By Jack Mangrove
THE Noosa River has again been the saviour of most anglers. With the wind up, the river offers some great protection from the elements.
The whiting have been outstanding over the last couple of weeks with some real elbow slappers coming from the river. Areas like the Frying Pan the Dog Beach and Gympie Terrace have all produced some cracker fish.
We are also seeing some good schools of bigeye trevally around the turn of the tides – the low light periods have been the best and with the morning and evening tides at the moment perfect for targeting these fish.
Giant trevally have also been in the mix along with big tailor. The sinking Jackson range of lures is perfect for these fish when they’re not quite feeding on the surface.
There’s a fair bit of movement up river with mangrove jacks coming from the structure that lines the area of river between the lakes. These areas are perfect for throwing suspending and diving lures close to the structure.
We are also seeing good flathead from the lower stretches of the river – for the bait anglers, drifting small frogmouth pilchards has been working well, and for the lure anglers slow hopping a soft plastic has been also doing the job.
On the beach, the tailor have definitely started to make their way back from Fraser Island. Good quality tailor have been taken from most gutters along North Shore – the feeding fish are lean and hungry after spawning up at Fraser. Whiting, dart and flatties have also been inhabiting the same gutters. Good quality pilchards are the favoured bait, with both mullet and bonito fillets claiming some nice fish.
On the freshwater scene, bass have been active on the edges of Lake McDonald on weedless soft plastics like the 3” Chasebaits from River2sea. As well as fishing the edges, bass have been active in the open water, therefore fishing vibes like the 65mm Fish Candy Paddle Vibes will get you success.
As the afternoons cool off the bass have been taking a liking to small surface poppers fished along the weed edges.
For the offshore crew, the wind has played havoc with a lot of offshore plans so most anglers are heading out before sun up and fishing the closer reefs and making the run home before the winds get to strong.
Reefs like Sunshine Reef, Halls and Jew Sholes were the targets with some nice sweetlip, and smaller snapper. Sunshine reef also gave up the odd coral trout.
Some of the bigger charters did head to the outer reef with some great results including snapper, pearlies, moses perch, Maoris, tuskies and gold spot wrasse.
The first Gone Fishing Day is this Sunday 16 October. This is a day when all Australians can get out on the water for a fish and celebrate our love of fishing. It doesn’t matter if you have never fished before, Gone Fishing Day is for everyone. So why not sign up for the biggest fishing event on the Australian fishing calendar. Jump on line and check it out and register at gonefishingday.org
On behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures
