Once again the weather has been windy keeping most anglers off the brine. The Christmas break was harsh with the water having a colour closer to the Mary River on many days. But the weather has got to break some time, so here’s a few options for when it does.

The Burrum is still producing good numbers of grunter, salmon and jacks. There have been flathead and summer whiting taking yabbies and there are still a few prawns and muddies on the move. The Mary/Susan system has had similar results, River Heads has fished well for mackerel, flathead and bream and up the rivers there have been plenty of threadfin salmon, jacks, soapie jew and cod.

All of the usual suspects have been caught off the pier lately, including tuna, mackerel, trevally, flathead, whiting, garfish, and more. It is amazing the diversity of life that inhabits the Urangan pier. There have also been good numbers of squid caught at night. A live squid fished on the edges of the light is deadly on most predators and this method has accounted for a few queenies and barra over the years.

There is still plenty of activity on the surface around the Arch Cliffs and Wathumba area with good numbers of Spanish and school mackerel taking slow trolled and cast lures. There have been good numbers of bonito feeding in the same area explaining the concentration of Spanish mackerel.

Amongst all of this a couple of yellowtail kings around the 3kg mark have beaten the mackerel to the lure, which is surprising for this time of year. Mack tuna have been as abundant as ever and longtail tuna numbers are improving and should fish well for the next couple of months.

There haven’t been too many reports of black marlin inside mainly due to the weather. Although I did have a little fish around the 15kg mark in the shallows at Rooneys Point a few weeks back. It was feeding in 1m of water, it turned to our spread, lit up and swam straight for the short corner lure. Just as things looked good the little billy lost interest and swam out to deeper water. That’s marlin fishing!

But the next few months will be prime for billfish in the bay between Coongal Creek and Rooneys Point.