Northern Bay

NORTHERN BAY Steve Nash

The cool weather is still with us but it’s slowly warming up, which means the fishing should start to heat up as well. The westerly winds keep the bay flat and the water clear, which is good for chasing some species but can make it a lot harder to chase those more finicky fish.

Over the last month, fishing in the northern bay has been steady with quality fish being caught. There are large numbers of winter whiting around, and tailor are schooling and feeding up in Deception Bay. There are also plenty of juvenile snapper and squid along the peninsula.

The start of July saw some cracker snapper having being caught in the bay and along Scarborough local reefs, we are now in the closed season but this will open up again very soon on 16 August. This will hopefully result in a good restart for the season. As this date comes effective, it will no doubt be very busy on the better snapper grounds as people taking full advantage of targeting them before they move out to deeper water again. RIVERS

After a relatively dry winter so far, a lot of baitfish have pushed up the top ends of our local creeks and the predators freshwater hits or creeks.

Another gangster that can be found this time of the year hunting the upper reaches are the line burning trevally. Watching these guys bust up the schools of baitfish in shallow water can be a heart raising mixing up your retrieves to see what is working on the day – quick burns, slow rolls, small hops – all will work, just mix it up until you hook up. BAY

This year’s squid season has been very good, with a dry winter and super clean calm waters. Great numbers of squid have been caught all throughout the bay. While numbers will start to drop off soon, it is still worth having a flick early morning or throughout the night. There have been a lot of arrow squid landed along the Redcliffe Peninsula and the occasional large tiger are amongst them. The weed beds along Moreton have been red hot during the mornings with most boats getting a good feed.

While snapper are off limits for the first half of this month, they will still be around for a bit longer. Scarborough rocky out crops have been fishing Wayne Lister getting amongst North Pine bass. Marty and Ronnie with a pair of shallow water snapper from the bay.

will follow. Good catches of soap sized mulloway and large flathead are being caught in the upper reaches of the North and South Pine rivers as well as the Caboolture River. This can change if a good amount of

Dave Hudy with an explosive trevally. Lee Major with a nice size flathead from the upper reaches of a local creek.

position. While these fish are nowhere the size of the open reef sized fish, on light line in less than a metre of water these things can pull some serious string. Small paddletail plastics with lightly weighted jigheads will give you maximum hang time in the water column. Then, well, with the better fish being landed late afternoons and nights. Plenty are falling for trolled diving lures, and live baits are producing the better fish on lightly weighted rigs. DAMS

Some days when the conditions have been perfect, the bass have been on the chew, kayakers and permit holders of the PRFMA at Lake Samsonvale have been getting cricket score bass numbers from the deep sitting on massive schools using spoon jigs, metal vibes and live shrimp.

Forgan Cove kayak area has been very hard to fish as it’s getting a lot of pressure over the last month. The large schools seem to be avoiding the area and the schools that are there shut down pretty quick after landing a few fish. If you do find a school and land a fish, it does help if you paddle away from the school and release it, as releasing them straight back into the school will definitely shut them down fast. Thinking outside the box is also helping, try throwing unusual lures, like small plastics or trout spinners, as it can make a difference as these fish are so heavily fished.

Remember if you want to fish our local dams, you will require a stock impoundment permit (SIPS) to fish if you are over the age of 18. These can be purchased online or your local post office.

While writing this, SE Queensland is just out of another lockdown so please make sure you abide by the COVID restrictions set down and if venturing on to the water, be safe.