Rock walls

LIVE baits of herring, garfish and mullet have certainly been the key to catching quality off the rocks at the moment.

Expect to come across fingermark, jacks, queenfish and trevally.

If live bait is hard to come by, pilchards or strip baits fished with little or no weight will also be effective.

Surface lures, spoons and vibes are still providing decent action on queenfish, mackerel, trevally and tarpon at Shute Harbour.

Early morning and late afternoon into the evening will be the best times to target these fish.

Prawn baits fished on heavy hand lines are accounting for some very good tuskfish around the rocks and headlands.

Rivers

CRABBING and fishing were a little slow and tough over the weekend with the large tides.

Coming away from that full moon and a bit of rain should see the creeks and rivers start to fish well.

Targeting drains and gutters with soft plastics will be a great place to start searching for salmon and grunter.

These fish will be chasing prawns which should have been stirred up by the recent rain.

Vibes and live baits fished through channels or deeper holes are a chance of producing salmon and better quality grunter.

Islands

BIG tides and dirty water made for challenging fishing conditions over the weekend.

It looks like better weather coming up, hopefully it hangs around for the weekend.

Clean water was the key to finding some line burning pelagic action.

Spotted mackerel, long and mack tuna are feeding on small baitfish around the bays and headlands.

Small metal lures and soft plastics cast into the feeding schools of fish and retrieved rapidly should produce the goods.

Tucking in out of the main current flow and fishing the fringing reefs in that 8-10m of water has been the best way of securing a feed of coral trout, sweetlip and tuskfish on pillie and prawn baits.

Ryan Fuller, Whitsunday Fishing World

Dingo Beach/ Hydeaway Bay

THE shallower reefs have been producing the most fish over the past week.

Reasonable numbers of coral trout, sweetlip and school mackerel have been coming in but fish up in the trophy sized bracket have been scarce.

Most fish have been around the just under or just over legal size for their respective species.

This is unusual for this time of the year, especially leading up to the full moon.

Out a little wider, around the outside edges of the islands, the water hasn't cleaned up much and bait is scarce.

This makes the pelagic fishing a little difficult.

The water should clear up over the next few days with moderate winds forecast and the tides beginning to neap which will see the pelagic fishing improve.

Up in the creeks there is plenty of bait around and reports are coming in of some nice jacks and grunter being caught.

There are some nice mud crabs being caught at the moment as well.

But those people who are getting the best catches are working their pots to secure a feed.

Mick Underwood, Reel Addiction Sport Fishing