by Jack Mangrove
With the water starting to cool now is a great time to target those cold water species. In the Noosa River there are still plenty of quality bream being landed off the rocks at the river mouth, the sand bags at the dog beach and the deeper sections of Woods Bays. Most anglers using fresh strips of mullet, whole small herring, prawns and live bloodworms. Around the Frying Pan there have also been some great bream as well as some elbow slapper whiting! Great targets when using small surface lures and small soft plastic with grubs and minnows being very effective. This time of year you’ll often find some good tailor around the frying pan, due to the large schools of bait in the river. Medium size poppers and walk the dog lures are a good option and provide plenty of entertainment as you see the fish crunch the lure. Woods Bay and the Noosa Sound has also been firing with mixed schools of trevally including golden, diamond, cale cale, tea leaf, big eye and giant trevally feeding hard early morning and late afternoon. Up on the Ski Run jewfish continue to be caught with fish up to 80cm taken on soft plastics and live baits.
On the Offshore seen out of Noosa, plenty of snapper have been boated from North Reef. The low light periods with a high tide has been the key, another great way to improve you catch rate is making sure you are setting a burley trail, small cubes of pilchards tossed into the water at regular intervals will create a burly trail and help to bring the fish on the bite. Try fishing as light as possible with lightly weighted bait similar to the same size as the burly, this method has been getting some good results. Sunshine Reef has had good numbers of squire sweetlip and the odd trout, again fishing with burley has produced the best fish. Pearl perch have been in good numbers around Chardons Reef along with cobia and jewies. Larger boats that made the run out to the Barwon Banks were rewarded with amberjack, snapper, gold band snapper, pearl perch, cobia, venus tusk fish, hussar and Maori cod.
On the beaches it is all about the jew, and it seems we are on the comeback trail when it comes to the amount and quality of jew available, good fish have been travelling up our coastline with big fish taken from Maroochy River Mouth all the way to Double Island. Fresh mullet has been the most popular bait and the most successful anglers are the one that are up early or fishing into the night, team this with an incoming tide and a decent gutter and you are most defiantly in with a chance. Big bream are also on the menu with some great fish up to 35cm coming from the gutters.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures!
