FISHING, BOATING AND ADVENTURES
T
he changeable weather has continued into April, which has been less than encouraging for fishing. Water temperatures have held steady since the big lot of rain, at about 26 degrees, and the water is still quite fresh and a little cloudy – which amounts to summer fishing conditions. The best places to find any fish have been the deeper gutters through the Passage. April is usually a month where the summer species are still prevalent in the Passage, but you also start to see the cooler weather fish turning up as well. Tides, moon phases, weather and wind all affect what’s biting and where but there’s usually a good chance to catch something in April, no matter what. The baitfish have been schooling throughout the Passage for a few weeks now, as the dolphins are trying to tell us – there are pods of dolphins chasing them up and putting on a good show as they catch them. Prawns have also really come on. Some bigger fish are chasing them about as a result. Some lovely bream have been caught, along with grunter and tarwhine. Some of the places to target bream have been north of the Ningi Creek
yellow marker, off Banksia Beach or further north, around Little Goat Island, especially on the rising tide. Plenty of grunters have been taking bait around Ningi Creek on the rising tide. Squid and worms have been good baits to choose; however, the squid is much better if you can get onto genuine local squid – better quality and a lot more effective. Camelia and Jarad’s 36cm grunter took pillies for bait.
Bram’s flathead is typical of the size you can expect at the moment – certainly good enough!
Flathead have been going for anything at all. There haven’t been many of impressive size but there are enough of them to keep people going. The 51cm flatty that Caleb caught has been a typical size – big enough but not huge. Sarah’s was a better meal – 68cm, caught at the old oyster leases at Ningi Creek, using pillies on a fast-falling tide. The falling tide has been the best time for flathead fishing. Intermittent showers are helping to cloud up the water at the creek entrances, so the flathead have been jumping at lures as well as bait – pillies. South of the bridge, mainland side, has been yielding some good catches; try pushing into the mangroves near the second green marker, towards the top of
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