How to catch snapper, whiting and more in Moreton Bay

It’s October and the warm weather is starting to roll around. October 13 is “Gone Fishing Day”, a national day for wetting a line, so get out there and have a go. It’s a great opportunity to take the whole family fishing or to head out with a group of mates.

Inshore reefs and bay waters

Snapper have been very good of late on the local inshore reefs with quite a few very good fish caught. Mixed in with them have been grass sweetlip and some really solid barred javelin fish to 60cm. They have a minimum legal size of 40cm so don’t mix them up with the spotted javelin fish (also called silver javelin fish) which tend to be smaller and have a minimum legal size of 30cm. The free Qld Fishing 2.0 app can help you differentiate these two species and a host of others that anglers commonly confuse.

The reef ledges on the western side of Moreton Island will yield snapper and grass sweetlip as well as estuary cod and black spotted tuskfish. The latter are commonly called “blue parrot” locally but are not a true parrot fish, which have a fused jaw that resemble a parrot’s beak. They are fantastic eating and pull like a submarine. Specialist anglers tend to catch them using very heavy gear and crab for bait.

What hasn’t been giving a lot of anglers joy is the large number of grinners that have been jumping on all manner of baits and lures. Your only real option, when you encounter them in big numbers is to move location.

Estuary and land based

Both sand whiting and yellowfin (gold lined) whiting will be abundant during October. Probably the best locations to chase them this month are the beaches on Bribie Island from Skirmish Point to Red Beach. Early morning tends to be the best time to catch them there. The locally dug rock worm is a great bait to use for them there. These whiting will also be widely spread around the shallow foreshores of Deception and Bramble Bays, Margate Beach, Pine River, Hays Inlet and from the Ted Smout Bridge. Boat anglers will also find them in the Caboolture River, Bribie Passage, Pine River and Hays Inlet.

There has been confusion locally about the bag limit for whiting, which is 30 for sand whiting and yellowfin whiting combined. The limit for diver (winter) whiting is a separate limit of 50 fish. It is an “in possession” limit as it is for all species in Queensland. A possession limit is the total number of fish that one person can legally take and keep at any single time – it is not a daily limit. This includes any fish that you have at home in the freezer. So, for sand and yellowfin whiting, if there is more than one person fishing in a boat, then more than 30 fish can be retained but never more than 30 fish per person.

Plenty of good-sized yellowfin bream and a few tarwhine have been around the foreshores, although their condition tends to be poor this time of year after they have completed their spawning season. Dusky flathead have commenced their spawning period and will be moving around and aggregating around surf bars. Expect more juvenile mulloway this month than you have seen in previous years as it looks like it has been a good recruitment period of small fish. Make sure you put in extra effort to release them safely as they do not handle capture stress compared to other species.

Pelagic Fish

Mac tuna and long tail tuna are around chasing baitfish in the northern part of Moreton Bay. It’s always a simple equation with these fish most days, find the bait and you will find the fish. Be prepared to travel around to find them.

Surf Beaches

This isn’t my favourite month to fish surf beaches, but those who try on Moreton Island when conditions are right may find a few tailor. Sand whiting and dusky flathead are a more of a reliable target this month in the surf. Look for very shallow gutters and fish in very close as this is where the fish will generally be.

If you are heading to Moreton Island, it is best to target your efforts this month along the semi surf beaches between Combuyoro Point to North Point, the southern part of the island around Reeders Point, and the western beaches.

Sand whiting should be your number one target species closely followed by dusky flathead. Look for dusky flathead during the day and sand whiting in the late afternoon and early evening. Although it can depend on conditions, the early part of the flood in tide tend to be the best for sand whiting as the fish move up into the intertidal area with the tide. Dusky flathead can often be the best on ebb tide and look for places that bait fish are moving off the flat as the tide drops.

Offshore

Our usual offshore rocky reef fish have been in good abundance including snapper, pearl perch, Venus tuskfish and teraglin.

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