What a difference a week makes in the fishing scene. Last week I had very little to talk about but a couple of days of no wind and wow what a difference.
Snapper have gone from good to great. Reports are coming from a variety of places and all are top quality fish. The Redcliffe area is fishing great with Scarborough reef being the pick of the spots, snapper up to 90 cm are a common catch at the moment. If you have fished this area recently you may have seen a few Marine Parks vessels just off the main northern reef. These guys are putting down an artificial reef just offshore hopefully in 6 months’ time this area will be full of life and will be ready for us to fish. The passage has also seen some quality snapper with fish of 60 to 70 cm being taken. Any place with structure seems to be holding fish at the moment so try the bridge, pacific harbor area as well as the gutters around the mouth of Ningi creek. Cooks’ rocks and Sunkens’ reef are also doing well for snapper and they are also the no 1 spots for tailor.
The next fish I want to talk about is flathead, it seems like someone flick the on switch for these guys as the reported catches are through the roof this week. I have had some of my regular flathead fishos telling me that after taking their bag limit for a feed they have continued to fish for them and caught and released another 20 odd fish for the day. An awesome sign that our system is healthy and a plentiful supply of food in the form of bait fish ( hardy heads ) is in the passage. The best spots for catching these tasty fish is the mud flats on the main side of the bridge and also the area around white patch at high tide as they come up to munch on the soldier crabs.
Whiting fishos have also been happy this week with the main area being the Cockle banks just in the northern end of Deception Bay, don’t forget your flares.