Small jewfish were in big numbers in the middle reaches of rivers.
Luke Stratford landed his personal best tailor recently.
Hot action on a mix of species
J
Ben Monro landed a nice grunter on a Berkley Gulp soft plastic.
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Page 8 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, July 2024
ULY is a great month to be on the water around Brisbane. The action can be hot, with multiple species available. The wet start to the year had all the rivers and creeks running brown for quite a while. Yet the rain stopped and the start of winter kicked off with a bang. The rivers have cleaned up nicely, which has allowed baitfish and predators to get back into the upper reaches. This gives anglers more areas to search for preying fish, instead of being forced to fish around the mouths of rivers and creeks. Species such as threadfin salmon, jewfish, flathead, grunter, tailor and bream will all be available in the middle to upper reaches this month. Currently the rivers are full of small jewfish ranging from 30cm up to legal fish. I haven’t been able to find a legal fish yet, but there should be a few getting about. They must have had an excellent spawning period recently, as it’s not uncommon to land
Local Luring by KEITH STRATFORD
double figures of small jewies in each session. Threadfin salmon numbers are also looking promising. I’ve been sounding up some big fish in the middle reaches of the rivers and plenty of smaller fish of just legal size are getting around. Bigger threadfin can be difficult to get a bite from when they’re not feeding aggressively. They can be a little leader shy and are capable of rubbing through leaders up to 30lb in a couple of seconds. I tend to keep my leaders light, so I get the by-catch that feed in the same areas. If you can get a hook in the threadfin’s mouth, it’s possible to land a big fish. It can take a little of luck, along with some skill. Threadfin salmon are known for changing direction very quickly during the fight. Many anglers may think they’ve lost the fish, but it has simply
turned around and started to swim straight back at them. It’s very important it keep pressure on the fish at this stage, so that the hook doesn’t fall out. Grunter have made an appearance in good numbers in the middle to upper reaches too. They are one of my favourite fish to target. They fight hard and are absolutely delicious on the plate. As they are a schooling fish, once you find one, there’s a good chance there are more in the area. Flathead will turn up almost everywhere this month. The deep bends will hold some good quality fish. They are a very common by-catch when targeting bigger species such as jewfish and threadfin. Speaking of bigger fish… sharks were still causing problems upstream. On my last trip, we * continued P9
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