29 May, 2025 Report Mal McKinlay

When it comes to fishing the Maroochy River, I divide it into three sections.

The first section is the Motorway Bridge which spans the river almost 5 kms from the river mouth and is a favourite fishing spot for many of the river’s fishos. The huge pylons and deep water under the bridge provide a safe haven for many different species of fish. These include during their respective seasons bream, flathead, mulloway, tailor, silver trevally, golden trevally, mangrove jack and if you were ever lucky enough you might even hook into a mighty barramundi. This is a great place to test your latest lures and plastics or swim a live bait which can also be sourced in this area. Over the years there have been colossal fish of all these species landed here.

The second section is from the Motorway Bridge, upstream past Bli Bli to Yandina. This reach of the river narrows as you move upstream and abounds in sandbanks, oyster banks, channels, creeks and mangroves. An ideal place to be fishing for big whiting, bream, flathead and supersized mangrove jacks that frequent the creeks that run into the main stream.

The third section is all the area of the river downstream from the Motorway Bridge and this is also the widest part of the river. If you look over to the left-hand side as you travel downstream, you will see the mangroves of the north shore. There are plenty of sand banks and undulations along this side of the river suitable for whiting. The areas that I fish soon come into view. On the right-hand side is Chambers Island which is surrounded by channels and sand banks. On the same side of the river you have the esplanade foreshore of Picnic Point, a kilometre stretch that lends itself well to land based fishos. Proceeding further down we come to the joined islands of Channel and Goat Islands. These islands act as a large natural buffer from the ocean waves that come through the mouth of the river at Cotton Tree. This whole region of the river is the home of many different species of fish. Depending on which season I am fishing, it is where I catch all my elbow slapper whiting, garfish and yellowfin bream. Because it is such a prolific configuration of channels, sandbanks and man-made structure such as pylons, jetties and pontoons, it is also home to some very big flathead. I once saw a 90cm specimen landed in a nearby boat while I was whiting fishing. 

Knowing that the end of May is pretty well the finish of summer whiting season, I decided to fish the run-out tide just after the May half-moon in the hope of bagging a couple. With the river still running very fresh from recent heavy rain I was able to get enough soldier crabs (best bait for big whiting) for a solid session. I anchored up at spot X which is a wide, low tide channel about a metre deep, between 2 bold sand banks, one of which runs completely dry at low tide. I was fishing the same spot 2 weeks ago and I had great success here. However this time I could not lose a bait. I moved about 10 metres to the other side of the channel and a little more downstream. After about 15 minutes of no activity, I was about to move, when I had a definite whiting enquiry on one of my 3 set rods. I quickly lifted the tip and immediately engaged with a big fish which I suspected was a whiting by the head shakes and strong runs. Because the water was extremely dirty and the fish was staying down so deep, it was right beside the boat before I could see that it was indeed a monster whiting, which eventually measured 42cm. In the next 45mins my mate and myself managed another 6 whiting ranging in size from 26cm to 34cm, which ended up making the trip a very successful one.

There has been a good showing already, of yellowfin bream, with a few that we have caught on our last 2 trips over the 30cm mark. Also in the mix have been a lot of legal size tarwhine which fight hard on light gear. All in all, everything is shaping up well for a bumper winter season on the river.

Good Luck on your next trip, regards Mal McKinlay.