TIPS AND BEST SPOTS FRIDAY FISHING:

LIGHT winds and calm seas late last week had blue water fishermen smiling as they headed to sea to fish the reef, islands and wrecks, chasing bottom and pelagic species.

Reef fishing continued to fire with excellent numbers of large mouth nannygai, gold band snapper, spangled emperor and red emperor on the small rocks and rubble in the open paddocks of Grafton Passage and Trinity Opening.

Coral trout were also on the bite with some nice fish caught fishing the bommies of Oyster and Batt reefs north of Cairns. Spanish mackerel have also been regularly caught while bottom fishing the bommies on floated pilchards and live baits with the reefs off Port Douglas really firing.

Further north off the Ribbon Reefs, schools of yellowfin tuna have been caught on trolled lures and cast stick baits while tackle continues to be donated to huge dog-tooth tuna hooked on the deep dropoffs. Spanish mackerel have been thick on the inner reefs.

To the south, the headlands have been alive with queenfish around the bait schools and entertaining light tackle anglers with spectacular strikes and aerobatics when hooked on surface lures.

The headlands off Tully and

The Family Group Islands have continued to see excellent numbers of quality fingermark caught on live sardines and fresh squid, along with some big grunter. Gould Island and Cape Richards have also been firing on fingermark and grunter off Cardwell. The C RED HOT: Calm conditions and plenty of large mouth nannygai greeted anglers on board with Cairns Reef Fishing late last week.