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Crossover season brings joy
  |  First Published: October 2016



The good fishing has continued to flow as our water temperature increases. The pelagic specimens have started to fire across the Sunshine Coast, with good numbers of cobia, mulloway, yellowtail kingfish and mackerel on the chew.

Currimundi, Inner Gneering and Coolum reefs are all producing quality school mackerel and longtail tuna with some specimens exceeding 10kg. Bait schools have been plentiful and these pelagic species have been hitting them hard. When approaching a bait school, take a stealth approach and motor up slowly. I like to cast a 20-30g chrome slug over the school and give it 5-10 seconds to sink, and then quickly retrieve it through the school.

Hook-ups will generally occur with this method, although you may have to repeat this process a few times until you get a strike. I generally use 20lb braid main line with a 10-15kg leader for best results.

Caloundra 12 Mile and wider Caloundra have been on fire with quality fish being boasted, including snapper, pearl perch, yellowtail kingfish and mulloway. The wrecks around this area have been fishing exceptionally well, especially around the moon and tide phases.

Wider Caloundra through to Barwon Banks have kept anglers busy on the troll with reports of mahimahi, small black marlin and sailfish hitting lures. Always lookout for working birds and current lines in the water and set your spread of lures effectively. I often run a mixture of skirted and hardbodied diving lures and often a skipping gar quite close to the back of my boat.

The Barwon Banks are continuing to produce quality numbers of snapper, tuskfish, pearl perch, yellowtail kingfish, tuna, and various members of the emperor family. This is also a great area to target pelagic species at this time of the year. Always be on the lookout when you are over the Barwon Banks for bait schools, working birds or dolphins, because wherever the surface is active, there is usually fish below.

We are moving into a transitional period of the year where our water temperature will vary anywhere between 20-23°C, so we have a choice of bottom fishing or trolling the surface for a pelagics.

Always be on the lookout for any debris or floating objects whilst fishing waters from 40m and deeper for the presence of mahimahi. These beautiful fish love to linger below anything floating on the surface. Generally, if targeting mahimahi I slow troll whole pilchards or live bait for 99% of my successive hook ups. Although lures can be effective, like I have said before, fresh is best!

As the water temperature rises over the next month or two, we will see Spanish mackerel, yellowfin tuna and wahoo turning up in numbers. So if snapper fishing is starting to bore you, dust off the overhead combos and get ready to do battle. If the deep blue isn’t your thing, then there is always the Gneerings, Murphys and Currimundi reefs for quality sweetlip, juvenile snapper, Maori cod, Moses perch and the odd kingfish.

Our estuaries across the Sunshine Coast have been producing quality bream, flathead, mulloway and the occasional mangrove jack. Our ever-popular Pumicestone Passage had been fishing well over the last month and with the rainfall we have had over the last month.

This rain has flushed our creeks and good numbers of quality mud crabs are being potted. Always check size limits of your crabs and release the jennies.

Pelican Waters bridge and areas around Military Jetty are good places to take the kids down for an afternoon fish and teach them just how special fishing as a family can be.

The Maroochy River had also been producing quality flathead, bream and some XOS mulloway around the Cod Hole. Potty mullet fished before and after sunset will improve your chances of catching these hard-hitting brutes of fish.

The beaches from Coolum to Bribie are always worth a morning or afternoon session for the chance of catching tailor, dart, whiting or mulloway.

So over the next month or so, keep your options open. If heading outside, pack a variety of spin and overhead reels, because in October, you never know what you’re going to catch.

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