Carlo Point
Summary for 29 Oct 2026
Bite Compass is showing a medium fish activity bite score on 29 Oct 2026. Wind is around SE at 18 km/h. Solunar feeding windows are listed below.
Feeding Windows
Local Knowledge
Carlo Point is Rainbow Beach's back door onto Tin Can Inlet: a small boat harbour and ramp cut into the shore, with sand flats and weed beds spreading out in front. Where the beach side of town is all surf and coloured sand, this side is calm water, mangroves and wading flats. Flathead and whiting work the flats, bream and trevally hang around the harbour mouth, and the holiday park next door supplies a steady stream of hopeful kids. It is the place to fish when the surf beach is blown out.
Fish the harbour entrance and the edges of the flats on the run-out, when bait drains off the weed beds into the channel. Hop soft plastics along the drop-off for flathead, and fish yabbies or worms on a running sinker in the gutters for whiting on the rising tide. Bream take baits fished along the rock edges of the harbour. A yabby pump on the flats sorts out the bait.
Dusky flathead are 40–75 cm (5) and sand whiting 23 cm (combined possession 30). Yellowfin bream are 25 cm (combined 30), and trumpeter (winter) whiting have no size limit and a possession limit of 50. Trevally have no size limit but a combined possession of 20. Mud crabs are 15 cm (7), and female mud crabs are no take.
The harbour and the water just off it sit outside the Great Sandy Marine Park zones, but the Great Sandy Strait conservation park (yellow) zone starts on the flats about 150 m out — fish to its limit of max 2 rods or handlines and 2 hooks in total per person and no more than 4 crab pots or dillies. Searys Creek, south of Carlo Point, is a green zone with no fishing at all. Crab pots need a tag with your surname and address and a marked light-coloured float.
Access & Conditions
Carlo Point is at the end of Carlo Road, a couple of minutes' drive from the Rainbow Beach shops. There is parking at the boat ramp and a holiday park beside the harbour. The flats are reached by walking off the beach at low tide.
Tin Can Inlet is sheltered from the ocean, so Carlo Point fishes when the surf beach doesn't. The inlet's tides are smaller than Hervey Bay's but drain the flats a long way on a spring low. North-westerlies blow across the inlet onto this shore; south-easterlies are offshore and calm it.
Wading means stingrays, soft mud and sharp shell — shuffle your feet and wear footwear. Don't get cut off on the flats by the rising tide. Watch for boats and trailers around the ramp and harbour mouth.
Gear & Rigs
A light 2–3 kg spin rod, 2500 reel and 6–8 lb line, with running sinker rigs and size 4–6 long-shank hooks for whiting. Soft plastics on 1/8 oz heads for flathead. A yabby pump, wading boots and a bait bucket.
Seasons
Whiting are best through the warmer months and flathead from late winter into spring. Winter whiting and bream peak from about April to September. Mud crabs are best through the warm, wet months.
If This Spot's Blown Out
Frequently Asked
Flathead, sand and winter whiting, bream, golden trevally and mud crabs on the Tin Can Inlet flats and around the harbour mouth.
The harbour is just outside the Great Sandy Marine Park zones; the flats in front of it are a conservation park (yellow) zone, with max 2 rods or handlines and 2 hooks in total per person.
The run-out for flathead at the harbour mouth, and the run-in for whiting on the flats.