OFFSHORE: Wind direction was harder to pick than a broken nose this week so I guess the most appropriate description would be 'variable'. Wind strength? It was a bit gusty on Friday and Saturday but otherwise mostly light to moderate.
With the swell down around the 1m mark there were plenty of reasons for the blue water boys to head out to the local reefs. The bar crossing was pretty flat so it was all systems go with a few of the bigger boats venturing as far as Double Island Point where red emperor (to 15kg), hussar, and pearl perch to 5kg were on the chew.
Closer to home, Chardon's Reef produced snapper, squire, pearl perch and moses perch, as did North Reef but with the added bonus of sweetlip, teraglin jewfish, parrot fish and, as you can see by the photos above and below, cobia and northern bluefin tuna. Jock Walker (above right) was out there on a Cougar One charter yesterday when his 7" Cajun Chicken soft plastic bait was slammed by the 16kg cobia he's pictured with. On the left in the photo, helping to hold his catch, is erstwhile deckie 'Chuck' Norris who, as you can see in the photo, is absolutely over the moon about Jock's fish.
On the same charter, and using a 7" black/purple Cajun Chicken soft plastic as his draw card, Steven Barnes from Beaudesert (above) hooked and landed a 9kg 'Longtail'. He was using a Daiwa Heartland combo loaded with 20lb braid.
Last but not least, Gary Ward from Cardwell (above) celebrated his 29th birthday with a trip to North Reef on the same Cougar One charter and hit the jackpot when he boated the standout 8kg snapper using the same type of soft plastic. The only other reports of note were of squire and snapper taken on floated baits and jigged soft plastics on Jew Shoal.

ONSHORE: The coastal surf beaches, although a bit chilly at times, were quite productive with the surf gutters about 6km's north of Teewah producing small bream and whiting plus chopper tailor to 1.5kg. The better quality bream were found to be on the bite up around Freshwater during the day with a couple of fish reported around 1.7kg and 2kg. Across the bay, Hells Gates on the National Park headland yielded squire and tailor on pilchard baits while further south, Marcus Beach was the spot for dart, bream and tailor in the morning, plus down around Marcus Creek; the odd squire.

In the river, flathead, tailor and trevally were on the bite from Tewantin to the river mouth with some quality fish taken all along that stretch. Luderick were still active at the river mouth car park rocks (on Coolum weed) but were not in numbers.

The Woods Bays was the only other producer of note with tailor chasing prawn soft plastics and trolled hard body lures around the boats in the inner bay. Gary Trim (above) got a nice surprise there on Thursday morning when his trolled Rapala Extreme lure was monstered by the 3kg Greenback he's pictured with.