The Whitsundays is an awesome fishing location will see great fishing in March. This month traditionally sees good catches of offshore and inshore pelagics, reef and river species, making it a great time to fish inshore, offshore and off the shore.

In the inshore waters, big pelagics as queenfish and GTs will be roaming the abundant rocky headlands and deep channels. Targeting these fish topwater-style with large Halco Rooster poppers and Bill’s Bug fizzers can create good results and very noisy ratchets.

Windy days? Not a problem. Most of the Whitsunday islands have a protected side where you can avoid the wind and continue fishing – just be sure to check the GBRMPA maps for fishing zones.

There are also some very productive rivers where you can target hard fighting fish such as fingermark and mangrove jack. Great places to search for these fish are areas influenced by sufficient water flow. Snag-lined banks, rock bars and shallow sandy shores are hot hangouts for these feisty fish during March.

Using soft plastics weightless or jighead-rigged is one great method of catching these two species, and lots of them! 3” and 4” plastics such as the Berkley Mullet are proven fish takers. Swim them with erratic twitches for best results. It can help if you visualise the lure moving through the water.

Offshore in the Whitsundays is definitely a fun place to be with a rod. Deep and shallow water reefs are hot spots for targeting hot fish during March. Coral trout, grassy and red-throat sweetlip in particular are suckers for a well presented, lightly-weighted Snapback jerkbait fished tight around shallow rocky reefs and retrieved slowly with pauses. Small topwater lures such as the River2Sea Bubble Pop can tempt these fish throughout the day and supply anglers with loads of fun.

Other offshore targets during March include spotted, sharky and Spanish mackerel. An easily mastered technique to hook these hefty fish is shallow and deepwater jigging. Jigs such as the chrome Raider or white bucktail jig are very reliable when fished with an erratic motion. Use the depth sounder and look for areas such as shoals, rubble bottoms and ledges and also artificial structures such as navigation pylons, buoys and wharves. This is where the big fish will be.

All up, the diverse range of fishing in the Whitsundays is as diverse as the techniques anglers can apply to target specific species.

Now go fishing.

[Caption]

1) Now is a great time to go mangrove jack fishing in the rivers.