Flathead on the bite | On the Water with Dave Downie

We're at the start of the flathead breeding season, so they have moved out of smaller creeks and backwaters towards bar entrances and river mouths. They primarily feed on small baitfish so whitebait, hardiheads, baby blues or any minnow-shaped lure that is on the bottom and moving are a good chance.

There have been a lot of mulloway under a metre caught over the past month.

The way to target them is slow hopping soft plastics, vibes or jigs slowly just off the bottom, especially around drop-offs into deeper holes, along underwater ledges and the edge of channel junctions.

Live bait is your best chance of landing a fish over a metre, fishing on the bottom in deep holes on the tide change is the best technique.

There's been a lot of small tailor in all estuary waters and surf beaches, one of the best seasons for quite a few years. Lures or pilchards fished in a good surf gutter at sunrise or sunset on just about any beach has produced results this week.

The northern Gold Coast beaches from the Seaway to Narrowneck, including the Pumping Jetty, has turned up choppers at dusk and there's been better quality on North and South Stradbroke islands and northern NSW beaches.

We're at the start of the whiting season, most fish over the past few weeks have come from the upper reaches of rivers and creeks, top spots have been the Nerang and Coomera rivers, Tingalpa Creek and Pumicestone Passage from Ningi to Donnybrook.

In Moreton Bay, there continues to be good catches of snapper on all artificial reefs and ledges along Stradbroke and Moreton Islands.

There have been great mixed bags of reef fish caught over the past few weeks.

In the shallows, there's been snapper, Moses perch and trag, in 50 fathoms on the deeper reefs the snapper quality improves and there's been good quality pearl perch. For those using live bait, catches have included some very big trag, kingfish, cobia and the odd amberjack.