The Bribie Islander

We’ve seen fairly standard summer fishing so far this year. There has been a big variety of fish caught, lots of them just a little too small to keep but enough really nice ones to keep us interested. Great for families on school holidays, when it’s all about the fishing and everything is going back in anyway.

The weather bureau is still talking about the “possible onset of La Nina,” which brings frequent rains and stormy weather. Well, it looks like La Nina weather already—only six days of the first twenty in January have been rain-free, almost all have been fairly overcast, and most of our strongest winds are coming from the north.

The rains have been regular but not often heavy enough to flush out the creeks, so the flathead has gone off the radar a little. We have still been getting the very occasional biggie, but they’ve been hard to find lately, although there has been some luck using lures. The water being very warm (more than 27 degrees), fishing for flathead on the sandflats hasn’t always been successful, although that’s where you’ll find them on the cloudy days. It was a miserable, wet, windy day when Dave and Charlie caught a 60cm flathead just north of Turner’s Camp. They also brought in three 30+cm bream. Further up the Passage, there have been some good flathead catches around the mouths of both Elimbah and Bullock Creeks, but there haven’t been many reports from further north. Reggie and Levi had a couple of trips to Bribie over January and spent most of their time fishing. They’d scoot up to Mission Point to get a bucket of yabbies, but they weren’t having much fun up there, so they’d then come down south of the bridge for a better time of it. The best baits for flathead have been small prawns, squid and pilchards. Try to buy small bait prawns – the quality of the larger prawns hasn’t been great, and small ones are definitely working better. A word of warning – it is illegal to use supermarket prawns as bait. You must buy prawns from a bait shop (or cast for them yourself) and use them locally – to protect our wild crustaceans from introduced diseases.

There have been good catches of bream near the oyster leases at the mouth of Ningi Creek as well as up among the mangroves – silver bream, grunters and tarwhine all tend to hang around there. Jeff and a mate had a few bream to take home recently after spending an afternoon between the Avon wreck and Ningi Creek. Jeff said that prawns were the only bait that was working for them.

Squid has probably been the most reliable bait through the summer – perhaps because there are so many youngsters flinging the rods around and squid stays on the longest! Guy and his family caught six very big bream (and lots of undersized ones too) up at White Patch, as well as a 70cm longtom and an 80cm shovelnose – all on squid.

White Patch is nicely protected from the north/easterly winds and there’s been plenty of undersized fish there, as well as keeper snapper, bream, grassy sweetlip and the occasional trevally, but be wary – the Wright’s Creek marker is still missing, and you can find yourselves sitting out the low tide if you go in too far.

The deeper water in the middle of the Passage and around the bridge is holding lots of grassy sweetlip and moses perch, as is usual over the summer. The tidal run through that part of the Passage is strong, so try to choose a period of time over the change of tide if you want to anchor up. There has also been some good snapper around the bridge, as well as around the ripples at Pacific Harbour.

Try drifting from the bridge on a falling tide towards IGA supermarket, about 100 metres off the shore of Bribie, or use the rising tide to sneak over the weed beds west of the second green marker. Evan and Tamara found a spot they liked – “on the line between the second green and the IGA, in 34 ft of water”. Tamara said pilchards were the only bait working for them – mullet, prawns and even fresh yabbies failed to bring in the fish. They had a great time with a variety of fish – most of them undersized but enough keepers to feed the family; then “the catfish came in, slimed up our gear, ruined the fishing”, so they gave it up. Richard, too, was at the second green marker earlier in the month, during a spot of lovely weather and just after the high tide, when he hooked up an 85cm cobia! If you’re land-based, Airforce Park on a falling tide and Buckley’s Hole on a rising tide – always worth a try!

Snapper are still running red hot, with predictable catches being the norm. Most anglers are catching their bag limits in one or two hours of fishing. Bigger baits are producing bigger fish, with fillets of Bonito, Mackerel, Tailor and Mullet all The passage is always reliable for breadand-butter species. B

en and his daughter Ella had a great father-and-daughter day floating around the passage, accumulating a great mixed bag with a couple of crabs in the mix. As the water starts to warm, crabs are starting to move about. It’s a good working well. Prawns and Yabbies have also managed a couple of reds and are great fun on light gear. Filleting fish to eat is sometimes harder than it looks, with blunt knives being a large part of the problem. If you are struggling to remove time to start dropping pots. The biggest whiting is going 415mm, which is a cracker.

Any combination of bait will work Yabbies, prawns, worms or a fillet of a pilchard; mullet will see you come up tight. It’s worth trying to come down on your line class to 6lb and, even better, 4lb line, which is a good fillet, remember whole fried fish is delicious. Score sides of fish, rub in salt and dust with corn flour. Pan-fry in light oil until the flesh is white and firm. With absolutely zero waste as bones are easily removed almost invisible to fish, resulting in a lot more hookups. Rods with a slow taper are quite whippy and allow the fish to run without breaking the line. A 1000 to 2500 reel with a smooth drag is all that’s needed to catch a quality feed of fish.

Flathead has been on the chew, and larger than average fish have been caught. The next generation of anglers is already putting us on notice with great catches. I’m always impressed by how young anglers can master catching fish with ease, and it won’t be long before they outfish most of us. Jett once again has managed a 56cm flathead on a lightly weighted pilly, And Ella managed for some a fish of a lifetime, landing a 79cm flathead on half a pilchard. Ella’s flathead was perfectly supported for a quick photo before being safely released back into the passage. Great effort, guys.

October 2024 Fishing Report Fishing has been erratic lately, which is fairly typical for spring. This is never the easiest fishing season – the changeable weather and October storms make it difficult to get out for a fish. The rains have put a bit of colour in the water, though, so it might be a good opportunity to get the lures out. The sudden drops in barometric pressure get a few fish going, too, if you can time things around a storm…

Fishability Qld had to fit their fishing trips between bouts of weather- but it’s always worth the effort. Some good-sized bream and flathead have been brought each time; prawns and pillies were the favoured baits. Flathead, bream and whiting are the standards for this time of year. This past winter has been a very good one for flathead, tailor and winter whiting and there are still plenty of great tailor and whiting catches. Although the reports of bigger whiting are patchy, there are some great reports coming up around Mission Point and Coochin Creek. Flathead have been reliable finds in the main channel, over the top of tide off IGA supermarket or near Turner’s camp. Some of the best springtime flathead fishing can be in shallow water, over weed or sand and not far from mangroves or rocky sections, which will break up the current. Zman curly tails have been making quite a comeback in recent weeks, with several good flatties taken!

When the breeze comes from E/NE, the most pleasant fishing is from the Bribie shore of the Passage. White Patch is nicely protected from north-easterlies or anchoring your boat in towards Wright’s Creek is another option. Joel caught his first ever fish there, under the tutelage of his Dad, casting out a clear soft-plastic 70mm Squidgee, and landing a 47cm flathead for dinner.

Richard tells me “There seem to be lots of fish all the way from Red Beach up into the Passage and towards Sandstone Point… good whiting hanging around the lock entrance and more good fish at the Bribie end of the bridge.” He took his grandson, Bodhi, fishing at Sandstone Point on a fairly quiet day (weatherwise!) and came away with four snapper, three flathead, three tailor and a bream!

A couple of weeks later, Richard and his mate, Loris, were happy enough to fish around the bridge during a SW morning breeze, using pillies and prawns, and had seven snapper (37-54cm) and a 37cm bream to show for it. The recent long weekend started out windy, rainy and cold – not great for those wanting a full day’s fishing! Jamie and a mate spent most of their day sheltering in Ningi Creek and came home with two big bream and a “giant sand crab!” (to be fair, it was 13.5cm and quite full.) Ron and his young grandson, Vinnie, were up for the long weekend’s fishing and crabbing, too. Ron was expecting his usual run of good luck with the crab pots, but only scored eight keepers over the three days. He said he’d been talking with a few people who all noticed that the sand crab numbers had dropped off. The fishing wasn’t so bad, though – they caught four flathead up at Turner’s Camp, all between 55-65cm, all on pilchards. Over at the ripples, they tried using mullet and grinner for bait, but again pilchards did the trick, bringing in five snapper between them, 38-47cm. Vinnie’s was the biggest, which made him pretty happy!

Over the school holidays, we saw lots of families fishing – who often just want the excitement of catching a fish, and not necessarily the trouble of keeping it – killing, scaling, cleaning, and cooking a fish can be a bit tricky. Also, a lot of fish are under-sized and can’t be kept anyway. Which brings me to the other tricky business – how to release a fish in good enough order to survive another day. There are some fairly common-sense things to keep in mind:

• Keep the fish out of water for as little time as possible, or release it while it’s still in the water, if you can.
• Don’t suspend the fish from the hook. If you need a photo, hold it under its belly, and avoid touching the midline. And don’t let the kids poke it in the eye!
• If the hook is easily removed, that’s fine, but if it’s been swallowed, then cut the line as close to the hook as possible – its chance of survival should be much higher than if you damage the mouth or cause excessive bleeding.
• If you’ve had to keep the fish out of water too long, it might be sluggish – hold it into the current to help revive it, until it’s ready to swim off.