By JACK MANGROVE
WHAT a weekend it was last weekend – with the breezes dropping and little swell, anglers headed offshore in droves.
There have been some great snapper and pearlies around North Reef and Chardon’s Reef, with micro jigs and soft plastics a great way to fish these areas.
Rigging your plastics on the Berkley Elevator heads is a great way to help tempt these fish from the bottom, in sizes 5/0 and 7/0 and up to 4oz these heads give the plastic a great realistic look.
Sweetlip have been well spread throughout most of the major reefs, with some bigger fish caught during the lower light periods.
Tuna and mackerel continue to be caught around Sunshine Reef with most fish taking live baits on a slow floater. We’ve seen an abundance of live bait on most of the reefs at the moment which always helps with the amount of quality fish on offer.
On the outer reef like the Hards and Barwon Banks, larger snapper, pearl perch, cobia and jew were all accounted for.
In the river, the river mouth and dog beach area have been producing great number of quality bream, whiting and flathead drifting both live and dead baits. Live herring and live worms have been the stand-out baits and pilchards, worms and fresh mullet have been the favourite dead baits.
Luderick are also on the chew at the river mouth car park rocks sitting in around the eight-foot to 12-foot mark of water. Coolum cabbage has been the favoured bait.
Big schools of trevally have been prevalent throughout the Woods Bays and Noosa Sound area. They have been responding well to surface poppers as well as the Lucky Craft range of lures. Prawn imitation soft plastics like the Squidgy Prawns have also been doing the job.
Along the Gympie terrace stretch, using live worms has been producing some good whiting as well as quality sized bream.
A little further upriver, the Tewantin stretch and the first ski run has seen school jew in the low lights of the morning and afternoon. Vibe style lures have been dynamite on the jew and the odd trevally.
Lake Cooroibah has been producing great numbers of pan-sized flathead fishing hard bodies in the shallow water as well as brightly coloured soft plastics.
On the beaches, the weather was perfect with a prevailing westerly, the surf was fairly calm and some nice whiting and dart were taken. The top end of the Noosa North Shore has been the place to be if you are chasing tailor. The rocks around Coolum and Noosa National park was also a great place to hook a nice tailor.
Trevally and larger bream have also been on offer in the same areas.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures.
