By Jack Mangrove
WITH the offshore scene still a little on the blowy side, anglers tended to opt for the river with some great results, starting at the river mouth and Dog Beach.
There have been plenty of quality bream being landed off the rocks at the river mouth and around at the Dog Beach. Most anglers using fresh strips of mullet, whole small Hardy Heads and live bloodworms.
There have been a few quality flathead along Dog Beach – fuze soft plastics have been working a treat on the flaties. The odd mangrove Jack has been caught on livies, strip baits and soft plastics.
Expect to find tailor and trevally around the mouth harassing the bait schools as they move into the river.
On the other side of the river, the Frying Pan has also seen good bream. This time of year you’ll often find some good tailor around the Frying Pan, medium size Strada poppers and walk the dog lures are a good option and provide plenty of entertainment as you see the fish crunch the lure. Some of the favourites are the larger Bassday Sugapen 95F and River2sea Baby bells popper.
Woods Bay and the Noosa Sound have had mixed schools of trevally including golden, diamond and big giant trevally. Early morning and late afternoon has been producing some nice fish. Micro jigs continue to be one of the stand out lures for chasing trevally throughout the river and allow you to cover a lot of area and fish the entire water column. Soft plastics are another consistent producer with a good mixture of baitfish and prawn imitations producing the goods.
Up on the Ski Runs, the odd jewfish has been coming from the deeper holes, and large flathead up to 80cm have also been reported from the same area with soft plastics and live baits doing the job.
For those that have larger boats and are able to cope with the sloppy conditions, North Reef has seen snapper showing up in better numbers. Cobia, pearlies and amberjack have also been on the menu. Micro jigs and soft plastics have been scoring some nice fish if you want to mix it up from the conventional bait methods.
Sunshine Reef is best at night with good numbers of squire and snapper getting caught on well-presented baits. Burley is key when chasing snapper and frozen burley logs positioned up current from your baits will greatly improve your chances of a larger snapper. Anglers who are making the effort to get out early just on sunrise have been have also had some great success.
On the beaches, anglers who have made the run up to the North Shore have been rewarded with some quality tailor, again the better fish seem to be coming at night.
Jew are also starting to show up and we should see better fish as we move into the new moon.
During the day whiting, dart and bream are all coming from the closer gutters. The rocks in the National Park have also been a favourite with angler targeting tailor.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures.
