16 May, 2025 Report Mal McKinlay

The Maroochy River is centrally located on the Sunshine Coast, one of Australia’s premier holiday destinations. It meanders from its northern headwaters in the Blackall Ranges south through hinterlands, agriculture and urban subdivisions where it swings in a west to east direction meeting the ocean at Maroochydore. Most of the eastern Australia estuary species of fish are established in its waters.

I have been fishing the Maroochy in my tinny for 17 years and during this period I have seen firsthand a huge improvement in the ecology systems of the river. I’m not saying that I’ve seen a great advance in the numbers of fish living here but I have seen a vast recovery in the bait resources of the river. I put this down to the demise of the sugar cane farms (pesticide and fertilizer run off) which used to line the banks of the Maroochy but have now been replaced by urban developments. The yabby banks have increased three-fold in this period and the soldier crab population is abundant and flourishing. These are both a necessary and favourite food of all estuary species and most offshore juvenile species as well.

I divide my fishing time on the river into 2 seasons, summer and winter, with a crossover period for both. The most exciting time for me to fish the Maroochy is the summer season, when the  sand whiting, also called yellowfin or summer whiting return to the river after their winter sojourn in the ocean. You will always catch the odd whiting even in the middle of winter, but I target ‘elbow slappers’ specifically, from the September Full moon right through to the May Full moon the following year.

I regularly catch ‘elbow slapper’ whiting in the size range of 35cms to 40cms in the Maroochy River. When you hold a fish of this magnitude in the palm of your hand, its tail will most certainly be slapping you close to your elbow. Of course you will get smaller fish down to legal size of 23cms that are always in the mix but with the right tackle, bait and the correct approach, your chances of catching bigger fish are increased dramatically.

My baits of choice for whiting are soldier crabs, yabbies and beach worms. Beach worms are hard to come by unless you can catch them yourself, but yabbies and soldier crabs are readily available at low tide throughout the river system. For me soldier crabs are the stand-alone bait for big whiting. There is a real knack to fishing with them but once you understand how a whiting interacts with a presented soldier crab bait, how your rod tip reacts etc. you will enjoy a style of fishing equal to no other. I will cover in more detail in my future reports how I go about fishing for big whiting.

For the past 6 months the Maroochy catchment areas have been inundated by more than 2 metres of rain. I have not seen the river run so continuously fresh for so long. This has led to dramatic changes in the feeding habits of all fish species in the river with most species migrating to the lower reaches just to survive the putrid brown water carried from upstream. Of course this is an advantage if you know where to look for your targeted species and sometimes it is just pure arse when you stumble across a school of congregating fish. I have enclosed a photo of some big whiting I was lucky enough to come across just before the recent May Full moon. The summer run on whiting is close to being finished and from now on I will be targeting garfish and yellowfin bream as we move into the winter months of June, July etc. I will cover all bait and tackle that I use for this style of fishing in my next report.

Good luck with your next fishing adventure, regards Mal McKinlay.