By Jack Mangrove
The Noosa River has again produced a great mixed bag of fish including flathead, bream, whiting and trevally, with a lot of fish being taken in the lower parts of the system.
Whole fish baits like hardy heads, whitebait and pillies floated along drop offs and edges has been working well on the run out tides. When chasing flathead, plastics like 4” paddle tails fished low in the water column have seen some great results.
There have been reports of bigger whiting being caught around Weyba Creek and the lower Gympie Terrace areas. Live worm and yabbies have produced some real elbow slappers. Surface lures are working well on the tailor as they make their way into the river chasing bait fish. Areas like the sand bags, Woods Bay and the river mouth have produced some good fish, trevally have also been in on the action with big giant and golden trevally on offer.
Night hours and low light periods have seen some good mangrove jack being caught. Paddle tail plastics and prawn imitation soft plastics have been accounting for some good fish when fished around heavy structure like pontoon and moored boats. Crabs are really coming on with some large bucks potted after the rains last week, set your pots in deeper holes down river, fresh mullet continues to be the prime bait.
With the swell and wind up last week, the beach fishing has been a little more difficult. Fishing early morning or evening higher tide will be the better times.
Captures of good sized whiting have been reported on the Noosa North Shore using lightly weighted fresh worms and pippies. Cast to the back of the white water and slowly rolled along the bottom should see a result.
There has also been some good reports of tailor and smaller jew coming from the southern beaches around Coolum. The river mouths have been producing some good giant trevally fishing the start of the run out tide as well as the dirty water line has produces the better fish.
For the offshore anglers, windy and wet conditions have kept plenty of boats on the trailers, for those that did get out the closer reefs produced a good mixed bag including snapper, sweetlip, cod and coral trout.
The charter boats did manage a couple of trips to North reef in pretty sloppy conditions. Plenty of quality fish were boated including trag jew, sweetlip, pearl perch, jew, trout and cobia. The charter tend to use the good old paternoster rig with the heavy snapper sinker, loaded with both pilchards and squid.
In the freshwater; soft plastics rigged weedless and fished close around the weed edges in Lake McDonald has been producing bass. Wriggle tail and paddle tails have been working well. Trolling smaller 40-70mm diving lures with a wide bibs worked along the weed edges and along the drop offs has also produced some great fish. Lake Borumba is producing some quality toga and bigger bass in the 45cm size despite the weather conditions. Spinner baits and blades have been working well.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures!
