Winter is here and very cold water levels at Lake Monduran have settled at the moment.

Noticeably a lot of the really good weed beds have disappeared while the water has receded. Fish are still being caught up in the shallows in the warmer bays and weed beds. Some of the better fishing is around the local creeks and rivers with plenty of dam or impoundment fish making for the coast as local dams have overflowed. This takes time to check out but is well worth the effort.

Fishing Lake Monduran is best on hardbodied lures like the Rapala X-Raps or Shad Raps around the edges and trees or weed-less plastics up in the backs of bays using stealth to move up on the fish. Whatever way you choose fishing is hard.

Future fishing is a bit of unknown at this point but we hope fishing will return to what it was in the summer months, no fairy tale endings here I’m sad to say.

Fish stocks are low and we hope to put more fish in the system around November. Funding is still needed so if you are willing you can donate money through the caravan park at the lake, which is part of the new adopt a barra program. This is your opportunity to help in stocking and be included in the process of stocking.

Offshore has seen some of the best reef fishing in years. If you have the ability to fish areas some 40 nautical miles to the east of Bundaberg there have been some great red emperor catches. The flat country between Lady Eliot Island and the light ship seem to be the best places to fish.

Look for reef in the 40m and the 60m contours on the chart seem to hold plenty of good reef species. Fishing east of Fitzroy Island and the Bunker group of islands has reported some of the best captures of coral trout this year.

The months ahead may see some return to the el niño pattern of fishing with small black marlin moving in around the wrecks and reefs of 1770 around August/September.

The sailfish generally move in around the spit off Fraser Island around September; this year we hope to see them schooled up with the smaller black marlin. In the past years we have hardly seen any black marlin in close to the Spit but this year it may return to its former glory with over 30 bites a day light tackle fishing.

In the creeks, they all seem to fire up as the warmer weather comes back around September. This year will see some surprises as barra will show up everywhere with the recent overflows of the dams. This will make a great surprise to lure fishers working the creeks for jack and fingermark.

If you fish the low tide working back up the river with the inflow of fresh saltwater produces great results for fishing in the Baffle.

Impoundment fishing all over the state is in disarray, for the summer you may try supplementing some of your trips to the dam with some saltwater action.