Southern Bay

from Fishing Monthly Magazine | May 2022

Karratha

Numbers and quality coming from the bay

SOUTHERN BAY

Nick

Whyte There have been good numbers of mulloway and good size snapper coming from the southern bay the last month. Mulloway to over the metre mark and snapper up to 80cm have been reported. A lot of these bigger fish have been coming from isolated structure, like wrecks and the artificial reefs at Harries and West Peel. Make sure you keep an eye on your sounder and look for the larger schools to target. It can take some effort to find them but put Mitch Schampers with a quality bay mulloway on a recent Tech Fishing session.

Bill with a nice bay snapper.

in the effort and the results will come. Mulloway and snapper have been coming on plastics and soft vibes with Zerek Fish Traps producing the goods.

Long tail tuna and mac tuna have been around in good numbers in the northern bay. They are still yet to move to the southern end though, with the water still being a little dirty at the time of writing. Some good quality fish amongst them too with fish to 15kg been reported. Because of the size of the fish they’ve been chasing larger baits, with big plastics and 110-160mm stick baits being a good starting point. Zerek Zapplins in the 115mm size and 6” McArthy jerk minnows in bubblegum colour are a couple of my favourite lures. You can rig your plastics on 3/4 or 1oz jigheads to give you great casting distance as well.

With the smaller mac tuna, they are eating the smaller whitebait. So silver or white patterns in the smaller slugs of 15-30g have been the killers. Mustad Mezashi casting jigs have an awesome finish and match the hatch perfectly. The fish have been mainly north of Harrys so make sure you are careful around the green zone in the middle of the bay.

There have been some nice juvenile snapper and sweetlip coming from the southern bay with pan-sized fish being consistently caught from the shallows at Goat Island, South West Rocks area and the sunken reefs at the north western side of Peel Island. Light line will make a massive difference to your catch rates during daylight hours but can afford to fish a bit heavier at night. Best results have come throwing 8lb leader 1/8 and 1/6oz jigheads with smaller 3-4” plastics. The low light periods have been fishing best and producing the better quality fish when fishing these shallower spots. Keep your eyes out for the showering hardiheads as the snapper will be right behind them.

Winter whiting numbers should start to improve this

month. As the water clears, the fishing should only get better. Check out all the usual haunts like the Navel banks, Rous channel, Amity Banks and the Pelican Banks. Remember to keep an eye out for all the green zones in these areas as well.

There have been some quality flathead caught down around the Jumpinpin area with lots of 60-80cm fish reported. Most of these fish have come from cleaner water closer to the bar itself. In the deeper water, there has been the occasional mulloway caught on live bait and bigger paddletail soft plastics like the 5-6” McArthy paddle tails. Smaller soft plastics or small trolled hardbodies have been ticking the numbers over up on the flats. Some of the best performing areas have been around Pandanus Island, Gold bank and Curuso Island. It’s also worth a look at areas close to the mouth of the Logan River as the water starts to clean up. There has also been quite a lot of small chopper tailor around the Pin area. These guys are balling up bait and chopping on the surface so it’s always a good idea to have a small plastic or slug rigged to cast at the surface feeding schools.

If you have a great capture from the southern bay you would like to share email them through to nick@techfishing. com.au Till next month Tech-it-easy.