By Jack Mangrove
With the cooler weather we have experienced over the last week, anglers have had to dust off their favourite fishing jumper and get out there, the offshore gang have had a field day and with light offshore winds and little swell, have seen some great fish hitting the decks. Starting at Sunshine Reef there has been a good mixed bag including squire, maori cod, sweetlip, the odd tuna, pearlies and cod.
Fishing the slow sinking floater method seems to be the most productive with plenty of fish taken as the bait makes its way through the water column.
North Reef and Chardon’s Reef have produced snapper, pearlies, moses perch, sweetlip, and tuna.
Micro Jigs have again proved their worth with plenty of quality fish bagged using this method.
Plenty of anglers also did the run out to the Barwon Banks, there are reports of plenty of whales in the area so it goes without saying to keep your eyes peeled, there is always an upside to the whales being around and that is quite often there will also be cobia following these pods feeding on what the whales leave behind.
Up towards Double Island, red emperor have still been coming in as well as good size pearlies, snapper and jew.
In the river there are still heaps of bream being caught throughout the system. The river mouth has been producing some nice fish to 35cm on strip baits and mullet gut. Smaller grub style soft plastics on lightly weighted jig heads have been of the lures of choice.
Flathead have also been plentiful with a lot of good-sized flathead being caught along the Gympie Terrace stretch and around the frying pan.
A few larger fish have been caught around the current line, dog beach and river mouth. Live baits and soft plastic in the prawn profile have been working well, trolling hard body lures is another effective method and covers a lot of ground.
Good sized big eye and giant trevally along with tailor and queenies have been taken at Woods Bay early morning and late arvo on surface lures. Golden trevally have gone a bit quiet over the last week however the odd one being caught on small micro jigs and soft plastics.
There have been plenty of school sized jew in the upper reaches of the river with live baits doing most of the damage, most fish have been undersize but there has been the odd fish that made size.
The beaches have been glorious with the early morning and late afternoons the prime times, anglers that have made the trip up to Noosa’s North Shore were not disappointed with some good catches of tailor reported, along with the tailor there were some nice bream, flathead, whiting and bigger dart.
Most anglers are bait fishing with pillies, mullet strips, and salted bonito. The rock hoppers have been getting some nice fish at the rocks around Noosa National Park and Sunrise Beach – tailor, large bream and small snapper have all been taken.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures!
