Hi there everyone, I hope you have had a chance to wet a line. We have had less than favourable conditions for a while now with rain and a week of strong southerly winds. Despite all that, there’s still been a few keen anglers getting some decent fish. The cockle banks have been producing some nice Winter Whiting, anglers have been easily bagging out on them. Using a small piece of bloodworm, peeled prawn or squid on a long-shank no4 hook will definitely see you catch a few. The open beaches have been a bit quiet, but there’s the odd Spotted Mackerel still around with a few nice fish taken from the beach.
The one pictured was caught on a 110cm slim twitcher an excellent lure to cast from the beach. You will catch several species on it and with Tailor starting to show up, I would suggest using it. There’s been an increase in Blue Swimmer Crabs moving into the passage with some really nice bucks that have been caught. Remember to keep an eye on your pots, there are reports of crab pot thieves that have also been coming in. Quite a few Mulloway are turning up around the Bongaree Jetty and in deeper holes in and around the Bribie Bridge. The Zman soft plastics 3 to 5 inch, either a paddle tail or curly tail seem to be very successful here, otherwise, live baits are another excellent option. You can catch these, days or nights, tide is important, an hour either side top or bottom of the tide is prime time for these.
Also around the bridge, there has been a mixed bag of Mackerel, Tusk fish and some big Moses Perch with a few Painted Sweetlip. Fresh live herring have been choice bait, try to use as light a sinker as possible depending on the current as you will catch way more fish this way. With winter almost upon us, we should have some really nice days and light westerly winds. It will give you a chance to head over to the open beaches and target a few nice Golden Trevally like the one pictured that Dan caught up the northern end of the island, it weighed in at 8.7kg, a very nice fish. Anyway, that’s all for now, relax and wet a line, till next time