Fishing success around Bribie Island
has picked up in the past month. October’s bad weather, and the windy days that followed, have given way to fairly steady weather and very little rain. There is a good lot of bait-fish, and still enough water turbidity to make it an easier job to entice the fish with your soft plastics.
Plenty of flatheads continue to be caught throughout the Passage. Anywhere around the yellow marker at Ningi Creek has been going strong all winter and through the spring. Rod was out on an early morning, rising tide, drifting from Ningi towards the Avon wreck and using, big green prawns when he caught 3 good flatheads. Another morning, Glen and Kat each landed 40cm duskies, just legal, again on prawns at Ningi. On the same boat, Sarah had a 30cm bream, Rick caught a big tarwhine and long ton, Mel picked up a garfish and Alan, a stingray – all on a day that the Angler’s Almanac said was a poor fishing day. Not great catches, I know but better than nothing. Liam, who has just joined the Everton Park Fishing Club, was also pretty pleased with his 40cm flathead and 31cm bream, taken off the sandbanks at Turner’s Camp. Amanda is a more seasoned member of the same club and has been the overall champion for two years running. She was able to finish her 2022 tally with a 45cm flathead, using pillies up near the sharp dog leg inside Ningi Creek. She also got some good whiting and came close to landing a long torn, about 1m in length, she reckons.
Further afield, I know, but Ricki was saying he fished at the Hornibrook Pier recently, and caught a big, fat 78cm flathead right at the time of the lunar eclipse – using a shrunken, hardened soft plastic worm – it MUST have been hungry! Not actually expecting, to catch anything, Ricki had no net or bucket to help bring it in, so he had to drag it up and beach it before he could let it go. Usually, the flathead fishing goes off a bit as we head into the summer months. The water temperature is already sitting at about 24 degrees, so soon the only place to find flathead will be in the gutters and holes. There area few good holes accessible from the shore, around Sandstone Point. Try wandering along there at the start of the tidal movement – rising or falling shouldn’t matter. Look for nice, weedy spots and try out a soft plastic lure – darker shades with a bit of glitter or a curl-tailed grub might do. If you want to go a bit north, plenty of good flathead spots around Donnybrook have been keeping people busy up there, too.
Lots of good bream are also showing up in the Passage. Mel caught a big one at the bridge, on a prawn and another near Shag Island, using squid. The Ningi marker, Turner’s Camp, Pacific Harbour and White Patch have all given up big bream in the past fortnight. Joprieya was showing her bream off, even though it only measured 29cm – “caught it at Sandstone Point, with a Kmart baby’s rod!” Other news that has come our way in the last couple of days –
‘Big mangrove jacks about 100m before the Ningi Creek boat ramp, on the south side of the creek, where the rocks are.
‘Apparently, for someone with the right skills, there is still good tailor to be found in the Passage. According to someone who knows, look for a school of mullet, use a light-weighted rig, and let it drop below the school and bring it to-ho saw several big tailor reeled in just the other day. ‘Lots of jenny sand crabs, but still enough keeper bucks to make dropping a crab pot worthwhile.
‘Tim and friends were at Mission Point for a camp and had 20 big mud crabs over the two-night stay.
A local said he was out at the “west end of the trench near the wave-rider buoy, in 35m of water. Lots of bait and lots of boats. He saw more than 15 marlins caught by the other boats and his own boat hooked up three of them.