Miss Bartlett showing the boys in the family that she can catch big queenies too.
Light Northerlies This Weekend then a Cool Change Next Week
Last week was quite pleasant here on the Fraser Coast. Light winds some days saw the temperature rise, but the humidity has been low resulting in milder conditions than the tail end of spring. There will be increasing heat over coming days, followed by another round of storms and showers next week, but there are very good days ahead.
Light-moderate east to south-easterlies today will ease further overnight tonight. Light easterlies will greet boaties heading out early Saturday morning, before tending more north-easterly around midday. A gentle sea breeze late in the afternoon will cool us off nicely, and then tend more northerly overnight. Sunday will be warm, courtesy of a northerly breeze around the 10-15 knot mark. Better early wind-wise, than it will be later in the day.
Sunday’s northerly will lean slightly to the west Monday as the next trough approaches. Showers and possible storms are predicted sometime late Monday, to be followed by a couple of days of inclement weather. Expect cooler and quite windy conditions Tuesday into mid-week as the south-east change arrives, carrying plenty of showers our way. So, make the most of the weekend folks, as mid-week looks pretty ordinary.
Tides-wise, we are once again in the midst of a set of neaps. Today’s last quarter moon phase will see tidal variations increasing exponentially as our tides begin to ‘make’ once again. Good tides for many fisheries you might say, and certainly not a period to miss if you are an avid estuary fisho.
It was beer battered cod and chips for dinner for River Heads Fishing Club member, Jack. This fish also won him a cool junior prize from the club.
Brian was elated to catch this red emperor during a spell of better weather recently.
Queenfish Turn it on at Urangan Pier
Quite a number of queenfish have rocked up to the Urangan Pier, and large fish to at least 110cm are being caught. Live baits are accounting for the majority, whilst spoons, soft vibes and sinking stickbaits can be put to work if you fancy your chances with a lure.
Queenies in the area often herald the arrival of the pencil squid, which are due to start rolling in anytime now. Clever pier fishos have been stocking up on our tiniest squid jigs in readiness, and should be rewarded fairly soon as the moon continues to darken. Expect the first run of pencillies to be quite small, with a few better-sized squid in the mix.
Bull sharks are terrorising the piscatorial inhabitants of the waters surrounding the pier, as they are elsewhere just off our township foreshores. A bull measuring 10’ was caught and released this week, and many smaller models are actively taking live baits, large dead baits and hooked fish. Let’s all hope they move on and don’t linger too long as the Xmas school holiday crowds take to nearby waters.
A few school mackerel and undersized broad-barred mackerel have been caught from the pier this week. Talk of GTs is subdued, yet one might expect some of those brutes to gather out the deep end if there are small mackerel and potentially squid on the menu. See what the making tides bring next week. Jewfish and flathead are also being caught occasionally, and grunter remain a possible target species after dark over these neaps.
Parker caught his first barra of 83cm at Lake Lenthalls whilst waiting for fingerlings for the latest restocking effort. Well done, young fella.
Junior Jasperse headed for Kingfisher Bay Resort and caught this ripper flatty from the jetty. Just one of many species you might catch over there.
Shore-based Options Abound
Large grunter continue to be caught from the rocky foreshores around Pt Vernon, albeit only when the tides are right. Evening sessions soaking large prawns keep some folks in fresh fillets, whilst others chance their luck with small prawn imitation lures where rocks meet sand during gentlemen’s hours. Blue salmon have also shown up in the vicinity this week, offering an even easier target for lure fishos, as they will have a go at almost anything that moves.
Whiting and garfish kept ultra-light tackle fishos entertained at the Shelley Beach rock groynes whilst the full moon still had some pull. Expect a lack lustre bite from those tiddlers until the new moon draws nearer. Perhaps monitor storm rains etc in the meantime, and if we cop any locally heavy falls, then try your luck around the storm water outlets that cross the beach.
Otherwise, those on foot can try their luck chasing estuary species up a local creek. The resident mangrove jacks will be easy enough targets in the minimal tidal flow, so long as you make the effort to push into the system looking for deeper and shadier pockets of water. There will be bugs, and there will be mud, but there will also be rewards for those that go beyond the reach of others.
Arm yourself with smaller topwater lures, small shallow diving hardbodies, prawn imitations or perhaps 3-4” paddle-tailed plastics and you are in the game. If you cannot find the jacks, then surely the small estuary cod and the odd flathead will find you instead. You might even encounter grunter and queenfish on the flats fronting your chosen creek system, or blue salmon terrorising baitfish traversing the mouth.
Finn Welch is much better at fishing than his dad is at photography. He caught this 63cm flatty just this morning.
Luke has been catching coral trout on the troll again .... surprise surprise!
Better Tides to Head Deeper Inshore
You had your better tides for fishing our shallow fringing reefs a week ago, so now it is timely to head a bit deeper. Whilst you could still troll-up a trout or two from the shallows, or pick up a few random sweeties etc, it is the deeper waters of our inshore shipping channels where you can expect a better bite over these neaps.
Coral trout and a substantially higher number of estuary cod will be partial to a live bait lowered to their lairs. Sturdy tackle and quick reflexes will be required to extract the larger fish, and nothing but sheer luck will see you land that fish thereafter if the taxmen are nearby. The sharks are very bad inshore, so please don’t anchor on a spot feeding them quality reefies one after the other. Some do, would you believe, and a rare few even think the losses are acceptable.
Grassy sweetlip will be on the chew no doubt. Expect a better bite at dawn and dusk or into the evening whilst the tides are so small. Many reefs and rubble patches host numbers of sweetlip, so you can keep on the hop should the sharks make life difficult. The Roy Rufus is bound to be housing plenty of sweeties, as is the Channel Hole, Boges, Bogimbah and several other inshore ledges. All hotspots for sharks, but also alive with sweeties, blackall and cod.
Grunter catches on and around our inshore reefs spiked over the full moon, then peaked. Your chances are possibly better down the straits over coming days, though deeper grounds out off the Burrum or well up the island could produce numbers into the evening. It seems the semi-resident groper that frequent the Fairway and Burrum 8 Mile have an insatiable appetite for hooked grunter (and mackerel) lately. Reports of good sessions destroyed by the groper’s attention being noteworthy.
Billy has been into the grunter lately. A fish you can find in our local stream, the straits and near our inshore reefs.
Estuary cod are hyperactive in the heat of summer. This one was caught by a Hot Reels Charter client.
Stuart picked up this fine inshore trout last weekend. They will be an easy target on our deeper reefs this week if the sharks leave them alone.
First Schools of Spotties Arrive in Northern Platypus Bay
After a slightly belated start, our spotted mackerel season is finally showing signs of getting going. Reports of catches from the waters bordered by Rooneys Point and Wathumba Creek are encouraging at his time, even if the numbers being reported are only modest. The size of the spotties cruising our waters up that way are decent at least; in the 3-kilo average range with the odd fish bettering 4 kilos.
It is pretty typical to experience an initial run of decent spotties in schools of ‘scouts’. Vast hordes of smaller fish normally then follow, so you could find a mix of better fish or barely legal fish in the near future. If heading up that way, ensure you go armed with spin outfits capable of speedy retrieves and a good box full of metal slugs. Tie on slugs that will match the hatch when you get a glimpse of the baitfish the spotties are feeding on, or just start out with slugs in the 25-40gm range and change them as the fish demand.
For the uninitiated, spotted mackerel in these parts gorge themselves on tiny baitfish, then adjust their diet to take advantage of growing baitfish and larger sources of fodder as they migrate south. A spotty in Hervey Bay will be partial to a 2-4” metal slug as that is a profile similar to its local prey. Larger spotties caught along the mid-north coast of NSW will be eating large slimies and yakkas and pouncing on much larger lures when they rock up down there in autumn.
Spotties are surface-feeding mackerel that school in bewildering numbers. When the hordes arrive (or should that be if), they can be seen swimming in concentric circles in massive shoals, shoulder to shoulder, several fish deep and several fish wide. They tend to round-up their baitfish prey and herd them into bait balls, much like tuna do. In fact, they often work in tandem with the tunas (and birds and sharks) and create a melee akin to a David Attenborough documentary.
Looking for “your eyes in the sky” is a must when cruising vast open waters looking for spotties. Smaller terns hovering above the water are a sure sign of action beneath at this time of year. It might be just tuna or bonito, but it might happen to be spotties feeding that have drawn in the terns.
Differentiating between tuna and mackerel from a distance is a developed skill, yet an easy one to procure. Spotties slash and ‘sip’ at the surface of the water as they swipe at baitfish. They create plenty of low-key whitewater that can heave into foaming masses, yet they rarely ever clear the water altogether whilst feeding. Tuna on the other hand, often launch clear of the water as they tear into the baitfish. The colour of the predators is another obvious indicator as to who is working a given bait ball, even if that isn’t as obvious from a greater distance.
No doubt the sharks will home in on the spotty schools if they turn up en masse. Their tendency to focus on tuna schools as well can see them distracted elsewhere, so be prepared to drive from school to school looking for unattended spotties if the noahs are already shadowing them.
A past shot of northern bay spotted mackerel, just to give you a glimpse of what you can be catching from now on.
Hot Reels Charters is putting clients onto Spanish mackerel out in the bay.
Summer Pelagic Activity Set to Ramp Up
You don’t have to drive all the way to Platypus Bay just to hook into pelagic species in summer. School mackerel will become increasingly common within our shipping channels as the pencil squid arrive soon, even if they are a little less well represented than they might be at present. It seems few folks are bragging about schoolies in any numbers of late, so you might need to ‘do the rounds’ to find where better numbers are lurking inshore.
There are bound to be schoolies off the Burrum coast somewhere, and some across the Outer Banks. Catches at Kingfisher Bay were notable a fortnight ago, as are the fish being caught at the pier. Trollers will cover ground quite quickly and no doubt find some, so long as they focus on areas prone to host herring and other baitfish in numbers. The Fairway and NU2 might be worth a look, as might Mickeys and perhaps even Christies Gutter (if it is clean enough).
A few broadies are scattered inshore, as are small numbers of spanish mackerel. Neither have been reported in any major numbers of late, just random fish from bait-rich reefs such as the Simpson and the Outer Banks. Spaniards are more prevalent in the northern bay at this time, yet we can expect some very large models to wander well inshore over summer.
Big spaniards will set up temporary residence around shipwrecks and other artificial reefs inshore, as will an increasing number of giant trevally. These big black brutes are brutal on tackle and your stamina when hooked, so gear up for the task if you plan to take them on. More GTs are probably hooked incidentally than as specific targets over our deeper reefs, yet you can take steps to get hooked up quite easily. More on that matter in future reports when they turn up in numbers.
Mac tuna continue to cruise the shipping channels leading to the straits, and down within the straits as well. They also remain hard to tempt in these waters as they continue to feed on the smallest of baitfish. They will become easier out in the open bay sometime soon, but by then, the summer run of longtails will be kicking off and lots of folks won’t care.
Queenfish are a constant in our waters, that tend to favour deeper ledges and select inshore reef systems at times in summer. You can still find queenies working the flats, or at least the verges there-of, but such locations would be better targeted with much more run in the tide. Should you find the queenies in our deeper waters, then kindly respect those fish and move on if the bull sharks are hot on their tails.
Quality grunter are just one of the many species Tony has been catching inshore of late.
Tony had his hands full with this monster blackall. Not everyone's favourite table species, but you have to respect their pulling power.
Threadfin Salmon Finally Schooling
After what has been supposedly a pretty boring spring on the threadfin salmon front, we can report that numbers are finally swelling locally, as fish school in our rivers and down the straits. Your best chances were relegated to the straits of late, but that is changing. Numbers of fish are making their way through the Mary system as you read this, and will be the number one target for many law-abiding river fishos in coming weeks.
Media gurus eons ago used to make threadies out to be these enigmatic fish that were incredibly challenging to catch on lures. Those commentaries must have been borne of different waters, as our modern day threadies in this part of the world are super easy to catch. That is, at least, until the big rains come and the jelly prawn hatch creates tunnel vision from the threadies and they fixate on the tiniest of prey.
Alas, that is not now as yet, so you can get our there and catch numbers of big fish on soft vibes, prawn and other soft plastic profiles and even a select range of small hardbodies. Using a side scanner to locate the schools of salmon as you wander the river makes it all too easy, so long as you focus your efforts on the second half of the ebb tide.
Some threadies will do big miles and others will settle into select areas for periods. All will be easily spotted on the sounder in deep waters and many will be obvious in the shallows at times as they go about their feeding. Even shore-based River Heads fishos could be in for a treat at times as fish rounding the point take a swipe at lures or live baits.
For those of you yet to experience our threadfin salmon fishery; be ready for some excitement. Threadies are typically very large fish in the Mary system, and in many parts of the straits too. A one metre long thready is only considered average in these parts, where multiple fish bettering 120cm or even 130cm can be caught in a day. Something to look forward to for many of you no doubt.
Expect to find a few blue salmon whilst hunting their cousins, and if you get really lucky, then perhaps some large grunter and flathead. A small number of folks might even trip over fingermark by accident whilst on the hunt, though hook-ups in bad terrain might see the unprepared end up with frayed line and less lures if the lighter drag settings favoured for threadies aren’t quickly zipped up tight.
Big threadies such as this one of Peter's will be common catches now that they are finally schooling again.
Cooper with an example of the sort of threadfin salmon you can catch in the straits or our rivers nowadays.
Don’t Miss Your Date with Jack
As cool as fingermark might be, their close cousins, the mighty mangrove jacks, put them to shame in the dirty tactics and brutal battle stakes. Further north, perhaps few would agree with that statement, as the fingermark are big and the jacks quite small. Around here though, both achieve sizes well over the 60cm mark in our estuaries and jacks in the 50’s are just plain common.
The Burrum system is home to a huge population of jacks, and you should not be missing the opportunity this spring and summer has offered to get amongst them. The jack fishery to date has been excellent, and won’t falter until the serious wet season rains arrive. Sure, jacks are much more challenging than barra and threadies will ever be again since the advent of high-tech sounders, so consider them the ultimate challenge if you like.
Take advantage of the minimal tidal flow this weekend and pit your skills against the jacks with lures. Less current really makes the task so much easier, and can see you getting your lures tighter into the strike zones, where you can linger them for longer. The Burrum and its three feeder rivers are all home to jacks, so take your pick. Persist with lures and you will succeed, but as I have said so many times, opt to learn where jack lives first by bait fishing with fresh mullet strips and at least you can tick the ‘where’ and ‘when’ boxes and come back another time to work out the ‘how’ with lures.
Nocturnal sessions on the Burrum will only enhance your chances, whilst putting you in the realm for topwater. Dawn and dusk offer prime jack bite periods, but so too do the witching hours. Insomniacs or the uber-keen can experience incredible jack fishing in the wee hours like no other – but you have to be there!
The Burrum system is still giving up a few threadfin salmon, along with grunter, flathead and plenty of bream. There has been a bit of snot weed washing into the lower reaches when the north wind blows, and the waters are dirtier since recent storm rains, but the river and its feeders are all fishing quite well at present. Make the most of this situation, as it may not be long before we are talking floodwaters and alternative fisheries.
Good luck out there y’all …… Jase
Burrum Heads Amateur Fishing Club member, Jane Smith, with her PB Burrum threadfin salmon of 94cm caught recently on a herring bait.
A sample of the fish weighed in by Burrum Heads Amateur Fishing Club members last weekend.