December 1, 2022
On my last report I spoke about my excitement of having success with surf worms for whiting in the Maroochy River after years of disappointment. I was still not sure whether it was not just the biggest fluke in my Maroochy fishing life, so I armed myself with some skinny worms from Kawana beach and gave them another crack just before the November new moon a week or so later. I fished the runout tide knowing I could get soldier crabs just in case the worms were not doing the job. I caught 2 keeper whiting around 27cms using soldier crabs and a few juvenile whiting with worms on the ebbtide. An hour before the bottom of the tide I parked my boat over on the north shore spit and walked across to the surf beach next to Pincushion rock or island as it sometimes becomes depending on the mood of the ocean. I took my worming gear with me and was pleasantly surprised to find the worms here were in much better condition than the ones on Kawana beach and pulled a dozen of them in quick time. When I got back to my boat the tide had turned and was well and truly in young flood. I went to one of my favourite incoming tide spots and anchored up in 2 feet of water where the current creates lots of undulations and melon holes and put out 3 lines…two baited with fresh beach worms less than an hour old and the other with soldier crabs. The left side rod went off and I started playing a big whiting back to the boat when the right-side rod twitched once or twice then it to went off as well. Damn!…You can sit there all day sometimes without a bight then suddenly you have a double hook up…on big fish. Anyhow I was fortunate enough to land both fish which went 36cms & 38cms, respectively. Over the next half hour I dropped another 2 fish at the side of the boat which were just as big. The interesting thing was that both fish I landed were on worms and the 2 that I dropped were on crabs.
On my next trip I was loaded up with beach worms convinced by now of their worth. I decided to fish the rising tide and work the sand banks in an area from Picnic Point to Cotton Tree taking in Goat and Channel Islands. The main problem with fishing the river at this time of the year is that it becomes crystal clear after a month or so of no rain. It is not so bad on the last of the runout but as soon as the tide reaches half run in you can see every grain of sand on the bottom even in the deepest parts of the river. Big whiting are very shy and spook easily, particularly with such a huge influx of human traffic from all of our holiday visitors as we are experiencing right now. I tried every sandbank and hightide gutter that I have fished over the years but by slack water on the top of the tide I had not lost a bait. I put it down to my theory that the whiting have currently dispersed far and wide through the river system and I will just have to wait until we get a good deluge, and they get flushed back down to the lower reaches once again.
For those of you who have no choice but to fish over the next 2 months of human invasion, you will struggle to put a feed upon the table unless you are prepared to fish outside of tourist hours. That is, night-time and exceedingly early mornings and of course if we are lucky enough to get a good session of severe weather. There have been reports of decent size trevally and flathead taken on lures around the Motorway bridge and there was a picture of a happy young fisho on TV with a nice queenie also taken in this area.
Here is hoping for lots of rain soon to liven things up a bit… Good Luck!
November 14, 2022
I have fished the river a couple of times in the past 2 months with poor results. The weather and wind patterns have been so bad that it has been almost impossible to plan a whiting foray. Three days after the November Full moon I decided I had to have a whiting ‘Fix’ no matter what.
Those of you who have been following my ramblings for the past few years, would know that I have mentioned trying beach worms in the river on several occasions without any success at all. Well I recently watched a couple of whiting blogs on YouTube and there were plenty of episodes where Fishos were catching good whiting in river and estuary systems on the east coast of OZ with beach worms. So I thought…Bugger it! Time to give the beach worms another go. The day before I went fishing, I drove over to Kawana beach and managed to pull a dozen or more worms. The worms used to abound here in vast numbers but since the flood rains and big seas back in February and May, they have been thinned out dramatically and are sickly, skinny looking things about 9 inches long…enough to get perhaps 2 baits off each one. To keep your worms alive just place them in cool dry sand and keep them in an esky with an ice pack and they will stay alive for 24 hours easily.
Also I noticed on YouTube many fishos were using huge running sinkers to anchor their baits down and they still caught whiting. I almost doubled the size of my sinkers from 20grams to 36grams which goes completely against the grain for me as I have always tried to fish as light as possible to allow the bait to look more natural and move around in the current. I have always used a long 4lb Fluorocarbon trace (a metre and a bit) from the swivel to the hook. So armed with my new “Gob Stopper” sinkers and beach worms I pumped a bucket of yabbies (because deep down I was sure the worms would not work) and headed down stream towards the Cotton Tree area of the river to fish the incoming tide. There are lots of bold sand banks and shallow channels in this area which are very conducive to whiting fishing as they work their way around the shallows, foraging for yabbies, soldier crabs and worms on the sandy bottom.
You must be careful in this area as the waves come right through the bar mouth and crash on to these bold banks which act as a buffer, particularly on the making tide. Although they may only be a couple of feet high they can easily flip a small tinny arse over. I caught 4 whiting around the 27cm mark at my first stop, throwing my bait right up into the broken water, caused by the small waves. Believe it or not there were 2 fishos wading around on this sand bank, both using hand lines thrown from a spool. Same as I used when I was a kid…astonishing in this day and age. I followed the tide as it covered the sand banks working the shallow gutters and melon holes that form as the tide comes in. I always anchor far away from my target fishing area so as not to spook any nearby fish. Pulling up at a spot just before top of the tide slack water, I cast my bait into a nice little gutter about 2 feet deep, hard up against an exposed sand bank. At low tide, this area would be high and dry. I was soon locked into a monster whiting that came in at 38cms and then a couple more around 30cms went into the esky. Finally I was into one of the best fish I have played all year, which put up a hell of a fight in the shallow water. It took me 10 minutes of toing and froing before I nudged a massive whiting into the landing net that went 41cms.
NOW COMES THE AMAZING PART! I caught all my fish on BEACH WORMS and BIG SINKERS…I was gob smacked! When you think you know everything…you realize that you really know nothing. I can’t wait to get back on the river again to try my newest secret weapons. Good Luck!
September 14, 2022
Following on from my last report here are a few more tips that help improve my strike rate when pursuing ‘elbow slapper’ whiting on the Maroochy River.
PREPARATION…I use the internet weather, tide and moon forecasts when planning my next outing. In particular, the Willy Weather, Maroochy River – Picnic Point, predictions have proven to be the most accurate. I like to plan my trip so I can gather yabbies or soldier crabs from the sand banks on the falling tides, fish to the bottom of the tide, then fish the first 2 hours of the run-in. Alternatively I will gather my bait the day before and keep it alive overnight to fish the run-in tide right up to the top. Willy Weather is my Bible and I have found it to be an invaluable asset to my success rate.
I always try to plan my fishing trips around the Full moon or the New moon. These are the times when the tides are biggest at high water and smallest at low water. This means that a greater volume of water is moving in and out of the river during the tidal period. Over the years I have found that the faster the water is running; the more active whiting are on the bite.
WHICH TIDE?…Incoming or out-going…which is best? When I first started fishing the Maroochy I only ever fished the incoming tide for whiting. I soon realized that there are just as many opportunities, if not more, on the outgoing. When the tide is making, the whiting come out of the deeper channels and work their way across the sand flats as the water starts to cover them, searching for yabbies and soldier crabs. Working exactly in reverse on the outgoing tide, they come off the banks, and fall back into the deeper gutters and channels waiting to ambush a tasty morsel being swept along in the current.
WHERE TO FISH?… You look for whiting in the same places you look for their bait. As you travel downstream from the motorway bridge, the river is at its widest. If you look over to the left-hand side you will see the mangroves of the north shore. There are plenty of sand banks and undulations along this side of the river suitable for whiting. The areas that I fish soon come into view. On the right-hand side is Chambers Island which is surrounded by channels and sand banks. On the same side of the river you have the esplanade foreshore of Picnic Point, a kilometre stretch that lends itself well to land based fishos. Proceeding further down we come to the joined islands of Channel and Goat Islands. These islands function as a large natural buffer from the ocean waves that come through the mouth of the river at Cotton Tree. This whole region of the river is the home of many varied species of fish depending on which season you are fishing, but it is where I catch all my elbow slapper whiting.
STOP PRESS!…They are back. Just before the September Full moon I went on my first whiting foray for this season. Because it is still so early in the season, I was pleasantly surprised to land 3 nice whiting from 28 to 35cm (see photo). I fished the out-going tide, using soldier crabs for bait. My task was made more difficult because I was fishing into a 20kms South Easterly which necessitated a stern anchor to hold me into the breeze. I had at least another half a dozen strong whiting enquiries but failed to make contact in the blustery conditions. I also landed 6 bream which I released, so it ended up quite an active session. Let the fun begin…whiting season has arrived!
September 2, 2022
I have been fishing the Maroochy for 14 years and during this period I have seen firsthand a huge improvement in the ecology systems of the river. I am not saying that I’ve seen a great advance in the numbers of fish living here but I have seen a vast recovery in the bait resources of the river. I put this down to the demise of the sugar cane farms (pesticide and fertilizer run off) which used to line the banks of the Maroochy but have now been replaced by urban developments. The yabby banks have increased three-fold in this period and the soldier crab population is abundant and flourishing. These are both a necessary and favourite food of all estuary species and most offshore juvenile species as well.
I divide my fishing time on the river into 2 seasons, summer and winter, with a crossover period for both. The past 2 years are among the best seasons I have experienced for both winter and summer species which I put down to the improving eco system of the river. The most exciting time to fish the Maroochy for me, is the summer season, when the sand whiting, also called yellowfin or summer whiting return to the river after their winter sojourn in the ocean. You will always catch the odd whiting even in the middle of winter, but I target ‘elbow slappers’ specifically, from the September Full moon right through to March or April Full moon the following year.
Okay, so I have stated ‘elbow slapper’ whiting…just what do I class as an elbow slapper? I regularly catch fish in the size range of 35cms to 40cms in the Maroochy River. When you hold a fish of this magnitude in the palm of your hand, its tail will most certainly be slapping you close to your elbow. Of course you will get smaller fish down to legal size of 23cms that are always in the mix but with the right tackle, bait and the correct approach, your chances of catching bigger fish are increased dramatically.
My rig…7ft Slim Line Graphite rods fitted with 2500 to 3000 thread line reels spooled with 6lb braid. There are many good brands of braid on the market today that will meet your requirements. I prefer the new 8 strand-weave braids that are strong with a round, smooth profile. To my 6lb braid main line, I splice in about 3 metres of 6lb fluoro carbon leader, then slide a No 3 running sinker on to the leader and attach it to a rolling swivel. Connecting about a metre of 4lb fluoro carbon trace to the swivel, I place 2 to 3cms of red tubing on it to function as a fish attractant, then finish off with a Mustad Size 4 FINEWORM BAIT HOLDER hook (black colour). In faster flowing water, increase the sinker size to suit, maintaining the bait in the whiting’s feeding zone.
My Bait…to catch big whiting you must use live bait. The number one bait for sand whiting in every estuary and river in Australia is blood worms, unfortunately they are extremely hard to come by on the Sunshine Coast without paying an arm and a leg. Mother nature has given us a bountiful supply of alternative whiting bait on the Maroochy River. Yabbies can be pumped at about any sand or mud bank that is exposed at low tide on the river(just look for their burrow holes). My favourite baits for elbow slappers on the Maroochy are small soldier crabs which can be gathered 3 hours before low tide on most of the sand banks in the lower reaches of the Maroochy particularly around Goat and Chambers Islands.
In my next report I will cover more things that help me to improve my strike rate and what sort of water to look for when targeting ‘elbow slappers’ on the Maroochy River. Good Luck!
August 8, 2022
Even though it has been a few weeks since our last heavy rain event, the river’s water is still dirty from half tide to the bottom. On my last trip during early August neap tides I fished for gar at my usual spot. Arriving right on the lowest of the tide I fished the run-up but saw little action for two hours until clean water started to push its way into the river from the ocean. Because of the neap tides the current was slow early but once the water started to clear and the tide pushed through quicker the bream and gar started to show an interest in my burley trail. I was kept busy enough with bream to 31cms (all released) and a good feed of garfish of keeper size. There was a lot of small gar among the catch, which I released. I was surprised at the condition of the bream as most were in prime condition not like the ones I had caught a couple of weeks earlier.
While I was fishing there was a large school of sea mullet lazing against the bank on the Twin Waters side of the river. People walking along the riverbank were alerting me to the fact of the school of thousands of fish, but these fish will not take a presented bait and I know from experience that as soon as you try to throw a cast net over them they are gone in a flash. As the clean water filled the river schools of trevally were working the bait fish all over the place. One fisho who was trolling up and down the channel hooked onto one of them and took quite a while to work it back to his boat. There were half a dozen boats anchored and fishing at various parts of the river nearby, which was quite unusual for mid-week, as I usually have the river to myself. For the next few weeks there should still be sufficient activity on bream, gar, tailor, and trevally. I noticed some big flathead lays the other day on the sandbank under the bridge where I ride my bike…so I reckon they are on the move also. Another thing I saw whilst paddling my surf ski in the Mooloolah River recently was a shower of good-sized prawns as they were trying to escape a predator in the shallows (food for thought)?
By the end of August the winter species will be finishing their seasonal run and we move into the crossover from winter to summer. September can be a frustrating period to fish the river but the main thing for me is, it is time for those beautiful big sand or summer whiting to make their return from their winter vacation. Last year I had early success on whiting, landing nice fish around the September Full moon but in previous years I did not have much luck until well into October. It will depend on a couple of factors such as moon phases, weather events and water clarity as to how the month pans out. In my next report I will cover rigs, baits, and places in the river where you might expect to latch onto an elbow slapper whiting or two.
July 20, 2022
Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the water the weather gods have decided to give us another drenching. It seems that we only get a week or two of perfect sunny winter days when another La Nina rain event comes marching down the coast. Apparently La Nina occurs when the warmer water floating in the top layer of the Pacific Ocean along the Equator is pushed towards the Australian coast by prevailing winds and meets with the underlying colder water coming up the East Coast of Australia from the Great Southern Ocean. The resultant rising warm moist air forms lots of clouds and hence, lots of rain. So there you have it…I might apply for a job reporting the weather with Livio Regano on channel 7.
My last trip was on the July Full moon, and I came home without a fish, all by my choice though. I was targeting a feed of gar in perfect conditions with incoming tide, very clear water and a calm sunny morning, but did not attract one to the boat. You do have these days when you do not contact your target species. I did however land ten bream from just under legal size to a couple of good fish around the 34cm mark on the gar float (all released). Bream are absolute suckers for a good burley stream and will swim right up to the back of your boat looking for a snack. Every fish I caught was hooked in the bony corner of their mouth and easy to release. I choose to release most of my bream simply because they are “not my kettle of fish.” It was quite noticeable that the bream have lost their prime condition because they have already spawned and were quite skinny in comparison to a month ago. They are still around in good numbers however and are great fun on light tackle. Places to fish for bream are in the main channel out the front of Goat Island from the bar mouth up to Maroochy north shore. The main channel from Cotton Tree up past the high rises also has lots of structure in the way of jetties and pontoons which are suitable places for bream to congregate. The motorway bridge pylons are very accessible from the Bradman Avenue boat ramp and are home to bream, mulloway, trevally, and big tailor. For best results use live bait such as yabbies, soldier crabs, herring, or hardy heads. Fresh flesh baits such as herring slabs or gar and mullet fillets will work fairly good as well. For land based fishos looking for somewhere to wet a line for a bream or flathead, there are a couple of jetties at Cotton Tree or nice deep water down past the caravan park which you can access from the swimming pool car park. There are nice sandy beaches also accessible from Picnic Point Esplanade and Chambers Island which lend themselves well to land based fishos especially if you want to keep the kids occupied (just do a Google).
I spoke briefly to the Luderick man at the boat ramp, and he said that black bream had been slow in the river this year and he was hoping that they were going to pick up soon. Flathead should start to improve on the bite next month on lures and live baits provided the La Nina gives us a break in the weather. We still have another 6 weeks of winter species before we start to see a gradual decline and winter gives way to my favourite summer species…sand whiting. Anyhow, remember…the worst day on the water is better than the best day at work…always! Till next time…Good Luck!
June 22, 2022
Finally the rain has finished, the river has cleared and settled into a perfect winter pattern. After more rain than we have never seen in living memory, all winter species in the river are fat, ferocious and fired up.
The quantity and quality of bream in the Maroochy must be experienced to be believed. I have had several trips over the past few weeks, and I have been astounded by the condition of the bream from juveniles right up to fish in the 30cm range. I do not target bream specifically, but they have been coming in thick and fast on my burley trail whilst targeting garfish. Bream are a slow growing fish. A legal fish at 25cm is about 3 years old, a 30cm fish about 5 years old and a 40cm bream about 15 to 18 years old. I have landed quite a few fish in the 30cm plus range, makes me feel a bit guilty when I do decide to take a few for a feed. I had a chat with ‘Old Mate’ who caught one recently at 41cm weighing 1.2kg. Bream this size are mostly caught from Gold Coast waters south to New South Wales in colder water. This is a huge bream for the Maroochy River.
This winter has been my best season also on garfish. I have caught many over 35cm in length and they also have been in prime condition. I would not say they have been biting their heads off, but in a 2-hour session I have been catching enough of these feisty mini marlins for a substantial feed. They are best fished on the run-in tide and a burley bucket over the side is necessary if you want to hold them to the back of your boat. Of course the bream love burley as well so you can expect to have a lot of fun with them on exceptionally light tackle. I use the commercial burley from the tackle shops. Experiment till you find the right brand as some of these products are better than others. You can catch garfish and bream using this method anywhere in the river, but I prefer fast running, clean water where the tide is pushing over a bank into a deeper channel. There are plenty of places like this on the river away from high traffic areas. If you are looking to take the kids fishing over the coming school holidays you will have a greater chance of success using this method. For more info on tackle and rigs on this style of fishing just check out some of my previous reports.
When I pulled up to pump some yabbies on my last trip a shower of prawns leapt from the water in the shallows. They were half grown, with still about 6 to 8 weeks or so to maturity, so keep that in the back of your mind for end of August early September. I noticed also on my last trip, the 2 fishos back to their usual luderick spot fishing with floats. They are there every winter, I can only imagine that they are also have a wow of time on black bream. During my paddles on my ocean ski I have seen tailor being caught from Point Cartwright by fishos using lures, mostly silver slugs and quality bream being caught off the boulder walls of the Mooloolah River.
The Motorway bridge by all reports has been producing the usual school Jew, big mulloway and oversize tailor of a night-time on live baits. Tailor fishos should find a bit of action down at the river mouth on dusk to nightfall on the run-in tide. Overall, the Maroochy River is at its absolute best for fishing right now…so get to it.
May 16, 2022
As I write this report it looks as if we are headed for another week of heavy rain. The river just seems to settle down when we get hit by another severe weather event. However there is still plenty of fishing action to be had. I have had a few trips on the river in the last few of weeks on Gar with particularly good results each time. They are in good numbers with some of them measuring 35cms from beak to tail fork. Mixed in with the gar have been some nice bream in the 25cm to 28cm range. This augers well for the winter bream season which usually sees fish from the 30cm mark upwards start to arrive in June.
If you like a feed of fresh fish fillets straight out of the river I cannot speak highly enough of the humble garfish that abound in the river from now to September. For those of you who have not tried fishing for gar, they are a lot of fun on light tackle and can keep the kids (and the big kids) entertained for hours. The best rig I have found to use is a luderick style float with adjustable leader for hook and sinker. The gar sometimes vary the depth they are feeding at, so you must be able to adjust your bait to suit. Absolutely critical for gar fishing is to have a burley bucket over the side full of your homemade or commercial burley to attract them up to your boat. The burley trail nearly always attracts other species such as bream and tarwhine which can add to a nice mixed bag on the day.
A Mustad Blood Worm Long Shank No 10 is a perfect size hook, baited with a small piece of prawn, squid, or yabby. The trick is to drift your float away from the back of the boat on the current in the burley stream. Your float should be perfectly balanced so that as soon as a fish starts to swim off with the bait in its mouth the float slowly sinks under the surface. This is the signal to lift your rod tip, set the hook and enjoy the battle as the gar tries every trick in the book to throw the hook. My friends all enjoy one of my gar fish cook ups, and on a recent trip I caught enough fish in 2 hours to comfortably feed 18 people. There is a fisheries limit of 50 per person with no restriction on size. However, they are finnicky little buggars to clean so I always release the small ones and only take enough of the good ones for a feed.
The Picnic Point boat ramp is currently a nightmare when launching your boat. A new high rise block of units is being built right next to the ramp and the already tight turn around area has been reduced to a narrow shambles by the builders compound which encroaches half way across the road. A good ramp to avoid for the next 2 years. Speaking of boat ramps…this is a place where you certainly see strange things happen. The Picnic Point ramp is very steep compared to all others on the Maroochy River. On my last trip an old codger was launching his boat and he didn’t have the tethering rope held securely. The boat flew off the trailer, hit the water and proceeded to head out to midstream at a fair rate of knots…unmanned. He looked at it in disbelief for a minute or so then took off his shirt, swam out to it, grabbed the rope and side kicked the boat 60 meters back to the beach. Of course! we all know who the silly old codger was don’t we? So what to expect if you are going to venture out on the Maroochy in the next few weeks. Already the signs are good for quality bream. There have been some nice flathead caught on lures and I have noticed schools of pelagics working in different parts of the river. Also there are lots of baby prawns flicking out of the water in the sandy shallows. They should be ready for a cast net at winter’s end. Until next time, good luck!
March 29, 2022
After the catastrophic rain depression that haunted us in the third week of February when I recorded over 1000mls in my rain gauge, I was keen to see how the Maroochy River system has bounced back.
In the middle of the March half-moon tides I headed out for a session with my mate Magoo and the Whiting Queen. We were hopeful of catching some whiting, but I told him to also have a rod set up for Gar fish. I knew that it was perhaps 4 weeks early for Gar, as I had never caught them before the April Full moon previously. We pumped enough yabbies to keep us occupied until the soldier crabs came out then went looking for whiting action. Although it was more than 3 weeks since the deluge the river was still running out with a lot of colour (like very weak tea). I was confident that there would be no Gar because as a rule they prefer exceptionally clean water to subsist in. After 15 minutes I had landed only a very juvenile bream when an enquiry on a rod got me all excited. Could this be my first whiting for 2 months?
You can imagine my surprise when a big fat Gar fish started leaping out of the water and jumping all over the place (like a mini marlin) trying to throw my hook. I was only fishing very shallow (less than a metre) but immediately dropped a burley bucket over the side. I wound the other whiting line in and whacked a piece of yabby on my Gar rod and drifted it back on the outgoing tide. The float only glided 3 metres before it slowly descended beneath the surface. I lifted the rod tip and another mini marlin started performing trying to throw the hook. “Hey Magoo,” I yelled out to my mate anchored 20 metres away in deeper water(see photo), “ get your burley bucket over, I reckon there are a few Gar here.”
In a couple of hours we had 70 good, quality eating Gar and no one was more surprised than me. They stayed on the bite right down to the last half hour of the tide. This was a rarity as they are usually much more active on the incoming tide. Also they usually do not like dirty water and are much more active in clean water. By the end of the session the Whiting Queen had added another title to her resume…the Gar Queen. When we cleaned the catch back at the ramp they were absolutely full of burley from Magoo’s bucket. This is the earliest start I have had to the Gar season; the good news is that they will be here till the end of August.
The channels and sandbanks in the river have been rearranged quite noticeably by the force of the receding flood waters. There are many new trees and snags that have been deposited at different points throughout the estuary providing some unexpected habitat for this winter’s annual winter run of yellowfin bream in a couple of months. I bumped into ‘Old Mate’ who told me he had experienced some particularly good whiting forays during the deluge with catches of up to 20 big whiting at various times. On this particular trip however he had not caught one fish. He said that for quite a few days during the flood the force of the water was so strong that the out-going tide lasted 10 hours and the incoming tide only ran in for 2 hours.
We now move into the crossover over species in the river from summer to winter and you may find it slim pickings until we start to get a taste of cooler weather. As the river clears more (provided it ever stops raining) there should be some big hungry Flathead cruising the river waiting for a bait or lure. The whiting are about to leave for their annual vacation from the river but their great substitute (on the plate anyway) Garfish are already here in good numbers and size. I will cover rigs for gar in my next report. Till next time, good luck!
January 18, 2022
There has been a lot happen on the Maroochy catchment area since my last report in early December. In the last week in December the upper reaches of the river received more than a years supply of rain in 48 hours. With the surrounding land already saturated from 3 weeks of consistent lead in rain periods this massive deluge ran straight off the land into the river. Although the Maroochy and Noosa rivers avoided any major flooding the Mary river system just north of us copped the lot with disastrous effect to life and property.
The real benefit to those of us who fish the Maroochy was that the river received a huge flush out. There was so much fresh for 2 weeks that all those elbow slapper whiting who are normally scattered far and wide throughout its waters were forced down stream for a couple of weeks just to survive. The other good thing was that the weather was so unsettled that most of the holiday makers in the Maroochy area stayed indoors. This led to some absolute peak whiting fishing in the middle of the holidays, for those game enough to brave the elements.
One of the problems with fishing the river during this period was that there was so much flotsam and jetsam mixed in with the whiting. There were whole trees and cow pastures floating by at times all mixed in with the swirling mud eddies. It is impossible to distinguish where the channels and sand banks begin in these conditions. At one stage I ran aground when I thought I was in mid channel. You have to move around a fair bit to find a place that is not so affected by all these elements. With a bit of luck you eventually find a school of elbow slappers. It is their usual habit to hang in a school and you rarely find juvenile whiting in the mix. My mate Magoo, his wife The Whiting Queen (see photo) and myself fished consecutive days around the half moon neap tides with good catches up to 10 fish each session. All fish were in the Mid 30cms to 42cm size range (see photo of my pair @ 42cms). Our main bait used was small soldier crabs, however I spoke to Old Mate (he fishes the river all the time) and he had similar results to us over this period but some days he did better using yabbies. I also caught and released several quality bream to 32cms and a couple of dusky flathead to 65cm. On one particular day Magoo caught as many Grunter bream (released) as whiting, all on soldier crabs.
For those of you who were lucky enough to share in this bountiful catch you can now sit back and wait for the next deluge because the elbow slappers are already thinning out as they head back upstream with the water returning to its normal colour.
With the school holidays drawing to a close and the influx of tourists about to leave it will be great just to have some sanity prevail upon the river. The jet ski situation on the river is fast approaching ridiculous and it is only a matter of time before someone is involved in a fatal accident because these speed machines are totally out of control. I spoke at length to one of the young water and marine safety officers the other day while he was checking my safety gear and he said that since covid began, jet skis now outnumber new boat regos by 7 to 1 in Qld. The worst thing that he told me was there is no maximum speed limit controlling them. It is time for Qld Transport and the Water Police to completely overhaul the existing speed limits and operating zones of these testosterone out of control water missiles. There are still 2 months left for you to catch an elbow slapper or two before they head off for winter…so get out there and get into them.
