From June through to December, we mainly focus on floating or snapper, but it’s been a different year so far.
It’s been hard to drive past the amberjacks and kingfish; we’ve been live baiting on the 42-fathom line and deeper. Mixed in with the kings and AJs have been some quality snapper also keen to hit the livies but they slowed toward the end of September.
The last couple of charters I did before heading to Fraser Island during the school holidays, we gave the live baiting the flick and switched back to floating and we’ve had no problem getting our bag limits of squire, with most fish from about just legal to about 50cm.
With the season starting a bit later than last year’s, we should see more quality fish showing right through til Christmas, especially on the shallow reefs.
Just briefly on my Fraser Island trip, we were up there for the first week of the school holidays. For the first few days we has strong southerlies, which made the fishing tough, but when the wind dropped, the tailor were red-hot and we landed plenty of fish between 50-60cm on lures and bait. There was also plenty of good whiting and dart in the gutters and as usual I had a great time on the island.
East of the South Passage Bar this month should see the continuing snapper run out in the deeper water and in the shallower reefs. Areas such as Shallow Tempest have been turning up some real quality fish.
With the water temperature increasing we should see some early season pelagic action such as wahoo and mahi mahi out around the Wave Rider off Point Lookout with the chance of a few Spanish mackerel. Quite often we see a small run of Spaniards around Shag Rock towards the end of November. My guess is that this year won’t be so good on the Spaniards just because we a cracker mackerel season earlier in the year, but you never know!
The law of averages says we have such as good a season as last but with so many small fish caught last season we should see some larger models turning up.
• Until next months, enjoy your fishing, take care on the coastal bars and if you’d like to join me on a charter (maximum 8 persons) give me a call on (07) 3522 9527 or 0418 738 750. You can also visit my website at www.outlawcharters.com.au
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While the focus has been on snapper, the kingfish and amberjack have been far too entertaining to drive past.
Amberjack like this and kingfish have been smashing livies off the 42-fathom line, giving clients smiles and sore arms!
There’ve been no problems getting our bag limits of squire while floating on the shallow reefs.
