The weather gods were smiling on us last week and we headed offshore for five trips. The early mornings are a great time of day to be out on the water, especially when you see amazing sunrises like this one.

We had a combination of half and three quarter day trips, which gave us a chance to check out all our local inshore reefs. We were hoping to find where the snapper were holding. There’s not great numbers of them around in this colder weather but we found a few. Most were caught on the Caloundra Nine Mile and Currimundi Reefs and a few were from Murphy’s Reef and the Gneerings.

Pearl perch, our other winter target, were active on the Caloundra 12 Mile, providing some lucky punters with a delicious feed. We also found them in big numbers on Murphy’s Reef but most were under the legal size of 35cm. The biggest fish we reeled in on the weekend was a 4kg amberjack.

The most common species was pearl perch, closely followed by spotted mackerel. The mackerel were caught on live yakka and dead pillies, drifted down with no weight as well as a paternoster rig off the bottom using half a pilchard as bait.It was great to be catching them this late in the season. They won’t be here much longer as they head north for winter.

We also caught some really nice moses perch, quite a few over one kilo, which is big for this sought-after table fish.

The weather is pretty temperamental at the moment but we’re hoping we can get out for a few trips this weekend and catch some great eating fish.

Give us a call if you want to come out with us for some offshore fishing.

Happy Hunting!