Well, we certainly have had a taste of winter this year and I am well and truly over it.

Unfortunately, August also is renowned for a few cold westerlies, so I guess we all better just harden up. The water temps around Bundaberg have dropped dramatically and the Kolan River on my last trip was a scarily low at 15.4°C.

Despite this we still managed to catch a few fish and I even caught a very confused mangrove jack on a small blade meant for a bream or flathead. So just because we’re not used to the cold, the fish will still eat, you just have to find them.

The river has been a bit hit and miss of late, with some great reports of bream mixed with quite a few reports of nothing. It seems the big bream are still around and are biting well on the incoming tide in the deeper holes with fresh baits like live yabbies and prawns being the better producers.

The tailor have been around as well and those in the know have already had a few good sessions on some cracker tailor. Spinning with metal slices has worked very well once a school has been located. Keep your eyes out for bait schools in the river and fish around them, as the schools of hungry tailor won't be to far away.

The flathead are around in the river but have been harder to temp. My tip is to cover plenty of water, whether you’re drifting with baits or trolling a lure. This time of year the flathead aren't quit ready to spawn but will still start to school so once you have located a fish, stick around that immediate area and work it hard.

I caught up with Roger and Sally from Baffle Creek Caravan Park recently and their guests are still getting plenty of big bream.

This time of the year is the grey nomads time to travel north away from their cold homes down south, I guess they must have bought it with them this year. Roger reports their are quit a few kayak fisherman among the traveling anglers this year and they have been really cleaning up by just trolling small lures around behind their yaks. They have been catching big bream, flathead, tailor and a few queenfish closer to the mouth. It seems with the clean clear water a stealthy approach has been really paying off.

I have been lucky enough to get in a few trips offshore of late and have managed to put a feed in the icebox.

Tusk fish, hussar, cod, mosses perch, snapper and parrot all made it home to my freezer and has made for a few sensation feeds of fish.

We fished a few locations within 20 miles of the heads, all of which produced fish of various quality and size. One thing that really surprised me on one trip was the amount of undersized red emperor, we would have caught 30 odd small reds including a few that just snuck under the size limit. I am sure this is a good thing for the future but it would have been nice to just put one legal one in the boat.

The best baits we found were fresh flesh baits from whiptails to scad, with the better quality fish falling for big flesh baits.

We fished two different types of rigs with a standard paternoster rig and a running rig with a ball sinker. Both were effective, but when we fished around the rubble, the paternoster didn't get hooked up as much as the running rig.

This month should see more of the same weather and fishing as last month, so be brave and get out there and go fishing.