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Have fun trolling, if you catch my drift
  |  First Published: November 2017



November is a transitional month east of the South Passage Bar, with water temperatures on the rise, and anglers are starting to target the pelagic species. Mahimahi and a few small black marlin have been caught and their numbers will increase in the coming months along with Spanish mackerel and wahoo.

In past years, we’ve often had an early run of small wahoo turn up late November to December in both the Point Lookout and Cape Moreton areas, but they haven’t shown up for the last couple years, so fingers crossed they do. High speed trolling with Halcos or smaller skirted lures is the go for these wahoo, which are usually in the 6-10kg range.

Late November to early December usually sees a few Spanish mackerel turning up on the Coffee Rock Reefs along Moreton Island, as well as around Shag Rock off North Straddie. After several boom years on Spanish mackerel, last year wasn’t as good, as the fish seemed to bypass us and areas like Wooli and Coffs Harbour south of the border saw good catches of Spaniards.

The main reason was the warmer currents pushed further down the coast. They had 30°C+ and the bait and mackerel pushed south with this warm water. The word from far north QLD is that there’s been plenty of mackerel this year, so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of season we get here in the southeast.

On charter of late, good snapper have been keeping us busy. This should continue over the next couple of months. I find the Shallow Tempest area and the under grounds like the 42 fathom fish consistently this time of year. Between Square Patch and Deep Tempest there’s a lot of ground in depths between 85-95m that can hold good numbers of fish. It’s possible in this area, if you get a good drift line, to drift for a couple of kilometres pulling fish right along the drift as you pass over the many lumps and drop offs in the area.

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The author with a solid amberjack that ate a pillie meant for a snapper.

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A quality snapper caught on the 35s.

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Free spooled snapper caught on the 33s.

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A bag out caught on the wider grounds.

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