With the current weather patterns, it’s all guns blazing in the northern bay on the fishing front. Many anglers have enjoying the good weather over the last month giving them ample opportunities to christen their newly acquired Christmas presents. It’s not that anglers ever need an excuse to hit the water but heading out with new artillery in your possession always puts a spring in your cast!

Constant northeries have played a little havoc for smaller boated anglers heading out to their favourite inshore spots but this hasn’t deterred them from hitting their ‘Plan B’ spots in our many estuaries. With the few afternoon storms we have had of late, many of these estuarine anglers have taken advantage of the flushing ebb tides to nab some good mud crabs, especially in the upper reaches of the Pine River and the Pumicestone Passage. Along with the muddies, nice sand crabs have also been picked up in Bramble Bay and the southern end of Deception Bay making the day out on the water a complete success.

Reddy has been fishing pretty well of late with a good mix of bream, juvenile snapper, flathead and summer whiting hitting the decks. Bream have been in their normal summer bite patterns roaming in small packs hunting for their next feed giving anglers multiple catches in quick succession.

For the lure assassins, topwater lures have been working well along with deeper cranks along the edges during the flooding tides. Also during these tides good flathead have been picked up in the shallows and outside creek mouths with soft plastics and lightly weighted fresh baits.

Lately we have had a good summer bite of juvenile snapper, which is a nice treat with these hard fighting species giving fishos a run for their money amongst the gaggle of bommies that occupy the peninsula. Fresh mullet, lightly weighted hardiheads and squid strips have been amongst the preferred baits with soft plastics like Z-Man GrubZ, Atomic Jerk Minnows and Shads Lures Ribbed Candys collecting a few casualties.

The Pine has had its ups and downs of late but the estuary has always been influenced by rainfall activity, which has known to give it a good cleaning. As per usual the bulk of the activity has been down the mouth with fish seeking more saline waters during times of the wet.

Dohles Rocks, mouth of Bald Hills Creek and the fishing platform on the Ted Smout Bridge have been productive during the warm months with bream and flathead being the menu favourites. Hays Inlet has also been good on the full tides with The Wells keeping pretty quiet.

On the southern side of Bramble Bay keen land-based anglers have been pulling nice legal bream and whiting off the walls of Eventide and Shorncliffe and amongst the trawlers in Cabbage Tree Creek. Mangrove jack have been far and few between up the Pine with only a few bust offs to report.

Bream, bream and more bream have been the flavour of the month up there with the hot spots being Cooks Rocks, Tiger Rocks, Bongaree Jetty, Ningi flats and the Pacific Harbour Canals with the rising tide being the recipe for success. Mid diving cranks, like Cranka Cranks, Jackall Chubbies, Atomic Crank 38s and Ecogear SX40s have been on the hit list with Pontoon 21 Greedy Guts 55SP also working a treat.

Northerly winds tend to push bait into the passage making it a great area to fish for bream during extended periods of wind from that direction. Flathead have also been littered throughout the passage with Glasshouse Creek and the 112s reporting well along with the weed flats outside Bells Creek during the lower lighted hours.

With the blistering sun beating down on us of late, we all keep a close eye on sun protection for our delicate skin. But also remember to do the same for your gear, as the heat can accelerate the aging of your gear ten-fold. Sinkers, swivel and hooks are less of concern but precious expensive lures and soft plastics can often melt in their containers when left in the sun too long. So the golden rule is ‘if you aren’t using it, store it’!