Wild winds and heavy rain put the mockers on Easter boating activities and changed what’s biting in the estuaries.
The big news is the sand and mud crabs have been very active after last week’s heavy rains.
Pick of the areas has been around Redbill Island at the mouth of the Logan River and in the river around the mouth of Serpentine and Native Dog creeks.
There have also been good sandies on Aggeston Sandbank in the Logan and along the western side of Russell Island down to the power lines.
The rain turned off what few prawns were being caught in the rivers, however we should find the number of prawns schooling up around the southern bay islands improve after this rain.
Summer whiting numbers are decreasing with bream now making up a large percentage of the catch.
Unfortunately this “in between season” period can be a difficult time to find any quality fish.
Best chance for a few legal size bream is to work the deep water on the bright moon nights and look for snaggy shallow structure on the dark nights.
The better quality fish are coming from close to bar entrances at night using mullet flesh or gut bait.
There have been a few spotty mackerel around the beacons in the northern bay and down the eastern side of Bribie around to South Point, but they are outnumbered by anglers chasing them.
Cobia have turned up in good numbers around the Curtin Artificial and Cowan with live baits accounting for some big line burning specimens.
As the water temperature drops in Moreton Bay the squid numbers are increasing.
They are small at present, but it’s looking good for a bumper winter season; Brian Harvey caught a few dozen down the eastern side of Peel Island during the week and there have been reports of small squid around the lights of boats anchored in Horseshoe Bay.
In the surf there has been good dart and bream in the gutters along North and South Stradbroke, with the area either side of the Pin bar the most productive.
The better quality tailor are out wide; look for a break in the outer sand bank and use the low tide to get your bait out past the breakers.

PHOTO - Vic Mahr with a Logan River school jew caught at Pitt Rocks - they are on the bite now.