There are some great fish are around this month, from big barra in the creeks to smaller specimens in the lagoons, all the way through to bream, flathead and whiting. Here is what’s happening where this month.

The River is getting fired up at the moment and is full of healthy barramundi and king threadfin salmon.

The typical way of getting the barramundi at the moment is to use deep diving hardbody lures and twitch them right into the strike zone before a very slow roll out of the structure. Currently, the barramundi have been more prominent around the rocky ledges and drop-offs. The rocks that emerge with low tide along Victoria parade, especially between the two city bridges has produced some very large catches.

The salmon have been caught with the vast amount of live prawns running in the river at the moment, however any smaller prawn imitations, even prawn patterned hardbodied minnows, have had success. The salmon have typically been caught along the banks where the water drops from around 1m down to deeper depths such as 3m and will sit on the edge of the drop-off trying to get the prawns.

The estuaries have seen some nice fish recently but the lack of cold weather this winter has meant the flathead have not really been that switched on and will shut down fairly early compared to last year. This doesn’t mean to say there are none however! There have been some great fish caught, many on curl tail grubs and prawn imitation plastics.

The bream and whiting are still out and about but have recently been more switched on to small hardbody lures and there have been less captures on plastics.

The local beaches and creeks have been full of grunter over the winter period and there have been no signs of them leaving with plenty of large captures along the creek mouths and rubble patches.

The dart, salmon and queenies have all provided some great entertainment recently with little metal slugs or sinking stick baits getting them most of the time. Letting the slug/stick bait sink to mid water column then pulling it back the layers of water can see you hook up on these fish. Many fishos have also had luck using live herring to catch the queenfish and dart along the beach. Catching herring is no hard task, a good pair of polarised glasses and a bit of patience is required. The herring normally sit along inlets and can be spotted by the silver flashes as the school moves just under the surface. A quick throw of a net will see many livies caught, which make exceptional bait.

The freshwater lagoons are fired up again, finally! There have been many reports, and a few captures of healthy barra and hundreds of tarpon that have suggested the fresh water lagoons, like the Yeppen and Frogmore, are fired up again. These are great places to shoot out to after work and have a quick flick with some bream weighted gear to cast out little poppers and stick baits.

Some exceptional poppers and surface lures have been hitting the market recently and look perfect for these situations. Nine times out of ten the colour doesn’t matter, it’s mainly the action, however on a full moon night I like to use black poppers to get a nice silhouette happening on the water.

If you’re out baiting in the rivers and creeks you may pull up a catfish or two, nobody really likes these local pests so instead of throwing them back, cut the spines off and put them in a bag, catfish make one of the best crab baits around.

The rogue heavy-duty crab pots are the go-to pots in the Fitzroy River.

Fish light get the bite!