OFFSHORE: Wow! We had it all this week. Heavy rain periods, big seas, strong to gale force winds and an offshore swell peaking around 5m over the weekend.

All this put paid to any thoughts of hitting the offshore reefs unless you were either crazy or really, really desperate for a feed of fish.
The offshore brigade either put their feet up or grabbed their surf boards and made the most of the wild surfing conditions.

Prior to the bad weather settling in, the local reefs had been really firing with Sunshine Reef, in particular, producing coral trout and Spanish mackerel in almost record numbers.

Kent Deer and his son Jaidyn (below) got out there just before the weather turned and were more than satisfied with the 4kg 'Trout' they came back with.

And the cover photo on the right? That's 'Billybob' Watson gracing the cover of the latest issue of the Queensland Fishing Monthly.

While the fish wasn't a recent capture it is typical of the size we get at this time of the year.

If the weather forecast can be relied on we hope to see a few of these bigger Spaniards on next week's report or at least some time in the next five or six weeks.
ONSHORE: The coastal surf beaches were a complete waste of time this week unless got out just ahead of the building shore dump. Even then there wasn't much to report apart from bream, dart and the odd chopper tailor at Sunshine Beach.

The river continued to fire well with trevally and tailor leading the charge. The best spot for both these feisty sports fish was the Woods Bays where school jewfish were also making a splash. James Crothers and Toby Back (below) caught and released a number of 'Trevs' there last Monday using soft plastics as their draw card.

Trevally (to 1kg) were also in numbers in the Munna Bridge area earlier in the week while bream were well spread from the river mouth to Tewantin with many being just legal size. Apart from that, Weyba Creek produced the odd flathead and a few small mud crabs and whiting (not that many) were responding well to live yabbies at the Munna Beach caravan park.

Twenty hardy anglers braved the wet and blustery conditions at Lake MacDonald during the latest Bass Electric qualifier on Sunday to bring in a total of 16 legal bass. Shane Anderson from Bundaberg (below left) took out top spot with a bag of two bass weighing in at 2.175 kg along with the ‘big bass’ of 1.171kg. Targeting an area near the ‘Runway’ where he pre-fished, Shane used his G-Loomis 783CBR with a Shimano Chronarch spooled with 15lb Platil braid and 14lb Vanish leader to cast a Jackal up into the weeds to land 8 legal fish for the session. Shane's winning bag pushed up and coming young angler Callum Munro (directly above and below right) into second place.