It’s a top time of year to head out for a fish. The weather is great with cool calm conditions and the fishing is just going from strength to strength.

There have been plenty of tailor around the ‘Pin Bar with the best results coming early in the morning, at dusk and at night near the top of the tide. Flicking metal slugs that are 20-85g into the schools of tailor has been working best when you can see them boiling; trolling will help if you need to locate the schools.

If you know that there are tailor in the area and you’re getting hits on pillies, try small gar as a lot of the larger tailor that have been weighed were caught on gar. There have also been some quality trevally and the odd Australian salmon amongst the tailor.

Some small mackerel and longtail tuna are still being caught and we had a 16kg jew weighed in from out of the Seaway along the beachside of South Straddie. There have been tailor, large sea bream, dart and a couple of trevally in the surf off South Straddie across from the Bedrooms.

The colder weather has brought on the bigger bream, mainly at night if you don’t mind braving the icy conditions. The best results have been on smaller tides when the current isn’t running too strongly and you can fish as light as possible. Chook gut, mullet fillets and guts, yabbies, prawns and bonito flesh have been the pick baits to land a larger specimen. The best spots at the moment are from the oyster leases near the mouth of the Pimpama River, Never Fail Islands, south of Russell Island and Kalinga Bank.

Drifting over the drop-offs and deeper holes with small pillies, froggies and whitebait has been the best way to land a flatty or two from Kalinga Bank, Cobby Passage, Long Island and in the Logan River near Redbill Island. Anglers have been telling me that these fish were taken from a variety of depths between 2-30ft, so try anything from flicking and twitching soft plastics in the shallows to jigging or bait fishing the deeper holes to score yourselves a feed. It’s important to remember that the bag limit for flathead is five each, as you can quite easily catch heaps in one session.

Because most people have been concentrating mainly on the bream season, the whiting fishing has been fairly quiet. Those who have been targeting whiting are reporting heaps of little winter whiting stealing baits and generally being pests. The best results on larger sand whiting have come from the Logan River mouth near Redland Bay Channel, Cabbage Tree Point and Squire Island.

Thanks for all you reports and if you’d like any advice or up-to-date fishing information drop us a line at Gem Bait & Tackle on (07) 3287 3868 or email --e-mail address hidden-- I’ll catch you next month.

Quality trevally can still be caught around the ‘Pin Bar. James Paine proudly displays his 2.05kg specimen.

There are lots of flathead around at the moment. Dianne Matthews caught this 1.41kg fish in the Logan River

Rob Watts with the 16kg jew he caught at The Spit.