Southern Moreton Bay improving

THE water that came out of the Logan River certainly was dirty and it’s taken a while for it to tidy up around southern Moreton Bay.

It’s still pretty dirty at the bottom of the tides but reasonably clean water can be found around the southern Moreton Bay islands at the top of the tide. I’ve been looking for nice clean water, which I’ve been able to find around Peel and Goat islands. In these areas I’ve mainly been targeting bait schools by trolling hard-bodies to see if we can get the odd mackerel or tailor. So far all the mackerel have been undersize, or if they were legal, the sharks made short work of them.

A few reasonable-sized tailor from 50-55cm have been mixed in too. If you decide to try this sort of fishing, the first thing you will need to do is find good bait schools. The next is to use hard-body lures. I’ve been finding the 89mm Zerek Tango Shads and Ripper Divers have been working well. Our successful trolling speed has been about four knots. Be prepared to catch a lot of grinners between the quality fish. To prevent bite-offs, I find a 3-6kg rod with 15-20lb braid and 20lb leader with a bit of wire on a metal clip suffices.

We have also been scraping up a feed by working the rubble grounds around the southern Moreton Bay islands, mainly on mid to high tides in cleaner water. The water is still pretty dirty on the bottom of the tide. I’ve mainly used plastics to chase bay island squire/snapper, bream, grassy sweetlip and tailor.