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Perfect weather, perfect fishing!
  |  First Published: April 2016



There is so much red-hot fishing to come this month! Flathead are firing just about everywhere, as well as solid bream, jacks, whiting, trevally and prawns. Trevally have been caught mainly in the early morning and late afternoon, with the best results achieved on high tides. Early morning and late afternoon is when the bait fires; try and find a canal with retaining or rock walls where the bait normally hold to take advantage of this.

Flathead are seriously going off! Late afternoons with a run-out ride around 4pm are the most successful periods. For example, if the low tide is at 6pm, fish from 5pm up until the low tide. Find drains in the mangrove-lined banks where the flathead will lay waiting for anything to swim over, coming out of the drain or little side creek. Cast to the drain and retrieve it back. Some big fish have been caught lately, ranging from 50-80cm.

Bull sharks have been hunting around, smashing bait on the surface at random through the river systems. They have been spotted spiralling and even getting some airtime. If you’re interested in catching one try fishing with small, live poddy mullet on 60-80lb+ mono leader with 50lb braid mainline. Using a float about 1.5m from the hook is a good option as well.

The mouth of the Logan River and the early parts of Jumpinpin are prawn hot-spots. Just last month and late February we had a crazy amount of prawns caught, with fishers filling their bag limits (10L) within a short period of time. Basically, if you find the boats, you find the prawns. A mate tells me it’s like a war on the water to get the prawns. If you aren’t so keen on prawning, Peter’s fish market isn’t a bad spot either!

GT and big eye trevally smash up bait in the early hours of the morning along retaining walls. Shaded areas where the bait is more likely to sit are the areas where you will find the most action. Bridges are the main structure I use to target these pelagics. With the increased number of prawns in the canals it would be smart to use a prawn type lure, including Zerek, Prawnstar, etc. Keep the lure size quite small to match the bait, I would recommend something around 40-60mm – a 2” ZMan GrubZ in hardy head is a perfect jelly prawn imitation.

Overall, April is good month for getting out there and ‘wetting a line.’ The weather will be mostly good with the odd thunderstorm and rainfall about. Make the most of this heat before the cool sets in, and I hope you get into some fish! If you would like to be featured in my article with a nice fish shot, flick me an email at --e-mail address hidden--

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