Bream are on the bite

Mulloway catches are best close to bar entrances on the turn of the tide by those using live bait, big fresh fillets of fish or large soft plastics hopped slowly over the bottom. Bream catches improve on the run in tide around anything that disrupts the tidal flow including submerged rocks, trees or rough rubble bottom. Best baits are yabbies or mullet and fowl gut.

Tailor catches have been great in estuaries and the surf. There have been good numbers caught from the seaway, Pin Bar and channel junctions close by. There have been a few in the early evening on the Southport Pumping Jetty and beaches to the south but catches have been hit and miss.

Flathead continue to be in excellent numbers. Best catches have been on the dropping edge of sand banks around river mouths and bar entrances.

Look for sandbanks on the edge of main channels and pepper them with casts – deep diving lures, soft plastic on the bottom or small baitfish have been the best.

In the bay it’s still all about snapper and the deeper wrecks and reefs are still the pick of locations. The shallows around the bay islands are plagued with small bream but if you are there before daylight you are in with a good chance of a quality snapper.

Schools of tailor and the odd school mackerel around are making it worthwhile to have a floating pilchard out as well. Offshore the main species caught include snapper, tuskfish, pearl perch and a few mulloway in the shallows and the odd cobia and kingfish.

Better quality snapper have been caught by float-lining or slow troll livies. Bottom bashing is producing numbers but not quality. On the freshwater scene the upper reaches of Copeland and Split Rock dams have been on fire for big cod, rolling spinnerbaits in among the boulders is the best technique.

Wivenhoe is turning up a few big female bass and the Kirkleagh arm of Somerset is producing a few yellowbelly. Bass catches have been slow in North Pine Dam, Hinze, Maroon and Moogerah dams.