Photos: Spero Kartanos.
BY SPERO KARTANOS
What a washout January was with cyclone Seth sticking around longer and longer than we really wanted! I wrote this last year (well, we have had everything from downpours measuring over 300mm at Manly, and we had 73-knot-plus winds, Covid spreading all over the world; all we need now is the locusts – but I shouldn’t joke, I saw a news bulletin where they actually had them down south) so it seems this year nothing has changed.
I really hope February goes back to normal with spotty mackerel coming into the bay, along with whitebait, blue bait in the thousands, whiting and squid in abundance, and snapper taking our bait with a great scream of the reel. Jokes aside, it’s a good month for all the tasty morsels that are in Moreton Bay.
Find whiting on the Chain Banks all the way through to the Rous and the Sand Hills at Moreton Island, and plenty of tiger squid in the same areas. School mackerel will be around Hope Banks and Peel Island to Amity Banks, Rainbow Channel and the western side of Moreton. The spotty mackerel will be smashing schools of bait on the surface.
Crabbing will be at its peak with plenty of sand crabs and mud crabs with all this run off from the rivers and creeks, and of course prawns will be in abundance for those who can throw a cast net (that leaves me out, but hopefully some friends drop off a kilo or two).
Use a few squid jigs in the red and orange colours for the squid, throw a few chrome slugs at the spotty mackerel, try paternoster rigs for the whiting, and diving boards and spoons for the schoolies. For snapper, use a few running rigs with 5.0 red hooks, and a butterfly net for the whitebait, and you should be able to put a feed on the table.
Until next month, good fishing!
