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OFFSHORE: It was a little bit cooler on the water this week with light to moderate east south easterlies lowering the temperature by a couple of degrees. It wasn't ideal by any means though, as the winds tended to be blowing early, and more often than not quickly up around the 15 knot mark, so there were definitely no TGO's to brag about.

Still, conditions were good enough for the odd trip out wide and those who went the distance reported moses perch, pearl perch, venus tusk fish, snapper and amberjack on the bite at the Barwon Banks. John Martinali from Mooloolaba (above) was on a full day Cougar One charter to 'The Banks' on Thursday when his pilchard/squid combo bait attracted the attention of the 17kg 'A.J' he's pictured with. And on the same charter, Perth lad Jack Lewsey (below) celebrated his birthday by boating a very handsome looking 4kg snapper, tempting this quality 'Knobby with a 7" soft plastic.

The middle reef belt worked well with North Reef producing cobia, sweetlip, teraglin jewfish, moses perch, venus tusk fish, squire and striped perch while at Chardon's Reef the standouts were (as you can see by the photo below) mahi-mahi. Tom Walmsley and Greg Foster, on holiday in Noosa from the UK, were out at Chardon's on Thursday morning trolling shallow diving lures and pilchards on squid skirts when they boated these 7.2kg and 8kg dolphin fish.

Sunshine Reef ran hot and cold but on the good days some quality Spanish mackerel were on the bite out wide and along the southern end of the reef. Tuna were also schooling out there but were pretty flighty. If you were keen to go bottom bashing, coral trout were worth targeting as Chi Sullivan (below left) found on Wednesday. Chi tempted his 3.4kg 'Trout' with a pilchard/squid bait on an 80lb handline and later at Jew Shoal boated the 4.7kg snapper he's pictured with.

ONSHORE: The North Shore coastal beach stretch had plenty of human activity s holiday makers continued to savour the great summer conditions and while there were plenty of anglers wetting a line the most prolific catch was whiting which were in good numbers all the way along Teewah Beach. Over on the east side, whiting, bream, tarwhine and dart were on the bite at Sunrise, Castaways and North Peregian beaches.

Whiting were also a high profile species in the estuary with particularly good results coming from down at the river mouth and, as per the photo above, in the Frying Pan. Father and son team Peter and Riley Thomson had an absolute ball there on Thursday morning. Casting small (35mm and 45m), clear River2Sea Bubble Poppers they boated well over a dozen quality whiting with the majority being around or very close to the 500gm mark. They were armed with 1-3kg Nitro rods and Shimano Twin Power 1000 reels loaded with 3lb braid.
The stretch from the Noosa Marina to Munna Beach saw most of the flathead action this week with soft plastics and trolled hard body deep diving lures working best. Apart from that, trevally were on the prowl at night near the T-Boat jetties while Weyba Creek (near Weyba Hole) was the spot for jewfish and mangrove jacks. Live prawns got best results there.

On the freshwater scene, small bass were schooling in numbers throughout Lake MacDonald with schools of 40 to 50 fish not unusual. Standouts were in the 42cm bracket and best results were had with black/silver Berkley MF40 Soft Vibe lures. Saratoga were also quite active as local angler Jordan Bycroft found on Saturday. Using fluro green spinner blades Jordan and his mate Josh caught and released three 'Toga' in the 70cm to 80cm (estimated) range.