OFFSHORE: Well, we had one day of good weather this week before the rain saturated, strong to gale force (25 to 35 knot) variable easterlies swept down on us and shut the coastal beaches and river mouth bars with a resounding clang.

Conditions were quite calm ahead of the big blow, though, and those offshore anglers who got out before the storm cell hit did quite well on the local reefs. Local angler Kevin Telfar (below) did at overnighter at Caloundra Twelve Mile on Monday night and popped into Davo's on Tuesday morning with four 4kg snapper and the 7kg coral trout he's pictured with. He was armed with a Shimano Catana rod and a Shimano TLD20 reel loaded with 30lb line. He was using pilchards for bait.
Closer to home, Massoud's Reef produced squire, moses perch and sweetlip while at North Reef the standouts were sweetlip and, as per the photo below, gold spot wrasse, pearl perch and squire.

Ralph and Alan Palmer from Cooroy (above) did well at North Reef on Tuesday, getting in just ahead of the bad weather. These keen young anglers used squid and pilchard baits to bring home an excellent bag of reefies for the family table.


ONSHORE: As it was with the offshore scene, the coastal surf beaches were a no go zone for most of the week. Having said that, there were a few chopper tailor taken from the surf gutters around the Wilderness camp ground on the North Shore before the going got too tough. Other than that, quality whiting were biting in the waters between the rock groynes on Main Beach and in the shelter of Granite Bay out around the Noosa National Park headland.

Things weren't much better in the river with the heavy rain and strong winds forcing most anglers to stay at home. As the week progressed the fresh from the deluge started to impact and most of the action (or what there was of it ) became concentrated in the lower reaches. Bream were the higher profile species in the system with best results coming from the stretch from Munna Beach to the river mouth. Trevally were also active down at the river mouth and in the Woods Bays over the weekend with soft plastics and surface poppers getting best results.