Fishing tips: Moreton Bay in February

February is a high rainfall month, and this influences our fishing opportunities.

Crabbing and prawning

It is a month for crabs and prawns.

The banana prawns are starting to fire up locally. Good catches for the cast netters have been coming from the Caboolture and Pine Rivers in particular. The banana prawns are moving out into Bramble and Deception Bays. The life cycle of the banana prawn is short, but they pack a lot of living and travel into their short lives. They complete their life cycle in about 12 months.

It all starts in the mangroves and the muddy channels that drain into them. Without healthy mangroves, we would not have banana prawns. Banana prawns typically move into mangrove habitat at high tide from adjacent rivers or creeks. The mangroves provide them protection and food. Juvenile banana prawns eat a wide range of food including very small worms and shellfish as well as decaying mangrove leaves.

The juvenile banana prawns grow over winter, spring, and early summer and in response to rainfall and river flows, the prawns commence to move out of upstream mangrove areas in rivers and creeks and start to make their way into Moreton Bay. Rainfall is critical for the banana prawn life cycle and the timing and volume of rain not only influences this year’s crop but next year.

Mud crabs also respond positively to rainfall. When crabbing in the big tides, remember your pots need to be sufficiently heavy to ensure they are not washed away. All the creeks and rivers that drain into Bramble and Deception Bays, and Pumicestone Passage can produce mud crabs this time of year. They will also be around the foreshores themselves. Blue swimmer crabs have also been active throughout Moreton Bay. The deeper water has been producing better quality crabs.

Estuary and land based

Mixed bags can be the order of the day for those who are fishing the estuaries and land-based.

Dusky flathead have been contributing to catches in the Pine and Caboolture Rivers and Hays Inlet. Live herring have been very effective for them off the Ted Smout Memorial Bridge and the fishing platform at Hays Inlet.

Dusky flathead are a great fish to chase on lures. For soft plastics, the size you should be looking for is between three to five inches. Tailor the retrieve to your lure of choice, but a good overall retrieve is a series of twitches and pauses.

For hard bodies, any diving lure that is deep enough to get close to the bottom can be effective. One of the most reliable approaches is to target the edges of channels on the runout tide at places where the water is channelling off the sand flats. This is where dusky flathead lay in wait for unsuspecting bait fish that are leaving the flats as the tide drops.

Bream are active throughout our estuary systems and canals this time of year. While they take most baits, always have a variety on hand as the larger fish can change their preference from day to day. Strips of mullet or a well-presented fresh prawn are two reliable baits for them. Barred and spotted javelin fish will be mixed in with bream catches, particularly if you are using prawns for bait.

For those who put in time and effort, mangrove jacks are active in canals, Scarborough Boat Harbour and deepwater structure in the rivers. Live baits and hard body lures are the most reliable approaches for targeting them. This method will also produce estuary cod and trevally this time of year.

Inshore reefs and bay waters

The shallow inshore reefs around the Peninsula will have grass sweetlip, morwong, snapper, Moses Perch, bream and estuary cod. As I have said many times, fishing light is always the key to catching these fish. The edges of the rocky outcrops along the Peninsula are the places you should be targeting.

Beaches

If you are heading to Moreton Island, the northern beaches between Comboyuro Point and North Point will be best location.

February is a great month for targeting chopper tailor late afternoon and evening along this stretch of beach. I prefer to fish around the high tide and the early part of the run-out tide for them. The humble pilchard on a set of four 4/0 gang hooks is a tried and tested method for catching them. Don’t get carried away with using heavy gear to target them. I prefer 12lb monofilament line on an Alvey for them with a 20lb monofilament trace. Sinker size will be dependent on the conditions. Good beach anglers always have sinker size at the front of their minds.

Using yabbies, worms or pippies during the day along the northern beach should see you bring in swallowtail dart, sand whiting and tarwhine. The early part of the run-up tide is often the best time to fish in this location. For whiting and tarwhine, many anglers make the mistake of casting out too far. The fish are often feeding right on the edge of the shore break. The western beach from Comboyuro Point to Cowan Cowan will have flathead during the day and sand whiting will be present on the western beach. While sand whiting can be numerous along this stretch of beach, they are often not as large as other locations.

Offshore and pelagics

This is often not the best time of the year weather-wise to fish offshore, but if you can safely venture out, expect a big mix of potential reef species. Pearl perch, teraglin, venus tuskfish, various cods and Moses perch will be the mainstays, but depending on where you are fishing offshore will be more tropical species including hussar and green jobfish.

Wahoo have also been caught on the troll around Hutchinsons Shoal. Cobia and yellowtail kingfish will also be around offshore as well as in parts of Moreton Bay itself such as around the Bulwer Ledge and the shipping channel beacons. Good catches of spotted mackerel have occurred between Moreton and Bribie Islands, but exactly where depends on where the baitfish are concentrated on any given day. These fish visit Moreton Bay on their southern migration from their spawning location at Bowen and travel as far south as about Coffs Harbour. A good method to catch them is burleying with pilchard pieces and drifting with whole pilchards on 3 4/0 hooks and a short fine wire trace. School mackerel will also be caught using this method.

Tight lines everyone this February.

Daryl McPhee is an associate professor of environmental science at Bond University.