This month winter fishing will be at its peak, with many species spawning throughout the bay. Snapper and bream have ferocious appetites when breeding and respond well to baits and lures alike.

Winter whiting are still being caught in good numbers south of Round Island and from Torquay to Point Vernon. The artificial reef is producing snapper, coral trout and sweetlip, while a few squid are being caught along Big Woody.

The snapper have congregated around 80-120m and by drifting the ledge you will be in with a good chance of catching one. This area also produces all kinds of cod species, coral trout, green jobfish, scarlets and spangled emperor.

Black marlin are still a worthwhile option outside and although wahoo and yellowfin tuna are hard to find at times, they will nail every lure if they are around.

If you plan to fish outside make sure you seek local knowledge or even better, follow someone who has crossed the bar before.

Blackall, coral bream and estuary cod have been providing a dependable feed, especially either side of the tide change. There have been plenty of cod taking live pike along the ledges south of Moon Point but there are a lot of undersize fish amongst them so stock up on livebait if you plan to target them.

There has been an influx of small bronze whaler sharks between the two Woody Islands of late, mainly around 4-6ft.

While chasing a few ‘noahs’ recently, I witnessed an apex predator of another kind move in for first dibbs on a shark bait. We had caught a couple of bronzies and after a quiet period, we replaced a bait which had just had its tail bitten off. The 3-4kg mack tuna bait had no sooner been redeployed under a float when the float bounced a couple of times then settled. After fifteen minutes or so we checked the bait to find the biggest ‘couta I have ever seen inside the bay. While barracouta are considered vermin by many anglers, it is amazing to see the size of predators that still inhabit our estuaries.