You’ve got to love this time of the year. Cool, clear days and light winds make June a great time to head out for a fish.

The water quality has been perfect thanks to the lack of rain and on my last trip out I caught a great flathead. But the best thing was that the water was so clear I saw my 4” green softy twitching along, the strike and the entire fight. Now that’s fishing!

I picked up that one and a few smaller lizards along South Straddie in about 2ft of water at the first of the run-out tide casting into the shallows and bringing the lure across a sizeable drop-off. I released the 70cm+ fish quickly after a few photos and a great fight on 6lb line.

With the weather so good a lot of anglers have been heading to the Bar and through it as well chasing some quality greenback tailor to 3kg, small mackerel, tuna, dolphinfish, cobia, a few snapper and sweetlip.

Inside we’ve had some good quality school jew to 5kg and a couple of monsters weighing 13kg and 22kg from Kalinga Bank, the Bar, near the Powerlines and in the Logan River near Marks Rocks. Live poddy mullet, herring and tailor fillets are working well.

Tailor are around in small schools of large greenbacks throughout the Jumpinpin bar area. They are hitting metal slugs to 80g, pilchards and I even got a nice 1kg specimen on a 5” pilchard coloured soft plastic. There are also some great catches of tailor coming from the beaches of North and South Straddie with the odd dart and bream being caught as well.

Flathead are just everywhere lately taking baits and lures. Drifting has been the best method of snaring a couple, which gives you the option of a relaxing drift with bait or a full on session of lure action. Either way it’s pretty hard not to catch one at the moment – which is great news for us lizard hunters.

Small bream and whiting are always easy to catch but as you know the estuaries of the ‘Pin provide food and shelter where they can grow into keepers. So do the right thing and only take what you need so that these species can grow to adult breeding size and help to keep their stock levels up.

Thanks for all your reports and fish that have been weighed in. if you need any advice or just need to hear what’s biting drop us a line at Gem Bait & Tackle on (07) 3287 3868 or email --e-mail address hidden-- .