THIS weekend is looking pretty good for those chasing some Christmas fish and mud crabs.

With weather forecast is for 10-15 knots and the only thing not in our favour is the upcoming full moon.

ISLANDS

With the bigger tides, focus most efforts around the fringing reefs and shallower water around the eight to 10 metre mark, looking for back eddies and slack water.

Try using local prawns and crabs for blues and pilchard baits for trout and sweetlip. Casting surface lures, shallow divers and plastics over the tops of shallow reefs is great fun on the run-in tide as the fish push up looking for a feed.

Pelagic fish are still abundant around the islands. Trolling, jigging and live baits are still producing good mackerel at spots like Double Cones, Nara Inlet, Mackerel Bay and Dolphin Point. Cobia have been a welcome surprise for those chasing the pelagic.

Tuna have been about in good numbers. Matching the hatch is the way to go using metal slugs around 10-25g and plastics producing the goods. Longtail tuna are great eating and should be bled and iced down straight away, while mac tuna are excellent bait for reef fish and the frames work well in crab pots.

SHUTE HARBOUR JETTY

Land-based fishing from the Shute Harbour Jetty in the early morning has been yielding queenfish, GTs and mackerel, using metal spoons and minnow style lures.

If the herring are about use live herring under a float or cast with small sinker, which will do the trick.

At night there are some very large sharks lurking. These can be a lot of fun but heavy tackle is required.

ROCKWALLS

The rock walls could be a little tough, with the fresh water running in, so a little tip is to use local prawns on a small sinker as the fish will be feeding in the shallow waters during the run in tides.

Try places like the Sailing Club and Whisper Bay rock wall for grunter, mangrove jack, fingermark, queenfish and GTs.

PETER FAUST DAM

The dam should be the hot spot for this week with the full moon. Trolling the main basin has been very rewarding using the Poltergeist or Doctor Evil rattling deep diving lures. Also try soft plastics, stickbaits along the weed beds in the main basin, as this has also been producing some very nice fish over the past week early morning and at night time.

Bob Spees and Ryan Fuller, Whitsunday Fishing World

REEF

Great conditions last week prior to the wet weather arriving had some good fishing at the reef. The tides building towards the new moon increased the activity on the surface, with plenty of GTs, mackerels and tuna caught. The good reef fishing continued, with trout and red throat emperor making up the bulk of the catches. Reports of numbers of sailfish in the area also so for the sportfisher its worth having a try for these magnificent fish

Ashley Matthews, Sea Fever Sportffishing