With the water temperatures pushing over 20˚C at the start of September, this month should see the bay hit the magic 23°C mark and that means only one thing – pelagics!

Last month Platypus Bay had scattered schools of mac tuna and a few longtails busting up north of Arch and typically this month should see an increase in surface activity. Look for condensed gatherings of bait on your sounder and diving birds to find tuna, spotties, schoolies, trevally and billfish. Trolling a spread of lures or casting plastics, slugs and stickbaits will get you connected to the fish, just match your lures as close as possible to the baitfish in the area.

The fishing has been hit and miss at times with Rooneys, the gutters, 25 fathom and the local reefs all experiencing quiet spells. In the tough times all you can do is down grade tackle, fish the freshest baits on the better tides in the dawn and dusk periods if you can, and persist!

The guys who have caught fish have had a mixture of snapper, cod, coral bream, hussar, blackall, trevally and trout on flesh and live baits as well as plastics.

Summer whiting, bream and flathead are responding to live yabbies, plastics and small poppers from Wathumba Creek to Ungowa. Golden trevally are stalking the flats and drop offs that run along Fraser Island chasing whiting, baitfish and crustaceans and are easily targeted on live bait, lures and fly. Try creek mouths and sand bars that spill on to a decent ledge for best results.

Recently I heard of an incident where a boat was heading home from a trip up to Platypus Bay a few hundred metres off Fraser at speed when they hit a whale that breached in front of them. Luckily no one was seriously injured but one bloke ended in the drink and the others were a bit banged up. I am told the whale swam off seemingly unaffected and the boat swamped with water from nearly flipping was bailed, the motor started and the trip home could be completed under their own steam.

Whales are a part of life in Hervey Bay at this time of year and we all need to be aware of what can happen. Slowing down or at least keeping higher speeds to water shallow enough to eliminate the risk of whales goes a long way to eliminating the risk of fatality on the water.