The Burnett Bounces Back – By Dave Magner

I’ve been fishing the Fraser Coast / Wide Bay region for around 20 years now, and during that time I’ve seen a lot of changes. Some fisheries, such as our stocked impoundments, have improved out of sight. Some others however, have gone noticeably backwards. Then, there is even a very small number of places that have declined so badly that they are hardly worth fishing any more.

Fortunately, a waterway can go through a bit of a rough patch and still bounce back. Take the tidal section of the Burnett River for example. The twenty odd kilometers of water between the barrage and the entrance at Burnett Heads has certainly endured its challenges in my time. If I’m being totally honest, it has probably had more downs than ups over the last couple of decades. At last however, it seems like the good old Burnett is back somewhere near its very best and that’s great news for locals and the hordes of visiting anglers who flock to our region each dry season.

While you don’t hear of too many jewies getting caught in the Burnett. It does happen for some lucky anglers.

Looking Back

Just over a decade or so ago, the Burnett river was in particularly sad state. The layers of silt on the bottom of the river had built up over a number of very dry years and it wasn’t even unusual to find used personal products floating along in the current. For a while there, the river just below the town reach even had a very unpleasant odour when the tide was coming in (locals will know what I’m talking about). Anyway, you get the picture, the river was an uninspiring place to wet a line.

Sadly, the fishing results were just as depressing. I spent many hours on the water for what you would have to say were very minimal returns. I always thought it quite ironic that I could go to somewhere as heavily populated and highly developed as the Gold Coast and catch a heap more bream there than I could catch at home. It just never seemed to make any sense.

Over the years, a lot of cod we have trolled in the river have been smaller fish like this one. Currently, the average size seems to be quite a bit larger.

Now, that’s not to say that there were no fish in the river back then, as there certainly were. They definitely required a bit of skill to catch however, so those who specialized in live baiting and fished the prime times were still able to catch some respectable fish. On the other hand, casual anglers, or lure only anglers like myself generally found it was tough going anywhere upstream of Strathdees.

Things changed in a big way back in 2011, when we got the first major floods in a number of years. The poor old river barely got a chance to settle down before it was hit again with an even larger flood event in 2013. The 2013 event was so catastrophic that it changed the layout and the ecology of the system completely. The floodwaters sunk boats and carried all sorts of debris (and most likely all sorts of unknown chemicals) into the river. The water itself was chocolate brown for months and it basically put an end to the fishing for the foreseeable future.

Even well after the flooding subsided, the river had clearly been impacted. While a lot of the mud from the river bottom had been washed out to sea, so had a lot of the important building blocks in the food chain. The banks which had previously been covered in crabs and mudskippers were stripped bare. With no small grazers about, algae built up and covered all the hard surfaces. Even the mud itself became green and extra slippery. It seemed like things had gotten even worse than they were before.

Over the years, all sorts of unusual species have fallen for trolled lures. This golden snapper was a more than welcome surprise.

Slowly however, nature began to heal itself. The waters started to clear and the small foragers returned. With the flush out, baitfish began returning to the river and the yabbies and soldier crabs started to recolonize the sand and mud banks. Things had finally started looking up and while it was clearly going to take a few years, it seemed like there was some bright light at the end of the tunnel for long suffering local anglers.

The Burnett is Back

All of that leads us to how the river is fishing currently and I’ve got to say it’s probably fishing as well as I can ever remember. We recently spent a bit of time revisiting our old tactics of trolling the rock walls and found the fish there in good numbers and in better sizes than we have ever landed. We caught cod, flathead, school mackerel and a heap of other odds and sods on our small, deep diving hard-bodied lures.

I’d almost forgotten how much fun it is to drag a couple of lures along in tight against the rockwalls. It’s real “stop ‘em or pop ‘em” fishing, as the strikes are brutal and it’s up to you to drag the fish out of their lairs before they brick you. You’ve also got to make sure you control the boat in all that chaos, so you don’t end up bouncing off the rocks. There’s never a dull moment when fishing like this.

There are currently some very nice lizards on offer in the Burnett. Fish of this size have been turning up in the town reach at times.

This approach can also provide a nice feed of tasty fillets if that’s your goal. In some sections, it was possible to troll back over the same stretch of water three or four times and hook more fish with each pass, so I didn’t feel too bad about keeping a couple of cod for dinner. Considering the time of year was a bit cold for jacks or barra to be serious targets, it all bodes well for when things do start to warm back up again.

It’s clearly not just me that’s been enjoying the better times either. If you check out the socials, you’ll find there’s been a bit of footage uploaded recently that’s showcasing some pretty exciting fishing. The size and number of flatties getting caught upstream has become a real feature and you’ll see quite a few guys getting blown away while fishing around the deeper structure. Considering how quiet it was for such a long while, things are currently very positive indeed.

There are kilometres and kilometres of rockwalls in the Burnett. They make great places to run a few lures.

Looking Forwards

While it’s nice to be able to report that the fishing has actually improved in what is a pretty heavily fished location, I’d have to be overly optimistic if I expected it to stay that way. After all, the fishing has always fluctuated depending on the prevailing seasons and conditions. While the fishing is currently pretty damn good the darkest cloud on the horizon is that the Burnett doesn’t have the same restrictions on commercial fishing that other nearby waterways have. I may be wrong, but with commercial fishing being seriously curtailed in Hervey Bay in the last month, rivers like the Burnett and the Kolan to our north may be just about the only places left in the region for the pros to operate in. If that is the case, then I guess we can only expect to see them focusing more and more on the Burnett.

If that does happen, it would be a real pity. Realistically, the river has only just gotten back on its feet and with the recent population boom, there is a lot more fishing pressure on it than there was 20 years ago and I’m not sure how it will cope. I guess all we can do is enjoy the great fishing on offer now and hope it lasts as long as possible. I’ve got young grandkids I want to introduce to fishing the Burnett and would be amazing if they get to experience the fantastic fishing that it can turn on without having to wait for the good times to roll around again sometime in the future.

Estuary cod are a mainstay for trollers in the Burnett. While not as glamorous as jacks, they provide good sport and great fillets.