Fishing Monthly - Latest Fishing Reports - Updated Weekly
loading sponsors banner ... please support our sponsors
COMPILED WEEKLY BY GARRY SMITH IN CAIRNS:
e-mail: lavallesmith@iig.com.au
Gold Coast

John Polson & Paul Revie
The Fisherman Pty Ltd
Sporty's Warehouse
32 Strathaird Rd. Surfers Paradise
Gold Coast. QLD 4217
Australia
Phone: +61 7 5531 6511
Mobile: +61 418 751220
www.thefisherman.com.au

Top
Moreton Bay
Not a lot of reports in this week due to lousy weather, except for the occasional morning mid week. Bream seem to the target species of many and the guys from the Bribie Island Sport Fish Club have been madly tagging good numbers of fish on the shallow reefs at Scarborough. Two anglers have tagged 40 or more fish some nights, for a few hours fishing and most have been quality fish. Peter Griffiths caught his best bream so far for the season, with a 44cm monster, that he landed on 2kg monofilament. Plenty of other fish were lost, however the light line definitely tempted the better quality fish.

A few squire are to be caught on the shallow reefs as well, but you will need to be extra quiet as the better fish can be a little spooky. Fresh flesh baits of mullet, tuna and squid seem to be the best bet for the quality fish. The humble frozen pillie will also produce a few good fish, but fresh baits are definitely the go if you can obtain them.

A few mackerel have been caught on spoons and drifted pillies in the top end of the Rous Channel, between beacons 4 and 5. It has definitely been a case of being in the right place at the right time, with the northern bank fishing best on the rising tide and the southern bank being best on the last of the run out tide.

An occasional school of small tuna has been working between the South Passage Bar and Amity on the rising tide. Live-baiting around any of the beacons is highly likely to produce a quality longtail. Local angler, Nino, caught three longtails over 10kg on livies at The Four Beacons last week from his boat “For Play”. It was a good effort, especially considering he was fishing solo.

The Jumpinpin area has been worth fishing for bream, whiting, flathead and mulloway. The bream have been biting best at night, especially around the deeper holes on the slack tide. Fishing the flats on the rising tide is also worthwhile, especially when drifting baits, as the bream and flathead have been relatively numerous.

An occasional school of tailor has been busting the surface between the bar and Crusoe. Occasionally tuna have also been caught, mainly macks to 3kg.

The mulloway have been a little hit and miss but anglers who persevere to get live baits have been rewarded with the occasional fish. Sharks, pike eels, shovel noses, rays and even stargazers and octopus are unwanted bycatch, especially when live baits of mullet and pike are scarce. The occasional large tailor to 5kg has also shown up to make the effort worthwhile for some.

May your bait be nervous.

Gordon Macdonald
Tackle Warehouse
Ph. (07) 3398 6500
masterbaitertackle@hotmail.com

Top
Moreton Bay - Wide

Strong westerlies destroyed safe fishing on the weekend, however the week days provided good weather and great fishing. Forty-five centimetre squire are in droves on the shallow reefs - please remember your bag limit. Trevally of all sizes and shapes are stealing baits and stretching arms as well. Diamond, turrum, giant, tealeaf and silver trevally have all graced the decks of the M.V. INCREDIBLE this week.

Yellowtail kings are also starting to school up in huge numbers. These are great fighting fish but only average tucker if frozen. While no bag limit applies, it does not make sense to keep more than a couple of these fish each. Release after photographing them is a better option, as some idiots are killing scores of these fish in a session.

Whales have suddenly appeared in great numbers also. Please treat the presence of these creatures as a hazard to navigation, especially if moving around in the dark. We had a few near misses last season, as these huge animals surface quite suddenly and unexpectedly at times.

Regards,

Keith Hall
INCREDIBLE CHARTERS
20 Courageous Ct,
Scarborough 4020
Tel: 3203 8188
Fax: 3203 8199
incrediblecharters@bigpond.com

Top
Southern Freshwater

Peter Taylor
Mullet Gut Marine
Ph (07) 4632 9770
Fax (07) 4639 2543
mullet_gut@bigpond.com

Top
Lake Boondooma
Lake Boondooma is fishing extremely well and some huge fish have been caught in the last week, especially yellowbelly on shrimp in the Stuart River.

Bass are going well on jigs where there are schools.

There are a few red claw around.

Kristy

Lance & Kristy Frahm
Lake Boondooma Kiosk
Open 7 days 8am-5pm.
Ph 07-41689694, fax is 07-41689691,
PO Box 24, PROSTON 4613.
lakeboondooma@wondaishire.com
Stop Tailor Netting - Phone (07) 3284 0043 or 0414 376 217
Bribie Is. & Caloundra
Moffat Beach Deep Sea Fishing Club Inc.
&
Shane Stewart Memorial Fishing Competition

For the past four years all 98 members of the Moffat Beach Deep Sea Fishing Club (MBDSF) have honoured the memory of their mate Shane Stewart. Shane was tragically killed in 1999 returning from a fishing trip, when the boat he was a passenger in collided with a houseboat that did not have its lights on.

Family and friends wanted to keep his memory alive so they formed the MBDSF. This year saw 157 competitors fight it out in the annual Shane Stewart Memorial Fishing Competition. Major sponsors, Dolphin Marine Centre and Yamaha, have followed and supported the cause for the past two years and will continue to do so in the future. Having major sponsors in place and so many active members, backed with terrific prizes, all builds up to one big competition.

The breakdown for the competition was:
Division 1 – Deep Sea Division 2 – Estuary & Beach & Mystery Weight Winners

The weather was without doubt a fisherman’s dream. New moon, crystal clear water sitting like a mill pond, with not a breath of air blowing. The competition was off to a cracker of a start. Plenty of undersized sweetlip were caught, but to match that a large number over 2.5 kg were landed. Big snapper where ever present, along with parrot, pearl perch and Spanish mackerel, while in Division 2, flathead, bream, whiting and tailor were all weighed in over the weekend.

Let’s take a look at the weights of all the winners and runner ups!

[Please see the tournament results section for the full wrap up of results] - admin

Brad McKendrick
Raine & Horne - Caloundra (07) 5491 3555
Compiled by Brad McKendrick from local fisherman with local reports.
brad@caloundraproperty.com.au
Sunshine Coast

Early morning in the Woods Bays has seen many anglers of late amongst the action, casting poppers and slugs. These glorious, still, sunny mornings enticed yours truly, hubby and kids out at daybreak, and we had a ball catching and releasing three nice sized trevally on surface poppers. The odd tailor were taking metal slugs, as were unusually, mullet.

Some quality flathead are taking small whitebait on the drift at the river mouth, and there are some excellent bream right throughout the system. In between the two lakes, anglers casting Mann's Stretch 15 lures are scoring the occasional mangrove jack, and whiting. Tailor were on the bite around the river mouth and the Frying Pan, with yellowtail pike active all the way up to Noosa Harbour.

The coastal surf beaches have continued to fish well and the North Shore has been particularly popular and productive. These beach gutters have been providing good catches of tarwhine, golden trevally and flathead.

Marcus Beach was a good option for chopper tailor, bream and dart, whilst at South Peregian Beach the catch was mainly whiting and dart.

Offshore, North Reef has been the most productive destination, and out wide, Barwon Banks is also producing well. Quality snapper and red emperor are amongst the mixed reefies, with some big cobia coming from Sunshine Reef.

Strong southerlies have slowed things for a couple of days, but all looks good ahead for Tuesday and Wednesday.

On the freshwater scene, at Lake MacDonald, the bass have been schooling up near the dam wall. Rattl'nTraps are still working well.

When in Noosa, call the guys at Davo's on 5449 8099 for all the current hot spots or visit www.fishingnoosa.com.au.

Cheryl Lacey

Davo's - (07) 5449 8099
www.fishingnoosa.com.au

Top
Hervey Bay

Jim Sullivan
Fisherman's Corner - Ph (07) 4128 1022
fishcor@itfusion.com.au

Top
Bundaberg
The new Green Zone maps are here! Call into Salty’s to pick up a copy of the new maps and regulations on the Green Zone changes that will take effect as from 1st July, 2004.

We all can’t get over how good the fishing still is at the moment! So, it just proves how important the rains have been to fish stocks and spawning this year.

Throughout the rivers the quality and the quantity of big bream, flathead and tailor has been great. Other species getting about are trevally, queenies, jew and heaps more.

Freshwater fishing has been a big hit lately for those targeting big bass on spinnerbaits and soft plastics rigged on a 9 gram head with 2/0 hooks. Gary and I had a friendly fish last Sunday, catching and releasing 19 bass with a few over 50cm and several over 45cm, as well as a few smaller ones. All fish were caught on jigged soft plastics.

Best breezes,
Tim Mulhall

Tim Mulhall / Matt Costar / Ben Shorten
Salty's Fishing Team
Salty's - Ph (07) 4153 4747
info@saltys.net

Top
Yeppoon

If you can't catch a fish around here at the moment, you should give it away and take up golf.

Keppel Bay is alive with mackerel. Out wide there are still excellent quality Spanos to be had, and they are mixed up with top quality doggies, then inshore the schools of spotties are arriving already. The Spanos are
particularly partial at the moment to jigged Taipans and the doggies are taking almost anything. Apparently there are a lot of just undersized spotties in the schools, so please check your size, as you can only keep six anyway, so just chase the bigger ones.

There are some good schools of blue salmon along the coast and they will take a well presented bait or metal lure. Headlands, beach gutters and the harbour are the best spots. But the old Fitzroy River is giving up a few too, along with the ever-present king salmon.

Bream are beginning to work and some good quality fish are being taken towards the front of the estuaries and around the headlands. The Causeway Lake will be well worth a night fish towards the latter part of the week.

The big snapper have arrived, so all we need are a few calm nights and you should nail a few of them just on dark. Ditto for reefies during the daylight hours.

The estuaries are fishing fairly well for flathead and there are patches of good whiting if you work for them.

So go out and get them. It's school holidays and the weather map is looking a bit hopeful for a few days this week.

Kim Martin

Top
Stanage Bay

Von Ann Ireland
stanagebaymarine@bigpond.com
www.stanagebay.com

Top
Mackay

OFFSHORE:
With our annual show behind us for a another year, which happens to coincide with the first snapper catches of the season, this year the wind played a big part in our succuss. Those anglers who ventured out for an early morning fish experienced little wind and made better catches. Fish averaging around 5 to 6 kilos were recorded. If you left your run too late - so sad.

Young Tony from Northside Fishing Centre and his mate Laeith trolled up a 12 kilo cobia from Roundtop Island, which will add to the other three reported catches there last week.
The only reason Spanish mackerel numbers are down is that the weather has been too rough to fish the Patch off Wigton Island, Sunken Reef and Joe's Hole off St. Bees Island.

INSHORE:
This has been one of our better queenfish seasons, with the southern breakwater at the harbour still producing 4 to 6kilo fish, much to the delight of visiting anglers.

East Point, at the mouth of the Pioneer River, is the spot to look for flathead on the incoming tide. With a full moon this week a fish along any of our beaches on the top of the tide should produce a mixed bag of whiting, bream and flathead.

CREEKS:
Constant Creek is hot with big black bream. One party nailed a dozen fish in two trips, while other parties reported catches of king salmon, flathead, and unusual for this time of year, a decent catch of crabs.

The creeks around Seaforth are holding a small amount of prawn - just enough for bait for a session on blueys and fingermark near Newry and Rabbit islands.

Good luck and tight lines.

Bruce Nash / Tony Lisciandro
Northside Fishing Centre - Ph (07) 4957 2272
Peter Faust Dam / Eungella Dam

Andy Thomsen (Fishing Guide)
www.andysfishing.com.au
0409 466 336

Top
Airlie Beach / Whitsundays

Andy Thomsen (Fishing Guide)
www.andysfishing.com.au
0409 466 336
Whitsundays - Bluewater
The cold weather has brought the water temperature down to 20 degrees C and the reds are on the chew. The reef has been fishing well when weather has permitted. The coral trout are still on the bite, even in shallow water of only 5 metres, while the Spanish mackerel on the surface continue to keep anglers happy with their blistering runs.

The Mackerel season looks like the best we have seen in years, due to the amount of bait fish in the Whitsundays, thanks to the rains we enjoyed early in the year. This means we are in for a good marlin season.

The Townsville tournament is now full, and I am looking for a team to fish the Hinchinbrook tournament, which starts on the 10th September, fishing three days until the 12th. $20,000 worth of cash and prizes are up for grabs and there is a whole lot of fun to be had in that beautiful part of the world.

I still have a few spots for the Cairns heavy tackle black marlin season. Can we have the hottest bite in the world, four years in a row? I think Cairns will fire again.

Tight Lines

Capt. Ken Bryant
Marlin Blue Charters Ph 07 49465044

www.marlinblue.com.au

Top
Townsville
The Townsville Game Fishing Club hosted it's second annual "Predators Tournament" the weekend before last and it was a great success. Over 340 anglers registered for this year’s event, and even though the weather turned fowl on Sunday there were more than enough fish caught during Saturday’s glassy calm conditions to keep the weigh masters busy for many hours. This year’s largest shark category was taken out by Peter Mitchell with a 127kg hammerhead. Debi Tolcher took out the largest nannygai/red emperor category with a 8.9kg red emperor and Garry Marks made the most of his weekend, collecting $1000 for tagging and releasing the only billfish (sailfish) for the weekend.

Weather conditions during last week were okay inshore, allowing many anglers the opportunity to get out and catch a few mackerel. I'd like to be able to give you a few specific spots to target, but it doesn't seem to matter where you go at the moment, as the fish are very plentiful in all areas, so my best advice would be to just go out and catch a few.

The estuaries have been a little quieter over the past week. Maybe the cooler weather could have something to do with it. Winter species like whiting and bream are plentiful, however as you would expect, the barramundi are very quiet and it should stay that way until it warms up a little.

Mud crabs are around in good numbers and from all reports most of them are 90% full.

A quick reminder that Green Zone maps are now available at all fishing and boating related stores and these new regulations will be in place from the 1st July 2004.

Until next week - Good Fishing.
Regards,

Tony Katsaros
Tackle World
Ph. 0747251266
tackleworldtsv@beyond.net.au

Top
Hinchinbrook

Al Goodwin
Crackajack Sportfishing Adventures
Lucinda Ph/Fax 61+07 47778365
crackfish@ozemail.com.au
www.crackfish.com

Top
Mission Beach

Malcolm Hills
FNQ Fishing Adventures- Ph (07) 4068 9000
fnqfishing@bigpond.com
www.fishingnorthqueensland.com

Top
Cairns

Robert Erskine
Erskine's Tackle Shop
51 Mulgrave Rd Cairns
Ph (07) 4051 6099
erskinestackle@bigpond.com
Cairns - Reports compiled by Garry Smith

Strong winds again destroyed weekend fishing, especially if you believed the Weather Bureau, who predicted a strong wind warning for Saturday. It turned out to be more like 10-15 knots but it was too late for most to change plans. Those that got out found trout, nannygai, reds and Spanish mackerel on the chew.

The estuaries have been pretty quiet, except for the southern bread and butter species, though a few lucky/persistent anglers have still been nailing the odd barra.

THE FISHING PARTY
The Fishing Party kicked off its Queensland campaign in Cairns last Wednesday night, with around 200 people in attendance. Wet miserable weather kept many away but the media and public response the following day certainly indicated the party is on the right track. The Fishing Party intend to stand a Senate candidate in the upcoming Federal election.

If you are sick of recreational fishermen getting a raw deal from both sides of the political fence, then you need to get off the fence and get behind The Fishing Party.

Garry Smith
lavallesmith@iig.com.au

Top
Port Douglas

Lynton "Heff" Heffer
Ph (07) 4098 5354
www.fishingportdouglas.com.au

Top
Cooktown

Leonard Todaro
Reel River Sportfishing.
PO Box 829 Cooktown Qld 4871
Ph 07 4069 5346.
reelriver@hotmail.com

Top
Karumba

Jason Jesse
Gulf Sportfishing Adventures
P.O. Box 228 Karumba
Phone - (07)4745 9434
gsakarum@tpg.com.au
www.gulfsportfishingadventures.com.au

Top
Weipa

Barra Dave Donald
Dave Donald SPORTFISHING - Ph (07) 4069 9064
DDSPORTFISH@bigpond.com
www.weipafishing.com

Top
Archived Weekly Reports

5/1/2004 12/1/2004 19/1/2004 27/1/2004
2/2/2004 9/2/2004 17/2/2004 23/2/2004
1/3/2004 8/3/2004 15/3/2004 22/3/2004 29/3/2004
5/4/2004 12/3/2004 20/4/2004 27/4/2004
4/5/2004 10/5/2004 17/5/2004 24/5/2004
1/6/2004 7/6/2004 15/6/2004 22/6/2004



1/1/2002
7/1/2002
14/1/2002
21/1/2002
28/1/2002
4/2/2002
11/2/2002
18/2/2002
25/2/2002
4/3/2002
11/3/2002
18/3/2002
25/3/2002
1/4/2002
8/4/2002
15/4/2002
22/4/2002
29/4/2002
6/5/2002
13/5/2002
20/5/2002
27/5/2002
4/6/2002
10/6/2002
17/6/2002


1/1/2001
8/1/2001
15/1/2001
22/1/2001
29/1/2001
5/2/2001
12/2/2001
19/2/2001
26/2/2001
5/3/2001
12/3/2001
19/3/2001
26/3/2001
2/4/2001
9/4/2001
16/4/2001
23/4/2001
1/5/2001
7/5/2001
14/5/2001
21/5/2001
28/5/2001
4/6/2001
11/6/2001
18/6/2001
25/6/2001
2/7/2001
9/7/2001
16/7/2001
23/7/2001
30/7/2001
6/8/2001
13/8/2001
20/8/2001
27/8/2001
3/9/2001
10/9/2001
17/9/2001
24/9/2001
1/10/2001
8/10/2001
15/10/2001
22/10/2001
29/10/2001
5/11/2001
12/11/2001
19/11/2001
26/11/2001
3/12/2001
10/12/2001
17/12/2001
24/12/2001


3/7/2000
10/7/2000
17/7/2000
24/7/2000
31/7/2000
7/8/2000
14/8/2000
21/8/2000
28/8/2000
4/9/2000
11/9/2000
18/9/2000
25/9/2000
2/10/2000
9/10/2000
16/10/2000
23/10/2000
30/10/2000
6/11/2000
13/11/2000
20/11/2000
27/11/2000
4/12/2000
11/12/2000
18/12/2000
25/12/2000

Queensland Tide Times

Bureau of Meteorology