By Jack Mangrove
With the weather turning a bit average over last weekend most anglers kept to the river. Flathead are in great numbers in the river with the channels around the river mouth being the most productive. Soft plastics paddle tails and vibes have been working well in the deeper channels. Baits of small pilchard and prawns have also claimed some good fish. The whiting fishing has been very consistent this week. The top of the tide and the first hours of the run out have been the prime times with Gympie Terrace, down at the river mouth, the Dog Beach and Frying Pan all fishing well. A lot of whiting have been caught on surface lures this week with surface walkers claiming some quality fish. Live worms, freshly pumped yabbies and peeled prawns have also been the go to bait for catching a feed. Bream have also been caught in good numbers, the river mouth and the deeper channels in the lower section of the river on the top of tide has fished well. Very lightly weighted baits fished in a well maintained burley trail has claimed the majority of fish. Tailor and some nice sized trevally were also caught around Woods Bays with the larger fish taken around dawn and dusk. The current line and around the moored boats is also a place to target these fish. For those throwing plastics try the deeper sections of the river like in front of Coast Guard, around the Noosa Sound and the Tewantin stretch of the river.
On the offshore scene: with the wind and swell up last weekend most anglers kept pretty close to shore. Sunshine reef is producing great numbers of pearl perch, sweet lip, tusk fish, and Cobia. Snapper are around but mainly feeding in the low light periods in morning and afternoons. Jew Sholes has had a good run of better sized Mac tuna, long tail tuna, mackerel as well as good reef species this week with anglers having most of their success on floating whole pilchards, and a wide range of soft plastics fished through a good burley trail. Reports from Barwon Banks were from before the weather turned, but it was fishing well for cobia, tusk fish, Moses perch and Pearlies, while The Hards has producing Snapper, Tusk fish, a few red emperor, pearl perch, hussar, cobia and Mori cod. For those that are chasing the pelagic’s, numbers are starting to drop but quality and size has improved with some bigger fish taken over the past couple of weeks. There is still plenty of bait schools around for them to feed on so make sure you have a rod rigged and ready to cast.
On the beach: Sunshine beach has been fishing well for dart and bream using prawns, pippies and live sand worms. Fishing early morning and late afternoon, and using burley have been the best methods this week for catching larger numbers of fish. At Noosa North Shore anglers using metal slugs as well as whole ganged pilchards have landed some nice flathead and quality tailor, those fishing with fresh pippies and sand worm have also had some quality whiting and dart catches.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures!
