do a write up, let alone go for a fish.

So, what’s been caught over the past couple of months, and where have they been biting?

Leading into the school holidays, we had a good week’s worth of rain dumped on the east coast and it sure made the creek run brown.

I’m not too sure how much fell but there was a string of very wet days in Tin Can Bay.

We spent one Sunday out in it chasing mangrove jack and it took me three days to dry out, it rained that hard.

But we did get fish and had a laugh.

 

With the rain event coinciding with the lead up to the full moon and some big tides, the crabs were on the march.

Customers reported that many were caught – from the upper reaches of the creeks to out on the flats.

Some friends and I spent a couple of late nights walking a few mangrove flats and managed to pick up a good feed by simply scoop netting them.

It was great fun, and the kids had an absolute ball.

All you need is a good head torch, a pair of boots, a net and a sense of adventure.

Though note that there are restrictions on what sized net you can use, so jump on the Queensland Fisheries webpage and check out the rules before you give it a try.

Don’t forget, if you need any gear, we can kit you up in the shop with all the right stuff.

 

So, these balmy days and nights mean one thing to us at the shop… we need air conditioning.

No, seriously, it means jacks are chewing and they have truly turned it on this year so far.

We’ve had many reports of fish in the upper 40cm to early 50cm range being caught, with both bait and lures working well for fishos.

I said it in my previous article and I’ve said it many times before, if you are using bait, make sure it’s fresh or live.

With a good quality bait, you will easily double your catch rate.

Live herring, whiting, mullet and pike will serve you well.

Yet remember, if you are using these species as live bait, they need to be legal size.

 

Lures… well, there’s no hiding what I like to use – 4.5” Molix RT Shads for skipping, 4” Z-Man Diezel MinnowZ, 3.5” Molix RT Shads and 80mm Predatek Divers for rolling the face of snags and rock walls, Redic DS80 and Lucky Craft Pointer 78XD are two of my favourites and do catch fish.

Snapper, Teebar and Carlo creeks have all been fishing exceptionally well over the past few weeks.

Still up in the creeks, some nice blue salmon have been hunting baitfish and prawns in the dirty water, with a few reports of even the king variety showing up towards our end.

We’ve also had reports of quality grunter being caught in the creeks, though I’m yet to find them myself.

For the bait fishos, live flicker mullet and live prawns are a sure-fire way to target these salmon.

Personally, I’d fish 30lb fluorocarbon leader at a minimum for them because they can rasp you off quickly.

Me, well I’m always going to throw a soft vibe for salmon – Zerek Fish Trap, Samaki Vibelicious and Jackall Transam all work.

 

And I’m not too fussed on colour.

If anything, I’ll tend to match the water colour on the day.

Throughout the bay, a good run of small reef fish has shown up on the small reefs, ledges and rubble patches.

Nannygai, tuskfish, grass sweetlip, snapper, maori cod, cattle dog cod and every other type of cod in the ocean, and even a few juvenile red emperor have made an appearance.

While not all of legal size, they are great fun to play with, especially on light tackle.

And if you have kids onboard, they’ll have a ball.

If you spend time working through the small stuff, you will put a feed together.

Feeding strips of mullet or squid down will see you pull a few critters off the bottom, that’s for sure.

 

Howard and I have been using 85mm Samaki Vibelicious recently and have been having a phat time doing so.

The best thing has been watching my son get buckled by a couple of nice cod and some legal sized grassies on his 10lb setup.

I’ve also been finding a few schools of squire in the 40-45cm range at a few of these spots – at that size, they are beautiful eating, particularly when baked whole.

My go-to for snapper has been a Biwaa Curly Grub 3.5” rigged to a 1/6oz 2/0 TT ChinlockZ, 8lb braid with 12lb leader.

Watermelon Red in dirty water and Kaleido Star in the cleaner water are my choice of colours.

I’ve found the key here is to find the bait, the squire won’t be too far away.

And as always with snapper, you need to fish as light as you can on the jig head.

 

So, as you are reading this, I’m sure you now know that this will be the last printed Bush ‘n Beach Fishing magazine.

On that note, I’d like to say a farewell and thanks for reading my waffle for the past few years.

I hope it was entertaining and that it inspired you to get out there, enjoy the outdoors and perhaps helped you to catch a few.

To Ben, Lisa and the team, thank you for extending the deadline for me to get my – always late – articles in on the twelfth hour… you have been brilliant.

And thank you for creating a little slice of our Australian fishing culture, I’m sure it will be missed by all your readers.

Well, that’s enough waffling on from me to start the year off.

I hope everyone has a great 2025, that you catch plenty and get out on our beautiful waterways for a play.

Don’t forget, if you need a bit of local intel, pop into the shop and hit up any of our friendly staff, we are here to help.

You can find us out the front of the marina on Emperor St, just look for the big white sheds and the Shimano flags, The Chandlery Bait and Tackle.

Tight lines and farewell.