Our winter pattern has begun and, with tourism picking up a little, we have managed quite a few trips into the wide, blue yonder.

Offshore has produced nice and steady catches at the moment. Most of our trips are in close where the fish have been biting well. We have hit decent patches of snapper, pearl perch and good mixed reef fish.

Live bait has been difficult to find recently. However, if you do manage it there are some great quality fish, like huge Spanish mackerel, big nannygai and coral trout and lots of estuary cod, coming onboard.

Fishing out wider we have found it easy to bag-out on parrotfish. Red emperor are also biting well on the northern grounds, particularly at night, and some quality snapper have shown up too.

Good whiting continue to be landed on the beach at Double Island Point with some big fish caught around the full moon. In the same area quite a few jew have been caught on live bait, mostly potty mullet.

Flathead are in good numbers. Big long drifts with stripped baits are working well.

There is a lot of tuna action around Inskip Point, which remains close to the beach. Small slug lures are working the best.

Mud crabs have slowed down, but haven’t completely stopped yet. There is still a good feed of them to be potted.

July is a great month for offshore fishing, probably my favourite winter month. Snapper start to respond to soft plastics more so than bait, which is my favourite way to fish.