Wow! That’s Christmas out of the way for one more year. Now let’s focus on some tight line action.

Whiting, whiting and more whiting is the word on the street. The local boys have been bagging some great hauls ranging from large to extra large. The ones I have seen have been real slappers. They have been weighed in at 675g – now that’s a respectable whiting in anybody’s language.

I know they come a bit bigger but not much, so if you can grab yourself some live bloodworms or beachworms (most of the locals prefer blood over beach, but in my book either will bag the same results most days of the week) you will ensure yourself the best chance of hooking up on this perfect Passage species.

They have been coming out of Ningi, Elimbah, Hussy and Coochin creeks and the surrounding shallow banks. Follow the tides up the banks until the tide is full, getting as far up the creek as possible. The smaller your boat the better as it will draw less water so you can get up higher on the shallow water banks where these fish are feeding, because remember when they’re feeding they only need enough water to cover their backs and fell comfortable.

I shouldn’t have to remind you but I will; you need to be as quiet as a church mouse. No banging around the boat dropping sinkers on the hull or using heavy feet or crashing tackle boxes down. Fish ultra light, anything over 6lb is way too heavy and just takes the fun out of it and spooks the fish into hiding. Use as little lead as possible and keep it a long distance from your hook (400mm trace line). You need as much tidal run as possible: no run = no fun and the bigger the tides the better. I find that Pumicestone Passage whiting rarely feed on a low tide, so chase them on high tides. Just remember the size and bag limits on the whiting is 23cm and 30 per person in possession at any one time.

There are still some good duskies around. The ones I have been seeing have been around the 45-60cm mark, but I have had reports of much bigger fish coming in, I just haven’t seen them to get a photo. I had a large girl up close to the boat but my net man let me down, I’m blaming him anyway – a good man always blames his tools. In this case it was the tool on the end of the net. Again soft plastics in the more natural colours have been doing the damage on light gear even lighter than normal as the passage is running clear at present and as long as we don’t encounter any horrid weather it will remain clear.

The bream have been playing the game with better than average size fish and numbers being taken all over the Passage. I saw one guy pull fish after fish straight off the end of the boat ramp - all good size fish, his biggest went 38cm. Not a bad effort in my book. He has been doing this morning and afternoon on any tide using fresh prawns. High five young fella!

The Passage has a sprinkling of queenfish in it at the moment, but they have been very hard to target as they bust bait schools hard and fast, then move on even faster, so just keep your eyes on the water for high concentrations of bait and look for the bust ups and ensure you have a large surface popper on stand-by ready to roll.

Grunter bream are going great guns out from the mouth of Glassy Creek. When I say out from the mouth, I mean the deeper water that leads into the main passage south to the yellow cross and north to Mission point camp ground. Use the deeper drop offs for best results. Don’t be surprised if you hook into some other nice species in this same area, like jew, flathead, whiting, bream and queenies.

Blue swimmer crabs are thick in the deeper section of the passage at present so grab your pots, some fresh mullet, the kids and get cracking.