THERE has been some good quality mulloway caught off surf beaches over the past few weeks.
Most of the action has been in northern NSW but those fishing local beaches on both North and South Stradbroke islands have also caught quality fish.
As always, live mullet has produced the better quality but a lot of legal fish have also been caught on beach worms, pilchards and mullet fillets.
There are also been good numbers of tailor in the same areas at dusk and dawn and smaller chopper tailor spread throughout estuary waters.
Winter is here and as a result bream are dominating catches in all waterways.
It’s a great time of year to take the kids land based fishing, use yabbies, mullet gut or a cube of mullet and they should get lots of bites and catch a few.
In Moreton Bay the snapper catches have been good, pick of locations has been the shallow reefs off Scarborough. There has also been a few caught from the bay island shallows and artificial reefs.
There has been good numbers of squid in the bay and working a squid jig off any of the foreshore jetties or rock walls of an evening has been productive.
Diver whiting numbers are excellent, with all sandbanks holding good numbers. The best way to find the schools is to drift until you start catching fish.
Surprisingly, there are still good numbers of mud crabs around. Most have come from smaller creeks and drains, not the larger bodies of water.
Offshore, snapper have dominated catches on all reefs. In among the snapper there’s been pearl perch, tuskfish and, surprisingly, quite a few tailor and a few trevally taking moving baits on the drop.
This time of year is usually a good time to fish the shelf in 200, to 500m of water for blue eye trevalla, hapuka and bar cod.
Keep an eye out for a few days of light and variable winds for suitable conditions to get out there.
On the freshwater scene, there’s still cod and yellowbelly on the bite in western rivers and lakes.
Fishing is a bit slower in east coast waterways.
There’s still a few bass in local waterways, especially if you’re using live shrimp.
Results are a little slower for anglers using lures.
