Sunfish Fraser Coast

Shore Fishing

Ocean Beaches - Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island

Year round expect to catch Dart, Flathead, Bream, Tarwhine, and Whiting, for bait use Pipis and beach worms gathered locally and prawns and squid Shark, Mulloway and giant Snub Nosed Dart are occasionally landed on pilchards and fish baits. In the winter Taylor migrate up the coast and are fished for using Pilchards, strip baits and lures.

Kids Collecting Yabbies

Sheltered Beaches

Hervey Bay Western Fraser Island and Inskip Point

Winter whiting in the winter months and sand whiting in the summer. Year round Bream and flathead are usually present and the occasional schools of garfish. Look for large trevally rooting for yabbies at low tide.Bait yabbys, prawns, squid and mud and beach worms.

Piers

The Urangan Pier is an all tide fishery, whiting, Flathead, garfish are caught inshore in the shallows at half to full tide. The deep water fishing is the big attraction using herring caught with a jig as live bait. In the spring and summer pelagic s are the target with three mackerel species School, Spotted and Spanish, Long tail Tuna, Mackerel Tuna , Queenfish and Golden Trevally all being caught a flying gaff is needed to lift them up to the deck.

Scarness and Torquay Pier, is fished between half and full tide for whiting, flathead and bream with the occasional pelagic making an appearance.

Rocky Foreshores

River Heads and Point Vernon

Best fished with lures to avoid snags, a floating bait may be used if the tide allows. The most likely fish caught are reef fish, Blackall, Trevally bream and the odd pelagic is landed in the summer. Beware of “Happy Moments” they have a painful sting.

Boat Fishing

Visitors are advised to purchase from a local tackle shop a manual called Lets Go Fishing, Top Spots and GPS Marks” which covers the area from 1770 to Sunshine Coast.

Inshore

Whiting is the most popular fishery in the winter look for a concentration of boats, some fish on the drift others anchor up. Yabbies are the preferred bait however prawns, squid and worms work well. Grassy Sweetlip may be caught over seagrass beds and the odd flounder and flathead over sand.

Outwide and Deep Water

In spring and summer look for reef fish such as coral bream, red emperor, coral trout, Scarlet Sea Perch and Venus Tusk fish golden Trevally and mackerel are more plentiful. Tuna schools and bonito usually appear in November.

In the Autumn The quality of fish usually improves especially of those caught in the deeper gutters and reefs, March / April sees the arrival of snapper in the deeper water the gutters, artificial reef and the 70 fathom hole usually pay off, the odd Snapper can be caught on shallower reefs.

Estuaries

Quite a variety of fish are caught in these waters including Threadfin Salmon, Javelin Fish, Bream, Whiting Flathead, Mangrove Jack and Queenfish. Mulloway and Barramundi are present but in lesser numbers, an increase in population of these two species is not likely to increase as long as net fishing of estuaries continues.Access for a shore based angler is limited as most estuaries are lined with mangroves and most of the surrounding land is private property

Fresh Water Fishing

Fresh water impoundments in the region are stocked with Australian bass and Barramundi. Callop (yellow belly) are stocked in some but not all. Shore fishing is limited due to limited access. Regulations may limit motor sizes and type. Most fishing is done with lures.

Fishing Locations for Pleasure

It might be cliché but the Fraser Coast really is a fishing paradise that houses almost every fish and fishing experience that anglers dream of. But just don’t take our word for it.

SUNFISH, the peak state body representing recreational fishers describes Fraser Island as the “holy grail” of beach fishing, while the Fraser Island flats have been well documented by Australia's leading saltwater fly fishers as being the best the country has to offer.

It doesn’t stop there. Sunfish also rates the Fraser Coast region as offering some of the best sport fishing, sheltered beach fishing and some of the most magnificent and practically untouched deep-sea fishing in Australia, and possibly the world.

The 800m long Urangan Pier gives shore-based anglers the opportunity to fish deeper waters for whiting, bream, Flathead, reef fish and pelagics including Giant Trevally, Tuna and Mackerel.

The rock wall at the Urangan Harbour and the groynes and other piers at Hervey Bay, as well as just off the beach - are also popular with local and visiting anglers.

The inshore reefs around Big Woody Island and the Roy Rufus Artificial Reef – one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere - are easily accessible from Urangan Harbour. It is here you will find a large variety of reef fish and pelagics.

Maryborough, Tiaro and the townships of Maaroom, Boonooroo/Tuan, Poona and Tinnanbar in the Sandy Strait provide good boat launching facilities as well as access for the land based angler to drop a line.

Local tackle stores offer friendly advice on where and how to fish and have free information guides on all the fishing and boating regulations as well as maps with the new zone restrictions. Make sure you know the rules before you go fishing.

Ask local fishing identity George Duck and he will tell you the region has a species of fish and a choice of fishing to suit almost every angler - be it whiting along the many beaches, creeks and rivers to red emperor on the offshore reefs, or marlin and sailfish for the big game enthusiasts around the top of Fraser Island.

Fishing is an obsession with George Duck, who is the President of the Boat Club, Rear Commodore of the Power Boat Squadron, Captain of the Fishing Club and a member of the Sunrise Rotary Club. He has also spent the past nine years compiling the “Let`s Go Fishing” newspaper, which appears as a supplement in the Fraser Coast Chronicle every Friday.

LOVES…the climate, fishing, boating, waterways, Fraser Island, the Boat Club and the people.
Fraser Coast in five words…The perfect place to live.
Second best secret fishing spot …The cod hole (north of Round Island)

FISHING FACTS

The protection of world heritage Fraser Island from prevailing winds for most of the year creates some of the world’s most ideal fishing conditions.

The interface in Fraser Coast between warm northern and cooler southern ocean currents offers twice as many target species as are commonly found in other areas.

Hervey Bay's seagrass beds (the second largest on the east coast of Australia) act as a nursery for many larger species as well as supporting a massive resource of bait fish, juvenile prawns and other crustaceans which attract numerous schools of various pelagic as well as demersal species.

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